Challenge: I serve as Director of Product Design at a nonprofit company that provides leadership  development for school leaders. Our programming is traditionally offered in person but since COVID- 19, we have had to rapidly and strategically transition our programming to be 100% online. One of  our concerns based on previous feedback on our Learning Management System was that we would  run the risk of offering a quickly created yet boring online learning experience. We have previously  learned through participant feedback that our LMS was not user-friendly and not engaging. So we  wanted to take the opportunity to test out something outside of our comfort zone with a series of “fun  and engaging” online activities that would be highly relevant and related to the focus of program  learning but also allow for some joy and fun. Specifically, I wanted to isolate one interactive activity  that we could include on our LMS home page. Personally speaking, there was also a challenge for  myself in creating the internal buy-in for any such projects as our organization tends to be very  conservative on the risk-taking scale, so I needed to be very thoughtful about what I suggested, to  whom and how.

Selection: I selected Storytelling as the basis for designing a new tool that would speak to the  hearts of our participants. The video in the course alluded to some of the very same reasons that I  chose Storytelling … it makes the learning more relevant and real and less abstract at the strategic  level. Storytelling is also a great technique to use for online learning because it demonstrates how  the learning comes alive in real life and brings “color” (I think this was the word used in the video in  the course) to learning that is otherwise theoretical. I considered multiple options: a written case  study; a video interview; a podcast style discussion infused with stories; and other possible ways to  weave Storytelling into the learning. While we actually ended up using multiple ideas in multiple  ways (video interviews and a podcast on our web site, for example), we decided on one particular  idea for the LMS home page. (See next section.)

Application: We decided on a Leadership Superhero Quiz. The quiz was designed based on our  organization’s 5 levers of personal leadership. We turned each lever into a Superhero character, and  had a graphic artist design the five Superheroes. We created a quiz that asked participants to  answer a series of questions which would then result in “Which Leadership Superhero are you?” and  a description of (and superpowers) of the resulting character. This approach appealed to our  participants’ sense of self-discovery and was intended to bring some fun and joy to an otherwise  predictable and stale online learning experience. We piloted the quiz internally first (yes, pilot, not  learning launch!) in order to get feedback from our internal staff on how our participants might  respond to the quiz. We “tweaked” it then rolled out organization-wide while launching with our  program participants. The quiz was also rolled out via our blog.

Insight: The main insight I personally gleaned was just how risk averse our organization is. I could  not believe the levels of approval and discussion that I had to go through to get the concept and final  quiz approved. Regarding the tool itself, our Evaluation Team did not implement any measure to get  specific feedback on the Quiz, despite my encouragement that we consider testing with a group of  participants first and/or soliciting explicit feedback on the Quiz. I would also say that while we used  characters for the quiz, we missed an opportunity to use Storytelling more broadly by applying plot  and character development/arc. The characters themselves were rich and juicy, but there lacked an  actual beginning, middle, and end to the experience.

Approach: Knowing what I know now, I will get a long head start on any future ideas that might  break our traditional mold, in the understanding that organizational readiness is low for anything  even remotely resembling innovation. I have been planning accordingly for the extensive  socialization and approvals required to pull even a small tool like this off. I would also say that as  stated above I would implement the full range of what Storytelling has to offer beyond just character:  plot, theme, conflict, moral of story, character arc, etc.

