Yes, there's an elephant on the cover. Trust me, it makes sense. Microlearning is becoming a big deal in the industry. If you attended ATD's 2018 International Conference & Exposition, you had your pick of more than a dozen sessions examining different facets of microlearning, including a panel discussion titled "Microlearning: What? Why? How?"

"Microlearning is attractive because it can be consumed quickly, aids with recall, and can easily fit into performing on the job," write Karl Kapp and Robyn Defelice in this month's cover story.

A term that's often associated with microlearning is bite-size, a descriptor for how small the learning nugget should be. As Kapp and Defelice explain, if done correctly, microlearning can have a huge impact—some may say elephant-sized—on a company's training initiatives. Little pieces, big results.

The authors include other elephant-related metaphors in their article, but their true purpose is to break down the effective and ineffective ways to incorporate microlearning into an organization's training portfolio. Specifically, they present four uses for the learning strategy, which they call the 4 Ps, and provide examples for each one.

"Microlearning is not the new panacea for learning," Kapp and Defelice admit—and that's why it's important to know when and how to use it for maximum impact.