The Mediation Training Institute and ADR Notable Collaborate with Innovative Technology to Enhance Workplace Conflict Management Training
Sometimes in business two companies find each other and together create something really great — like peanut butter and jelly. Often, these combinations arise not from some brilliant plan, but simply by recognizing the potential when the products or services bump into each other in the marketplace. That is the story behind the recently announced partnership between ADR Notable and Mediation Training Institute (MTI).
How it Began
ADR Notable has developed a cloud-based software for practitioners in dispute resolution. The software is designed to align with the process of dispute resolution, helping a mediator or other practitioner at every step in the dispute resolution process.
In ADR Notable’s early days of marketing, we came across Mediation Training Institute, which sounded like a good place to get mediators to see the software. When we reached out to them, we learned that MTI was founded by workplace conflict research pioneer Dr. Dan Dana and specializes in training practitioners for the workplace conflict resolution environment, which differs from mediation in many other fields.
More importantly, ADR Notable’s software was received by an experienced trainer at MTI with nothing less than joy and relief — a sense that finally, someone had developed a tool to solve the biggest problem in skills training. That problem, it turns out, is the fallible human memory. Studies from as far back as the famous Hermann Ebbinghaus “Forgetting Curve” published in 1885 show that people forget what they’ve been taught at an astonishing rate without somewhat immediate and constant reinforcement.
MTI Master Trainer Terry Marschall had known that trainees needed something more than a notebook of materials or a huge PDF file after the course ended. She saw the potential to use ADR Notable as a tool to assist the practitioner as they work with parties in conflict and reinforce the training at the same time.
Empowering Practitioner Trainees
It turns out, this concept isn’t new. The 1990’s gave rise to the concept of an Electronic Performance Support System which Wikipedia defines as:
“An electronic performance support system (EPSS) is any computer software program or component that improves user performance. EPSSs can help an organization to reduce the cost of training staff while increasing productivity and performance. They can empower employees to perform tasks with a minimum amount of external intervention or training. By using this type of system an employee, especially a new employee, will often not only be able to complete his or her work more quickly and accurately, but, as a secondary benefit, will also learn more about the job and the employer’s business.”
The key difference between an EPSS and other training software like learning management systems is that the EPSS does double duty — it is a tool to be used on the job which helps by performing certain tasks for the user, and it contains content and features that reinforce the application of the training. Since the 90’s, the EPSS acronym has fallen away because the concept was so widely adopted.
Enhancing Training
ADR Notable worked closely with the MTI team to add features to its basic software platform that enhance this role of training + technology. Someone completing the MTI course can now subscribe to ADR Notable and access a proprietary library of MTI training materials configured into the software design.
When the trained practitioner engages with clients, the ADR Notable software provides the basic case management support, while the MTI materials are instantly accessible to help the practitioner with everything from the basic steps to the inspiration of practice tips if things are not going as desired. The combined solution offers MTI’s proprietary structure for the process of workplace conflict management, consistency in applying the training, and easy collaboration for the practitioner who needs some advice, all built right into the intuitive case organization, record keeping and even data analysis for an organization that ADR Notable’s software provides. The result may be even better than peanut butter and jelly.
