Strategy #2: Define “it” by its purpose then gain buy-in using sound bites
So, they've asked you to create an e-Learning management training course. Your client uses the term “course,” his reporting managers use the term “course” … everyone calls it a “course.” It doesn’t take long before everyone on the project team believes the solution that will work best is a course. Everybody places the design in a mental box, and expectations dictate that everyone should play “inside the box.” How can effective, useful design, let alone innovative design come out of this political whiplash of “solutioning?” First, it’s important to proactively influence clients, particularly leaders, when they approach your learning division, department, team, or you, with a solution born solely out of anecdotal information and perceptions. Here are some questions that have worked for me: "Are you open to considering other options to solve X, rather than a course?" "It sounds like you feel certain a course will solve Y issue. Why?"
If you’ve been successful in influencing leadership to play outside of the box and have won the opportunity to shed light on other options that might be more effective, consider it a big win but avoid thinking the race is over. As you know, the ideas for what it can be lie within the analysis work that you do with learners and stakeholders. Your success path has two parts. First, outline the effective, high-impact option(s), and second, communicate the options to leadership. This strategy focuses upon the second part.
I’ve witnessed many highly effective, even extremely innovative designs passed up because of ineffective presentation and communication. It’s critical to present the solution (“it”) in a memorable, simple, easy-to-consider way. Because great design grows out of purpose, nothing works better than to convey “it” in terms of its purpose. Simply ask: What’s the purpose of it? (This is a question about the type of targeted impact or reaction, not about the learning purpose.) What can it do for the learner? Or what should it do for the learner to motivate them to learn or do the thing you want them to know or do after they complete “it”? Good example of “it”: It’s a highly interactive course that uses brief scenarios and role-play to help the learner practice. Great example of “it”: It’s an interactive commercial-like sitcom that gets people to think and react on the fly. Do you see how setting the purpose can adjust or reset your success trajectory ever so slightly along the good-to-great continuum? Design strategy, methodology, features … all can rapidly emerge when the purpose is defined. It’s especially successful if you describe “it” using a metaphor or analogy of a known tool or concept. Examples: “It’s like a drive-thru. Drive up. Order up what you need. Drive away better." Using this context breaks constraints that might influence presenting the learning in a module, page-turner, e-Book-like approach.
How to implement this strategy
Approach the meeting where you’ll unveil your options as if it were a commercial. Share the design in ultra-concise materials that heavily feature visuals, supported by sound bites. Rather than calling the material a design plan or training plan, call it a blueprint and leverage the value of the blueprint metaphor for all it’s worth. Remember, you’re not presenting a presentation or plan. You are conveying a commercial. Using PowerPoint as the presentation tool tends to work well. It’s a familiar medium to everyone. Figure 3 is an example: a blueprint slide conveying high-level solution components to project team members in a kick-off meeting. Note that it doesn’t share actual solution details.
Figure 3: A blueprint slide gives project team members the high-level components
The challenge with this approach is to avoid spending tremendous amounts of time creating materials for this meeting. Keep the presentation down to less than 5 slides, and leverage it as a visual or working prototype. Additionally, recording the meeting makes the presentation reusable content that leaders can share with others quickly. Moreover, as additional or new project team members join the project, it becomes a commercial for the design and direction in the truest sense of the word.
Ultimately, this strategy has three values:
- It increases the likelihood that they will embrace the solution.
- It underscores the ability of the designer (or design team) to distill the complex in memorable messages.
- It saves significant time in production because messages are succinct and easily understood.
Strategy #2 in play: “Could This Be You? Episode 3”
The scene: Karen, an executive sponsor of what is desired to be a flagship e-Learning sales management training program, has asked the e-Learning Team to produce it as quickly as possible. Tom, a Learning Strategist was assigned to work with Karen, her reports and three other divisions to design a pioneering online experience. Everyone knows that out-of-the-box thinking is required, so Tom’s job is slightly easier. Now he just has to pitch his solution in a way that captures attention and buy-in. We enter the scene, just as Tom begins presenting the proposed design strategy.
Tom: The design team took many hours to consider a solution that would meet all the needs that we’ve discussed. We’re excited about this solution and feel it’s the best option. Let’s turn to the document that the team sent to you. We’d like to review the features and details of it for the next 30 minutes, and then take the remaining time to answer any questions you might have. Although it’s 20 pages, we plan to just highlight the key elements of the option. Let’s begin with the bullets listed under learning strategy. [10 minutes later] Let’s now go to the next section titled Learning Path. I’ll skim over the main bullets here.
Pause. Let’s rewrite this scene. Imagine Tom approaching the presentation as if it were a commercial, and using sound bites to underscore strategy.
| Tom Says: |
Slide Content: [just words; no visuals unless stated] |
| What will it take to make this solution a flagship experience? Experiences. | Experiences. |
| Engaging, real-world experiences that place the learner in a virtual office designed to mimic a true-to-life management experience. This is really about changing attitudes through experiences. Experiences that not only explain the “what” but also conveys the “why’s” and the key “what’s in this for me” key messages. | Change Experiences. |
| We want the learners to drive up, practice, and explore, then drive away better. | Drive up. Practice and explore. Drive away better. |
| The learning path is definitive and simple utilizing four mediums heavily leveraging social media. | [Four boxes with simple labels: Virtual Classroom, Coaching Tool, Manager Coaching, Online Discussion Boards] |
| Let me show you how this would work. [Tom describes a day-in-the-life of a manager using this solution.] | A day in the work-life of Susan. A work-life changed. |
