t’s Never Too Early: How, When, and Why Consultancy Adds Value to Strategic Learning Projects | Learning Technologies 2015
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Most learning technology projects involve a lot more than design and delivery. They start way back with strategic analysis, and keep going all the way through to campaign and evaluation. That shouldn’t be the job of the client to work on alone. Effective learning partners provide consultancy to support clients along the way and fostering that relationship is critical. Nina Brebner shares her and TUI Travel's experiences with consultancy.
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t’s Never Too Early: How, When, and Why Consultancy Adds Value to Strategic Learning Projects | Learning Technologies 2015
- 1. 1 It’s Never Too Early! Why Consultancy Adds Value to Strategic Learning Projects Presented by: Nina Brebner Position: Account Director
- 2. CONSULTANCY 1. Why now? Why has consultancy become more important? 2. What types of consultancy are there? How can consultancy be used to the best effect?
- 3. 3 Why now? Why has consultancy become more important?
- 4. 4 A greater demand for digital lead blended programmes Research carried out by Cegos Group – Jan 2014
- 5. 5 More digital lead blend programmes – bigger projects 2013 - blended learning portfolio 6 programmes over £100,000 2014 - blended learning portfolio 36 programmes Over £100,000
- 6. 6 Learning technology budgets under greater scrutiny
- 7. 7 Increased focus on having a digital & blended strategy
- 8. 8 More technical solutions requires greater thinking
- 9. 9 Summary • Blends are more digitally lead driving greater input from learning tech companies • More complex solutions require greater thinking & collaboration • Bigger programmes carry more risk and greater investment so need better measurement and management • Our customers are now asking for more strategic approach to digital learning
- 10. 10 Types of consultancy How can consultancy be used to the best effect?
- 11. 11 Strategic Consultancy Helping to develop digital, social and blended learning strategies alongside Learning and development goals
- 12. 12
- 13. 13
- 15. 15 Blended Learning Design Build a visual of the present Explore and learn about delivery mechanisms Build a visual of the future Examine the Persona’s/Learner Type Start to build the programme Activist Reflector Theorist Pragmatist
- 16. 16 Totara Platform Consultancy Embedded or Un-embedded models of consultancy Platform implementation L&D Strategy enablement Marketing and communication of the learning platform Annual health check and quality assurance Content curation and learner journey design
- 17. 17 Campaign, Communication & Marketing
- 20. 20 Key points • Find the right supplier for you • There is no such thing as a conversation that is too early • Learning technology does not always have to be reactive it can be strategic • Consultancy can be as short a one hour conversation • Consultancy can enable projects to happen faster by slowing down at the beginning • Consultancy can mitigate risk and reduce misunderstandings
- 21. Come see us at stand 144
Editor's Notes
- Back in 2013 we did a survey in partnership with the Oxford Group that asked people where they expected learning methods to change in association with blended programmes over the next two years. We can see from the results of the survey that there is a decrease in the amount of face to face delivery and a wider increase in Mobile Learning, Virtual Classroom, Webinars, Learning Resources, Social Learning and Self Paced Learning. This numbers match closely to the changes we have seen as a business over the last 2 years. As we see the number of digitally lead blend based projects increase by 4 times the volume in 2014 to what is delivered in 2012 These results clearly show a greater demand for Learning Technology companies to support the development and evolvement of blends in being more digitally lead and as such provide the consultancy that supports this demand.
- As part the previous slide we can see a correlation between the market trend and the trend that our business has felt in the type of projects and that in turn meaning that they are larger than the procurement of individual modules, the larger the project the greater the risk, the higher the internal profile of that project to the customers business and the greater the investment and the more upront investment needed in planning out the right approach for the programme … this leads naturally on to.
- Digital learning is no longer the cool kid on the block challenging the mature and reliable face to face, it is now embedded in our expectations and seen as something that has to stand up for more than being the cheap alternative to face to face. It has to formulate part of the business strategy. To be in the business strategy there needs to be some understanding of cost and ROI, it needs to be measurable and to show that it met the original business objective and introduced the desired value. Being cheaper than face to face is no longer acceptable and so the value of digital learning is greater. This brings a greater requirement for consultancy upfront to understand the objectives of the programmes, understand the audience to try and deliver the best of programmes that will work for them and to setup up measurement that can prove the investment was valuable and the output effective.
- This naturally means there is a greater singular focus on businesses having a strategy for digital and blended learning that is complementive to the wider L&D strategy, as the diagram says how do we harness technology to enable learning, development and cultural change – consultancy from Learning technology companies now plays a much greater role in helping customers to define strategies that will make the best use of technology and blended learning across the business, or enables businesses to be more effective in the way they procure in those areas. We will talk about this in a little more detail later in to this presentation.
