Clive Sheppard - What Questions

This month's LCB Big Question is What Questions Should We be Asking?

Clive Sheppard posted his response. Clive first questioned if we've run out of questions. The answer is "no" we haven't, but my personal belief is that part of our issue in learning and eLearning is the lack of focus on what our real problems are - what the real questions are. So, I truly think this is a worthy question. Clive also included some questions ...

• If I retired tomorrow would anyone notice?
• If e-learning had never been invented/conceived, would our clients/employers be better or worse off?
• Is my agenda (innovation, expression, technology, creativity, engagement, sharing or whatever it is) in tune with the objectives of my clients/employer or am I just fighting a rather dysfunctional crusade?
• Are most organisations so chaotic, disorganised, short-sighted, cynical, inefficient, incompetent and basically mad that trying to impose any order on this is just pointless?

While some of these big picture questions are important to think about, I guess I was hoping to see more questions along the lines of his third bullet. In other words, what I would hope to get are more practical questions - more along the lines of the question I heard at Jay's session at ASTD TK2007: "What and how can I use the concepts of informal learning to help new managers?" This raises a whole host of suggestions. And looking at those suggestions raises new questions.

I would love to see other "practical questions" - and Clive's third question is along those lines. In fact, somewhat our discussion of Quality vs. Speed and my post on What Client Wants goes along those lines. However, both of those discussions would have been better with the right question being asked up-front to help set context.

More on this soon...