Just Enough Training: When Less Training Delivers More Results
Ari Zelmanow
Learning Scientist & Ex-Detective
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Most Training Solves the Wrong Problem. Learn to Solve the Right One.
Bad training doesn't just waste time. It wastes trust—and credibility with the people you're trying to help.
Someone handed you a performance problem and said fix it with training. You built something, ran sessions, checked the box. Three months later, nothing changed.
Not because you didn't care. Because nobody taught you how to find the right intervention, for the right person, at the right time—or whether training was even the right answer.
Most performance problems aren't training problems. They're environment problems, incentive problems, tool problems—things no instruction will fix. And those responsible for closing them—managers, leaders, L&D pros, SMEs—rarely get a framework to tell the difference.
You don't have to be a trainer to own someone's learning. Whether you're a manager with a new hire, a leader rolling out AI, or an expert asked to 'just put together a training'—this workshop is for you.
This isn't a course on better slide decks. This is the diagnostic framework you were never given.
In 3.5 hours, you'll learn whether training is the right answer, what to do when it isn't, and how to scope the right intervention when it is.
What you’ll learn
Workshop agenda
The Science of Adult Learning
Most training is designed for compliance, not cognition. You'll learn why adults learn the way they do — and how to use that psychology to make everything you build actually stick.
The One Question Diagnostic
Before you build a single slide, there's one question that tells you whether training is even the right answer. Most people never ask it. You'll never skip it again.
The Surveillance Method
Great training starts with observation, not assumption. You'll learn a four-lens framework for working the scene before you define a single objective.
Instructor's Intent
The military calls it commander's intent. You'll call it the thing that finally keeps your training from sprawling into everything.
Objectives That Actually Mean Something
"Learners will understand X" is not an objective. It's a wish. You'll learn to write objectives that describe real performance—calibrated to the cognitive demand the task actually requires.
Backward Design
The best training designers start at the finish line. You'll learn to identify the evidence of learning before you choose a single piece of content—so nothing gets built that doesn't earn its place.
The JTBD Four Forces
Learners don't attend training. They hire it. You'll map the four forces that determine whether someone engages or walks away, and design against the ones that create drag.
The Smallest Viable Learning Intervention (SVLI)
Scope creep kills training. You'll learn to build the minimum complete intervention that produces measurable performance change — shippable in a sprint, targeted to one gap, measurable from day one.
AI as a Build Accelerator
The thinking is yours. The heavy lifting doesn't have to be. Learn how to turn a scoped intervention into a finished product—without knowing every modality by heart.
Communicating and Measuring Impact
Most interventions die in the inbox or disappear after the session ends. Learn to get the yes before you launch—and the proof after.
Learn directly from Ari
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Ari Zelmanow
Learning scientist who designs training systems that change how people work.
Who this workshop is for
The Manager Who Inherited a Problem Someone said "train them." Learn to diagnose what's actually broken before you build a thing.
The L&D Pro Who Knows There's a Better Way You've built the courses. Sent the surveys. Suspected none of it worked. This fixes that.
The Expert Who Keeps Getting Asked to Teach You know the material cold. What nobody gave you was a system for making it actually transfer.
What's included
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Live sessions
Learn directly from Ari Zelmanow in a real-time, interactive format.
Lifetime access
Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Maven Guarantee
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Frequently asked questions
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