- As the digital industry has moved on through the years we have seen an ever evolving set of approaches and technologies ranging from the Social, Resource based and mobile learning, greater use of video, animations and much more and as a result requires greater thinking upfront. Much of these approaches are driven by wider and larger audiences a more informal approach to some types of learning the ever reducing amount of free time that we have at work means that learning often needs to be more point in time shorter more bite-size flexible to the learner type and yet still achieve the equal or greater quality as its counterpart face to face Consultancy can help plan out approaches in a way that enables us to hit the goals of the programme better within the budgetary, cultural or delivery constraints that may exist – purely by applying more upront thinking
- As we have seen there are a number of changes that have happened over an extended period of time, none of these why? Components are new or profound in anyway when considered in isolation, but when we start to think about bringing them together in to a single solution (A programme of activity or blend) we have to start asking the question how do we make the best of this, how do we show we are investing in the right places in the right way and now that we are asking more of learning technology partners how do we aid them in being the best they can be for us? The answer is it is never too early to talk to us whether just bouncing some ideas around with your account manager or defining a detailed solution with a consultant. We as companies need to feel like an extension to your teams and in turn forumulate greater partnerships
- We have recently completed two projects in this area. One our customer OPG was completely new to digital learning and had no sense on where to start. We embarked on a consultancy piece that saw us Consult with a wide range of stakeholders across OPG in numerous roles, departments and locations about the current learning landscape and future learning needs Prior to consulting with staff, sent out a tailored list of questions for them to consider before our interview Reviewed examples of existing guidance and learning where made available, as well as customer feedback reports and relevant business plans and other documents Sought information regarding technical infrastructure at OPG (including the various portals used to deliver learning) Analysed the findings and documented my recommendations in a final report
- For Office of public guardian (protects people in England and Wales who may not have the mental capacity to make certain decisions) and their digital strategy we used the MoSCoW approach which was to take the findings and apply them in to Must, Should, Could and Won’t as priorities. MUST Describes a requirement that must be satisfied in the final solution for the solution to be considered a success. SHOULD Represents a high-priority item that should be included in the solution if it is possible. This is often a critical requirement but one which can be satisfied in other ways if strictly necessary. COULD Describes a requirement which is considered desirable but not necessary. This will be included if time and resources permit. WON'T Represents a requirement that stakeholders have agreed will not be implemented in a given release, but may be considered for the future. (note: occasionally the word "Would" is substituted for "Won't" to give a clearer understanding of this choice). We will be releasing a case study soon on this project so please keep your eyes pealed to the site for its release and to learn more.
- In the instance of this customer whom at present must remain nameless, it was about defining a blended learning strategy. They a strong history in workplace learning, face to face and some digital background which was a mixture of good, great and ok. They were looking for support in gaining buy in from the board that blended learning would help to bring all their learning together in a cohesive way and aid them in the delivery of some large scale programmes of change in behaviour, job role and technology. The programmes need to be focused, provide on the job support as and when needed, and apply informal learning practice to. When it comes to social learning, the approach is not far different to the digital and blended learning – first we need to evaluate the readiness of the business and then make recommendations that work for the now and what are the more long term goals. It is important to note also that not all business are suited to social learning and as part of evaluating the readiness it can be as much about whether culturally you are ready as your technical or environmental ready.
- TNA’s can be a nightmare depending on the complexity of programme and the accessibity of the data required to complete them, the enclosed screen shot is from a TUI Travel project of which sadly they were unable to join us today to talk about. This was a systems project that needed training to be mapped at transactional level to role and enabled us to see the variances in the audiences and the methods of which the learning would be delivered. Sometimes you do not need a company to help you deploy the learning for you, but you need just a little guidance through the fog in the woods.
- Build a visual of the present Subject Delivery Mechanism Duration etc. Explore and learn about different delivery mechanisms Mentorship Elearning Face to face Build a visual of the future Examine the Persona’s/Learner Type – This is after all about creating a programme of high efficiency that meets the needs of the business and high empathy meeting the needs of the learner Now that we understand the subjects, delivery mechanisms and the audiences we are delivering too – we design the blended onboarding programme that meets the needs of the empathy, efficiency framework. We can create a personalised empathetic journey through Understanding the learner type of the learner In turn creating a high efficiency programme through Effective learning technology Appropriate offline activity A journey tailored to the way the learner likes to learn Creating a faster more effective uptake of knowledge through Learning your way A sense of belonging and being cared for Knowing what you need to know when you need to know So what might that look like?
- Platform Implementation – Tesco L&D Strategy Enablement – British Sugar Marketing and Communication of the platform Philips US Content curation and learning journey design - MLS
- Whether it is your Learning Management System or the content neither will work without the support of a communication campaign and a little bit of marketing, but as well as designing marketing content for the purposes of awareness they are also effective in delivering training. Behavioural change is not something happens over night and as such requires small amounts of communication to be drip fed in many formats and delivery approaches to enable key messages, expectation setting and maybe even myth busting to influence the change you are looking for within the business. Campaigns and approaches are very bespoke requirements and will depend on the audience, where they hang out, what forums of communication are available to them and much more. These types of programmes are best run in parallel with the development of the actual delivery enabling hearts and minds to be won and for the change to commence as soon as possible before the practicalities learning are delivered.
- As budgets are under greater scrutiny and there is a desire for learning to be more impactful for the business, such as increasing sales, creating efficiency, enabling a faster uptake time, better capability potentially leading to less staff in particular management and much more. There is a demand to measure the effectiveness of the learning as a learning objective and to measure the investment against the business case. Meaningful benchmarking and evaluation can be at national, industry, company or objective level but it is a discussion that has to take place ahead of a programme development taking place. Maybe you will need to measure the present status quo before the new, but most definitely the matrices will need to be in place ahead of the programme being rolled out. We work with a third party company who can independently evaluate the success of a programme on behalf of a customer and work with you to make best use of your existing data or to enable the capturing of new data. Share Specsaver example. Evaluation and benchmarking plays an invaluable role in making sure that money is invested wisley, that lessons are learnt, programmes are exposed for their weaknesses so that they can be adjusted to achieve the right learning outcome and to continue the enablement of investment in learning. But most importantly learning continues to lead in business benefits … for example increased sales!