Challenge: Hewlett-Packard wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to meet the growing needs of many customers for virtual technology training. It had to quickly launch a program that would build effective, remotely delivered courses with experiential learning built in while changing as little as possible in existing ILT courseware.

Solution: HP took a traditional rapid deployment process and applied it to an e-learning implementation. It incorporated the use of remote training delivery tools with virtual classrooms and virtual laboratories to create an environment where people could learn, while leveraging its expertise in e-learning and avoiding the need to "reinvent the wheel."

Like many IT manufacturers, HP places a heavy focus on training. It operates separate organizations to provide training throughout the world for employees, partners and customers. The three entities share such back-end activities as development, training rooms, tools, systems, and instructors. HP’s customer training organization, called HP Education Services, reaches a worldwide audience of 200,000 students each year via 80 education centers, 200 partner locations, and on-site training.

And like many global companies, HP agrees that the clear route to enhanced training with lower costs is through remote training delivery. But it’s one thing to employ online learning for developmental types of training. IT professionals prefer a hands-on experience, as well as interaction with their instructors when it comes to honing skills on new hardware and software—even as they seek relief from the demands of travel.

The solution was to provide a vibrant, interactive, and hands-on learning experience within a virtual environment, and to do it throughout the worldwide organization.

Naturally, virtual classroom training is nothing new at HP. The company’s expertise includes providing synchronous learning via an array of collaborative technologies and other learning tools. To its virtual classrooms, HP added virtual laboratories that employ equipment placed in central locations and made available for that purpose along with a cadre of seasoned instructors. The emphasis is on maximizing hands-on practice for customers of its new products. Through the use of virtual labs, equipment is made available to both virtual and face-to-face classrooms, reducing equipment costs and expanding the catalog geographically.

The new initiative means that HP customers in Singapore, for example, no longer need to travel to Hong Kong to take a class that requires specific equipment, says David Robins, global knowledge manager for HP Education. "Now, we are able to expand the number of locations to offer a full set of 650 classes," he says.

The virtual delivery program was introduced in North America with a pilot that made a single live training course available in a virtual environment that blended the virtual classroom and lab. Through the use of the HP Adaptive Enterprise model, the initiative was expanded within two years to more than 40 percent of the North American catalog.

The challenge was to develop and drive a process to move both content and instructors into a virtual world, says Philip Rang, education consultant within HP Education Services. Rang, working as an architect on the rapid deployment effort, says a major component of the new delivery system was the addition of communities of practice where instructors could assist each other through the use of collaboration tools, traditional train-the-trainer approaches, and virtual mentoring to meet their objectives. "They brought together subject matter experts, developers, and project managers to enhance the deliverables and the methods of deployment. Instructor development plans were formalized, converting many former nay-sayers into project champions."

"In the past, for on-site technical training, if an office wanted a course, we might have had to ship hardware, at minimum cost of $5,000, depending on the configuration," says Robins. "Now, we can go to the same space, bring in an instructor and course materials, and access the equipment virtually." The company uses both contract instructors and full-time HP employees to teach the synchronous virtual classroom and lab courses, depending on the region. It employs a flexible array of learning tools, including Flash and other solutions that enable the instructor to interact with students as they work on actual equipment. "Instructors can look over your shoulder as you do an exercise, and offer a hand if you need it," says Robins.

The instructors could be located anywhere, even in their own homes, says Rang. He says the capability to interact with the instructor and collaborate with other students is important to customers and a major part of the program’s success. Indeed, he adds, the priorities of the new delivery methodology were: to quickly meet the needs of customers, create an "enticing" environment, respond to changes in the training market and growing challenges of travel, while minimally altering internal practices.

The success of the transformation is told in the numbers: Over 45 million people minutes per month of internal use of the virtual classroom, and 200,000 students each year. Also employed are HP’s 80 education centers worldwide, 200 partner locations, as well as customer locations.

Published: June 2005