Excerpt from a conversation with a client:
"Absolutely, we can help transform your existing content into engaging eLearning courses," I started, pen poised over my notepad. "But before we dive into that, help me understand the bigger picture. Why is this training needed?"
The client leaned back, considering. "Well, I guess our employees struggle with using our technical systems and manuals correctly. We need them to really understand all the processes and we need them up and running quickly."
I nodded slowly. "I hear you on wanting them to deeply understand everything. But how will you measure when the training is actually successful? What observable behaviors or performance goals are you hoping to see?"
A puzzled look crossed their face. "You know, I'm not quite sure. I just know they need to understand this material."
I feel like I could put this conversation on an infinite loop. This hesitation is extremely common when I first meet with clients. They have existing content and an obvious need for training, but a clear sense of what success looks like often hasn't crystalized yet.
While the knee-jerk solution may be to take all that content and convert it into an eLearning course, part of my role as a Learning Strategist is to help isolate the true, priority goals that training needs to accomplish. That means wading through the "noise" of nice-to-have information to hyper-focus on skills and behaviors that will drive real business impact.
My role involves more than just repurposing that content into courses - it's a comprehensive process of analyzing goals, learner needs, and the most effective modalities from the ground up.
The Crucial Role of Strategic Planning
Skipping the planning phase risks several potential pitfalls when developing learning programs:
- Cognitive Overload - Overloading learners with dense information hinders learning and retention. It's like trying to pour a gallon of water into a shot glass - most of it splashes right over the sides, unabsorbed.
- Engagement Deficit - Without thoughtful instructional design and engaging delivery methods tailored to the audience, learners simply won't complete the training or apply the knowledge effectively.
- Business Misalignment - If the training doesn't directly tie to core organizational goals and performance needs, it likely won't drive meaningful behavior change. You end up with a nicely polished product that falls flat.
Expanding the Role of a Learning Strategist
Rather than jumping straight to developing eLearning courses, a learning strategist should begin with collaborative discovery. During this discovery, they may ask probing questions to help refine your learning goals, such as "What are your toughest operational challenges? What specific skills or behaviors do you need to see from your workforce to resolve those challenges?"
From there, the strategist works to:
- Determine the Right Solution - While eLearning can be part of the blend, a robust curriculum might also include live virtual training, workshops, performance support tools, and coaching. One size rarely fits all.
- Analyze Needs and Context - Effective learning design has to account for the realities of your learners' environments, roles, schedules, and preferences to maximize engagement and knowledge transfer.
- Focus on Essential Content - By clarifying target skills and behaviors upfront, the strategist can eliminate nice-to-have information and hyper-focus the content on what directly drives results. No frills or fluff.
Returning to our client from earlier, after further exploration, we were able to help transform their learning goals from "understand all processes" to observable behaviors like "access the system successfully" and "resolve common user errors." These goals were much more tangible to work toward and allowed us to target these specific tasks immediately in our training solution.
The Cost-Effectiveness of a Comprehensive Approach
You might be thinking - this sounds great in theory, but wildly expensive and complicated, right? But here's what I've witnessed firsthand...
Contrary to common perception, investing in a comprehensive learning strategy does not necessarily mean more expense or a complex training solution. In fact, by dedicating time upfront to thoroughly assess and strategize, we often identify more streamlined solutions that are not only effective but also cost-efficient. This approach avoids unnecessary expenditures on superfluous training components, focusing resources on what truly adds value and drives performance.
Why This Matters
Opting for a Learning Strategist means choosing to invest in a comprehensive approach that evaluates and integrates various learning modalities and techniques to best meet your specific organizational and learner needs. This approach goes beyond mere content delivery; it crafts an educational journey that is engaging, relevant, and directly tied to both personal and organizational growth.
By clarifying true needs and priorities first, a thoughtful learning strategy often streamlines development into a lighter, leaner process - avoiding excessive spending on components that don't move the needle toward your core goals.
