How to Deal with a Technology Failure

Now and then you’ll arrive at a training session ready to rock and roll, except there’s no laptop to run your slide deck from, there’s no projector to show your slides, and there won’t even be a television to plug your laptop into so you can show your training presentation. Great. For an inexperienced trainer, this could be their undoing. But if you are using our high-quality training materials, then you know that this kind of thing can happen anywhere at any time, but it doesn’t have to stop your groove. You can continue with your training as planned. Here are a few ideas on how to deal with a technology failure during your training sessions.

If the Equipment Breaks or Malfunctions

Chalk it up to life and move on. Apologize to the group for the malfunction, and assure them that you are going to carry on with your training as per usual. Keep your cool and don’t get upset about the projector or television being on the fritz. If you lose it, your students will lose their confidence in you, so just take a minute to compose yourself, and then carry on without the equipment. All of our training materials come complete with plenty of activities and participant workbooks to keep them busy, so all is not lost.

Use Your Laptop and Huddle

If you are new to training, you might rely heavily on your slide decks to guide your training efforts. As you become more experienced, this won’t be a problem, but it is very common for new trainers to want to show slide deck presentations. You can use your laptop as a last resort if you need to. Always carry your laptop when you travel for training sessions and keep your files on your hard drive, as well as on a USB stick in case something goes wrong with your files. Back-ups are essential to trainers. You can have the group gather around your laptop for short periods of time to go through the training slides if you feel the need. Some students enjoy slide decks so if this is something you want to do, consider group huddles.

Forget the Deck

If your equipment fails and you have no way to show your slide deck to the group, then use your laptop as a monitor for your talking points. There’s no need to get everyone to gather round and watch if you are going to go through each point thoroughly and provide details on what you would have talked about anyway. You can always email a copy of the slide deck to participants after training has completed as a way to follow up with them and solidify the training you provided.

You should know by now that going out to deliver a training program means there’s a chance that something will go wrong. It almost always does. But that doesn’t mean you should throw in the towel and give up. You’ll learn to roll with the punches, and before you know it, you’ll be a confident trainer who can go without the slide deck or use it in a different way when technology lets you down. The best course of action is always have your equipment, and maybe even a mini projector you can travel with if you are relying on the slide deck to guide your training. Have printouts of your slide deck as a backup to your back-up, and you’ll do just fine.