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Providing online training for business aviation professionals globally.
Providing online training for business aviation professionals globally.
Author: Scott Macpherson
At TrainingPort.net, we do many Training Needs Assessments for our clients. Almost all of them reveal that operators are committing to too much training, too frequently—and they don’t know why. Training topics and their frequencies should be tied to operators’ real risks and regulatory environment.
A common practice is to have a section of the Operations Manual training chapter that refers to training topics (e.g., CFIT Avoidance), defines syllabus items, and commits to the topic frequency.
It is also common practice to create a matrix that summarizes the list of topics, states whether they are required initially and/or on a recurrent basis, and specifies how much time must be spent on each one. Matrices are not required (despite what many operators think), but they are convenient.
There are a number of ‘gotchas’ inherent in these common practices that I will highlight here.
There is almost always a conflict between the frequency stated in the manual text and that in the matrix. For the same topic, one may say “annual” and the other “every 2 years”. If a matrix is desirable, we often suggest removing the frequency from the text section, leaving that for a general description or syllabus. Alternatively, one may remove the matrix and use only the text section.
The use of prescriptive language (especially regarding frequencies) in conjunction with a prescribed syllabus leaves the operator no flexibility to respond to risk-related need. In general, although we clearly believe in appropriate and effective training, we recommend mentioning a frequency only where it is prescribed by a regulation or standard.
To allow needs-based adjustments to be made without having to amend your manual, use flexible language. For example:
Over-promising, usually in a well-intended effort to go “above and beyond” minimum requirements, can lead to an impracticable training regime. Committing to topics which are not required anywhere, or even by your risk profile, means that you will have to source the training, either internally (perhaps exceeding in-house expertise and available time) or externally (if the training is even available).
Committing to train too frequently for a given topic means that you will likely take the same lessons several times, possibly with decreasing value, before you can find revised training on that topic.
Training too frequently and/or spending more time on a topic than is appropriate for the syllabus or your trainees’ experience level creates a negative training effect*. Previously, we provided a large data set showing that there is no topic-specific efficacy to training annually, and that training biennially and triennially in a topic produced slightly better results with each decrease in frequency (click here for the article).
Avoid spending too much time on a topic. Remove training time prescriptions unless they are found in the regulations or standards (typically, these only relate to aircraft type training).
Once a requirement is written into the operations manual, it is psychologically very difficult to change. The belief that there must be a very good reason for what is written is powerful – for operators, auditors, and regulators – even in the face of strong evidence to the contrary.
We face this frequently when reviewing training needs with new and renewing clients. So, training programs tend to grow in the number of topics and trainees’ exposure to them. Removing topics is rare, decreasing their frequency only slightly less so. Regulators leave requirements and practices in place long past the point where they cease to be useful because they don’t want to be accused of requiring too little, and also because they don’t have the personnel to identify and recommend changes. It takes much more effort to overcome “requirement inertia” than it does to avoid creating it.
The following are examples of how the above items can manifest in operator training programs.
1) Three of our clients working with the same government Principle Operations Inspector (POI) had identical RVSM recurrent training syllabuses and biennial frequency. One operator specified 15 minutes to cover the syllabus, another specified 60 minutes, and the third specified 120 minutes!
When we asked each operator separately what the basis was for the frequency and time requirement, none knew where their manual requirements had come from, but they were all sure that it was what the POI expected. When we asked the same question of the POI, the answer was that 15 minutes was surely enough for the RVSM recurrent syllabus and that two hours for a short syllabus was indeed negative training. They pointed out that the government was not willing to be in the position of telling an operator if they were doing too much training, only if they weren’t doing enough.
2) Another operator listed the syllabus of an entire initial CRM course in their operations manual training text section, and in the matrix committed to annual CRM training. This unintentionally committed them to annual, initial CRM training (6 to 8 hours of classroom time or 3 3/4 hours online), when they really meant to say that they were going to do some CRM training every year in the simulator and take CRM theory on an ongoing basis, spread out as required.
*Negative training: Training which results in decreased ability. For example, when those training more frequently have slightly lower scores than those training less frequently. The same can be expected of those training for longer than necessary to cover a topic, likely because their attention drifts.
Related articles: A Creeping Error: More Training, More Frequently
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Scott Macpherson is the President and Founder of TrainingPort.net and Vice-Chairman of the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) Governing Board. He is currently Captain on a Falcon 900LX.
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