Rock your Kickoff Meeting – Partnering with SMEs and Stakeholders for Better Learning Experiences

At Autodesk, our learning design group uses a well‐defined process for kicking off a training development project. Our Subject Matter Experts don’t just throw a PowerPoint over the fence to us and expect a canned eLearning product in return. Instead, we take an agile, consultative approach to deeply understand the desired outcomes of training, propose solutions, prototype working designs, solicit feedback, and deliver learning experiences that achieve outcomes and get “wows”. Here’s how….

In the first meeting, we….

Understand the Learning Objectives First

Often SMEs will come to us already thinking about the types of activities they want to offer for an upcoming training course. They know they don’t want a boring lecture and they want suggestions about interactive, engaging activities that will make their training more exciting.

This is when I put the brakes on and start asking tough questions…

Wherever possible, I like to step back from designing activities until we’ve articulated our learning objectives for the experience.

I coach the SMEs to think about what we want learners to know and be able to do as a result of the training. This is the question at the heart of Understanding by Design theory by Wiggins and McTighe, and I find it helps non‐educators start to think about training not as a boatload of information to cover but rather a set of changes we’re trying to make in learners. The question then becomes “what are those changes” and “how will we know when we’ve been successful?”

Learning objectives can be designed like SMART criteria for to‐do tasks; they’re best when they’re…

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant, and
  • Time‐bound So rather than just saying “we need a training about the new bribery policy!”, we would create a SMART learning objective like:
  • Learners will correctly identify the three most common types of bribery.
  • Learners will be able to match each type of bribery with the recommended course of action.

These outcomes tell us (as trainers) what we can measure to see if the training was effective. It also helps us edit the amount of information they’re responsible for and design activities that help them reinforce the new learning.

Measuring and Reporting Progress

When we are designing training, we always need to know about the reporting requirements –

Who needs to know what about learners’ performance?

The projects we work on vary in the level of accountability and detail that’s expected. With some trainings, it’s good enough that learners have just watched a video and answered some questions. With others, we want to get detailed data about which learning modules were accessed, which questions were answered right vs. wrong, etc.

I’ll often ask

  • who wants to see a report of learner performance, and
  • what data points do they want to see on that report?

This helps me work backwards from these reporting requirements to design learning activities that will give the stakeholder the information they need. We don’t generate the reporting ourselves – that happens in Sales Automation – but we design learning activities that will generate data to produce the business insights our stakeholders need.

Authentic Assessment and Activities

Once we know what learners will know and be able to do, we can start to create assessments that will measure whether they’ve successfully met those outcomes.

This can be as simple as a set of multiple choice questions or as in‐depth as an online simulation of a real‐world situation the learner will be expected to perform in. The solution we design for you will likely depend on your…..

  • learning outcomes
  • timeline
  • budget
  • learners’ time constraints

We have a wide variety of options and expertise that we can recommend to meet your unique requirements.

In addition to our in‐house designers, we also work with a network of vendors who can provide professional services for

  • narration
  • videography
  • motion graphics
  • interactive/game design
  • and more…

Localization Requirements

We always ask if this content will be localized into different languages, as it affects the budget and (sometimes) the types of media we use to create the learning experience. As a global company, our content is regularly translated into up to 11 languages, so we design the content with an eye to handing off our materials to the localization team after the English version is complete.

This means preserving the original project files when we create custom graphics or videos so the loc team can create alternate versions in all 11 languages. It also means remaining conscious of language idioms and cultural expressions that would cause confusion (0r offense!) when translated into another language. While this adds complexity and expense to our development process, it’s a necessary step in serving our global audience with high quality, accurate content.

Budget

Simple projects can often be completed inexpensively in‐house, but there are costs to producing course experiences that meet Autodesk’s standards. Using professional vendor services can also increase the cost of a course development project. Be prepared to discuss a project budget for each training.

Interactivity, Engagement, and “Wows”

Our team of instructional designers strives to create learning experiences that promote active, engaged learning. This is why we build comprehension self‐quizzes and other memory retention activities into each learning module, so learners can review, check their understanding, and make sure they’ve got it right.

We do this with a focus on attractive, visually appealing content that our stakeholders can be proud to roll out.

Our toolset for creating these interactive learning activities is always growing, so ask us about how we can build interactivity an engagement into your course.