Peer Graded Assignment: Reflection

Pilot Project: Designing the Right Learning Solution

Challenge

My company is a learning and development performance-based consultancy servicing the South  African market. One of our services includes consulting for learning and development strategies and  programme design for the workplace. At the end of last year a new client approached us with a  problem they are currently facing with one of their government clients. The government client  requires a software solution customised and designed to meet a new business need: becoming  compliant with new government regulations with regards to finance and reporting across their local  offices. The obstacles our client faced in designing, developing and effectively rolling out the new  software solution included: the need to upskill staff on the new software components; the need to  design a learning intervention that supports the roll-out of the software solution; the diverse range  of computer literacy skills; the challenge of teaching complex, technical, and information heavy  content to a broad audience who needs to understand varying levels of complexity and information  based on role and position in the local office; a dislike for training and therefore a past trend of  shocking attendance for compulsory training resulting in staff lacking in required knowledge to be  role and job competent; and limited access to connectivity, hardware and training facilities.

The challenge? How do we conceptualize a training programme, intervention(s) and knowledge  support process that will upskill the staff to become competent in operating the new software; how  do we design a programme specific to the needs of this client that has a diverse audience (varying  levels of education, computer literacy, English language skills and knowledge of the new government  regulations); a programme that won’t interfere too much with business as usual; a programme that  can adapt to both the virtual and physical environments; and a programme that the staff actually  want to engage with and therefore partake in the upskilling and training process.

Selection

At this stage in the client engagement we had a very clear view of the client need and could  therefore make some assumptions about a possible (or a few possible) learning solutions that could  be designed to overcome the challenges listed above. For this reason, the learning launch tool was  the most appropriate and effective tool to use for this stage of the design thinking process.

The learning launch tool was used as a vehicle to test our ideas (hypothesis) about an effective and  appropriate learning solution in the real market by conducting a pilot project with a small sample  group of our target audience. The pilot would provide the opportunity to not only implement an  idea in a fast and cost-effective manner, but it would also provide insight into our assumptions and  how those align to the actual dire needs of the target audience. That insight would provide the  platform to review and either roll-out the learning solution at scale or refine the solution and then  re-test and roll-out once ready, or to abandon the solution and go back to the drawing board.

This methodology was favorable for this client as the client was under extreme time pressures to  roll-out a learning solution to support the product roll-out, and therefore needed to launch some  kind of solution to satisfy their client, whilst at the same we were given the opportunity to run a  relatively fast and cheap experiment before a large scale roll-out of a support learning solution.

Application

In order to conduct the learning launch (the pilot project), our team used the information on the  target audience, already gathered by the client, to design a learning solution that would address the  needs of the client (upskill staff to become competent in using the new software) but that would  also take into consideration the challenges of training the target audience that we were already  aware of.

We started with the first Module that was to support the roll-out of the first software solution  component that all of the target audience was already introduced to by their Change Management  Department, their Managers, and the Client’s specialized solutions architects. In order to meet the  needs of the target audience whilst avoiding the potential set-backs identified in the challenges, we  designed a pilot that would contain the following features / design spec:

•  A blended learning solution that included:

o independent online ubiquitous and asynchronous learning  o facilitated face-to-face classroom sessions and synchronous learning   o social learning through peer-to-peer interaction activities both in the workplace and

on the virtual learning environment

o remote teaching and technical support via WebEx Team sessions and synchronous

learning with a selection of time slots to best suit the availability of learners

•  A learning experience that comprised of three parts:

o 1) interactive learning through engaging in:

▪  Prescribed learning path

▪  Short pop-up descriptions, targets, goals, instructions, and learning  outcomes – in easy English, and non-complicated language use

▪  Short interactive tutorials: drag & drop; multiple choice; true or false –  practice application of assimilated knowledge

▪  Illustrated booklets that form the learner guides – visual rather than text  heavy for those that are not skilled in English and those that have short  attention spans

▪  Informal interactive assessment activities – constantly tests knowledge at  the end of small sections in a fun and stimulating way to constantly practice  what is being learnt

▪  One formal interactive assessment activity – final competency assessment  (pass or need to repeat training with recommendations on areas in need of  re-training)

o 2) knowledge repository:

▪  Information retrieval (all content and information contained in documents  intended as reference documents and glossaries)

▪  Videos

▪  Supporting documents

▪  Useful links

o 3) social learning:

▪  Compulsory peer-to-peer discussions on specific reflection questions that  are designed to assess whether or not learners have achieved learning  outcomes with regards to the learning component

The pilot project was delivered over three weeks in which learners were introduced through a  classroom session to the programme design, objectives, and tools incorporated in the learning  experience, learners were given time to conduct independent and asynchronous learning, and then  learners were regrouped and engaged with in a second round of classroom sessions to wrap up the  programme and ensure each learner was enabled and ready to take the final assessment.

Feedback was collected via:

•  Interviews with Management staff, and Change Management Department

o Ascertain: 1) learner feedback from management perspective, 2) management

feedback on intervention for team – affect on job performance and competency  within the workplace, 3) recommendations from management perspective

•  Surveys answered by learners

o Ascertain: 1) learner feedback from learner perspective, 2) perceived self-

competency levels pre- and post-learning intervention, 3) recommendations from  learner perspective

•  Feedback forms that were analysed during the actual training intervention

o Continuously assessed learner feedback on a sub-module basis

Insight

The findings post-training were mostly positive and very interesting with the pilot deemed as a  success by the client and the government client.

Positives

•  Learning intervention resulted in a boost in job performance and competency according to  management staff

•  Learning intervention resulted in increased confidence of individuals’ perceived competency  and knowledge from pre-training to post-training

•  99% of learners were able to successfully utilize the new software component and saw  benefits to time, productivity, and accuracy

•  Learners enjoyed the interactive and diverse experience: interactive tutorials, info bubble  pop-ups, guided learning with progress bars and status information (with goals and  timelines), interactive informal assessments

•  There was a 100% attendance rate for both classroom sessions

•  There was a 100% completion rate for the pilot group

•  Learners with lower computer literacy levels became more confident in accessing digital  learning content, and progressing through digital learning assets

Unexpected Negatives / Areas in Need of Improvement

•  The peer-to-peer interaction was poorly attended, with poor participation rates per  reflection question categorized into sub-section discussion threads

•  The remote sessions were poorly attended on scale with only a handful of learners that  utilized the support

•  Learners wanted a bit more on-the-ground support, or one more additional classroom  session to address more questions and provide one-on-one help in person

Approach

This pilot was deemed a great success by the target audience, the client, and by our team. We  successfully delivered a learning solution that enabled learners to become proficient in the use of  the new software and were able to perform as expected within their roles with improvements in  productivity and accuracy (in capturing and reporting).

However, there were some downfalls to the learning design including: the peer-to-peer interaction  on the learning platform; the remote support sessions; and the facilitated classrooms sessions (as  listed above).

Our recommendations to the client for the full scale roll-out therefore included a refined learning  solutions that reduced the requirement for peer-to-peer interaction as a compulsory activity, and  encouraged peer-to-peer as bonus points and for those interested; we suggested keeping the  remote support sessions and viewed this as a necessary cost to cater to those individuals in need of  extra help as this method is still more cost-effective that requiring external on-the-ground support;  and we included an additional classroom sessions, as more of a Q&A session, mid-way between each  module of training to give that extra boost of face-to-face required support.

Using the Learning Launch Tool was highly effective in this case because we got to test our ideas  relatively quickly and without too hefty a cost incurred, we learnt more about our target audience’s  learning needs, and we were ale to design a highly effective, and enjoyable learning solution for the  entire project.

