Learning and Developing through Home Repair: JIT Drywalling

This post was written by Jacob McNulty

This post is part of a series.  For previous posts please select from the list below:

• Foreword
• Social Brickworking

The next installment in this series involves drywall.  On a recent Sunday, my cousin and I had encountered several setbacks that put us behind our timeline.  He travels for his job and was leaving early the next morning and would be gone for two weeks straight.  I couldn’t let the project lie dormant for two weeks and needed to get to a point where I could do OK on my own.

Throughout the day my cousin was rebuilding a stud wall that we had demolished to create more space in the office.  We also spent some time hanging sheets of drywall. 

After my cousin left that night, it was up to me to finish hanging the drywall and then to begin the process of ‘taping and mudding.’  I had never done any of this before but had been told that taping and mudding was the most difficult part of the process.

The next day I finished hanging the drywall at lunch time.  Before moving into the taping and mudding, I broke for a sandwich.  While eating I searched Google for anything on ‘taping and mudding drywall.’  I found a video of Myron Ferguson modeling the steps for invisible drywall seams.  I watched the video twice while I ate and at the end of my meal I felt pretty well prepared to tackle my next obstacle.

With this just-in-time information, I headed back downstairs and proceeded to tape and mud the seams of the drywall sheets.  My results were pretty impressive although the process to get there wasn’t as clean as Myron’s.  Below is a picture of the shirt I wore over the few days it took for the multiple coats of mud needed:

Consider the similarities of the position I was in and what happens in organizations daily:

• Unexpected snags caused a delay in our project timeline 
• My supervisor was pulled away from the project at a critical time
• I was left alone to figure out how to deliver on our objectives

Having access to the Google database allowed me to find the just-in-time (JIT) information I needed to proceed.  This is the philosophy of JIT training - give people access to information so that they can get it just when they need it.  The level of retention of this information is astonishing.  If I were put through a course on drywalling months ago I would not have retained much.  Because of my experience, though, I could help another amateur drywaller through the process.

What would be the value of having the Google-equivalent of relevant JIT information in your organization?

Tags: Action learning, Blended Learning, business training, corporate training, development, informal learning, learning, learning strategies, organizational learning, professional development, workforce development