What is EBTD?

The label of Experience-based Training and Development (or EBTD for short) is used to describe a wide variety of activities that are finding their way into mainstream human resource courses, management education classes, and organizational learning schemes. EBTD is not survival training, nor is it military-style combat in the outdoors. It is an approach to training and development which utilizes adventurous educational experiences (activities which involve some form of perceived physical or emotional risk) to bring about positive changes in individuals, groups, and organizations.

EBTD programs provide challenging and novel activities coupled with unusual opportunities for shared reflection. In this way, the approach creates learning environments within a supportive atmosphere, which in turn bring about learning outcomes beyond those of the typical lectures or simulations. Because this approach can be more realistic than simulations, and because it provides opportunity for practice through experience, rather than being told through lectures, it proves extremely useful in training and development situations where resistance to change is prevalent or where an attitude of rigid thinking exists.

EBTD: The word

In the UK, where the approach first began, it is called Outdoor Management Development (OMD) because the majority of programming takes place outdoors and with managers. However, more than managers can benefit from EBTD and the approach is not limited solely to the out-of-doors as this label might suggest.

Termed Corporate Adventure Training (CAT) in Canada and Australia, the approach utilizes adventure activities for the benefit of corporations. However, organizations other than those from the corporate arena can benefit from EBTD and while the activities are considered adventurous, not all are as physically risky as the word may intimate to the novice.  In the United States, the term Experience-based Training and Development (EBTD) has gained the widest acceptance, since the method of this approach is based on the philosophy of experiential education or learning by doing with reflection. However, the activities used by the approach also have strong historical roots in the adventure movement initiated by Outward Bound over fifty years ago. Although the EBTD title has been applied to this directory, the reader will see many references to the word "adventure" throughout the text.