Learning Conversations

#yam

Some years ago, I was working as a learning designer on a national change project which dealt with almost every NHS Hospital Trust in the country. It was being closely monitored by the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit, which meant it had a pretty high profile.

The project involved creating online learning materials, a performance support tool, workshop materials, and delivering workshops for Trust change managers designed to help them facilitate change within their organisations.

The subject matter was complex and, if adopted, was going to have considerable impact on staff and processes in the hospitals.

Thankfully the whole project was a great success. It achieved its measurable target objectives, everything was delivered on time, and within budget. Yes, there were sticky patches - as with every project. But what really made this one work was the client.

There were some key things within our relationship with the client that made the difference:

1. The client organisation delegated decisions about the content to one person. That person was the trusted subject matter expert (SME) and he knew what was needed to achieve the aims of the project.
2. When reporting back to the client-side project board, the SME's role was to explain the decisions he'd made and persuade the project board to sign-off finished work products.
3. The project board's role was to ratify decisions made by the SME at key milestones in the project.
4. Materials were reviewed every two weeks during a two-day workshop. Day 1 involved reporting back to the SME on what had been achieved in the previous two weeks. Day 2 was about working together, with the SME, on what would happen in the next two weeks. During these workshops decisions were made.
5. The SME's role between workshops was to clarify design and content issues with his organisation, ready for the next review workshop.

It's rare to find an organisation that is willing to delegate such responsibility for such a high profile project down to one person. But, when it does, the whole process can become much more iterative and productive.