Learning Conversations

At the recent Learning Live conference, organised by the Learning & Performance Institute, I ran a workshop entitled: "An IT Toolkit for a Learning Organisation".

From my perspective, inside a large organisation that delivers a full range of learning & development services, this IT Toolkit isn't just about delivery tools (such as elearning, social learning etc). It must also include the back-office tools that help such services run smoothly and cost effectively.

During the workshop I identifed five requirements for the IT toolkit, and then three key questions that may help your decision-making. This post is about the five requirements. The key questions will be discussed in a subsequent post.

I tried to avoid speaking about specific IT systems or applications, except where they were useful as examples. The decision on which is the best application for your organisation must rest on a range of factors that include your specific business requirements, cost, existing systems etc.

Requirements

The requirements identified were:

1. Maintain effective customer and supplier relationships
2. Forecast and monitor revenue and costs
3. Manage face-to-face and online delivery of formal events
4. Provide learners with access to up-to-date resources
5. Support informal learning

Of course, there is some overlap between them, but hopefully they provide a good framework on which to build some understanding of what you're looking for.

Maintain effective customer and supplier relationships

Any organisation, or team, that is providing a service to others, and using suppliers, needs to know whether you and your suppliers are meeting the needs of your "customers".

For very small teams with a limited customer and supplier-base, this may just be through conversations.

But, as your team grows, or your customers or suppliers become more diverse, so will your need grow for some sort of system that can help track and share knowledge about the people you're working with.

You'll need something that can help you answer questions like:

• How do you know what each individual customer needs?
• How do you know what conversations your team has had with each customer?
• How do you know how well you’re meeting that need?
• How do you know which of your suppliers is offering best value?

Often, you'll then start to think about putting in place a Customer Relationship Management system - perhaps a generic one like SugarCRM, Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics, or one that is more specific to learning and development, like CourseBooker. The choice is huge.

This would probably happen alongside some means of collecting information from your customers, often through a survey tool. You'll need to aggregate data about what they are looking for, as well as how well you're providing your service.

There are clever ways of doing this, if you have access to the raw data... In the case of Google [See this video of the ALT Conference presentation by Sudhir Giri], they ran a full-blown Training Needs Analysis, using surveys, interviews etc, but they also analysed the terms that employees were searching for on the intranet. Comparing the two sets of results showed that an analysis of the search terms was as effective in highlighting training needs as the full TNA.

Yet, how many L&D teams have any visibility of what people are looking for on their intranet?

Forecast and monitor revenue and costs

Whether you run an internal training team that works with annual budgets, or you run a team that charges for its products and services, you will need to know what's happening with the money. You'll need to know what has happened, and have a very good idea of what is going to happen. You'll also need to know whether the money you are paying out is giving good value.

Any good customer relationship management system will allow you to keep track of future opportunities. As they become more likely to happen so the forecast revenue and costs will become more certain. This is known as the sales pipeline, and is an important part of any financial management process.

As you deliver your products and services, you'll need to ensure that you pay your bills on time and also that you retrieve any money owing to you. If you're part of a larger organisation, this should be managed through its financial systems. If not, then using a tool like Kashflow (many others are available) can make these processes a whole lot simpler.

Manage face-to-face and online delivery of formal events

For most L&D professionals, we're now getting into the interesting bits. But don't forget the back-office systems. They'll provide the foundation needed to make sure your team can be really effective in the services you provide.

However much we promote the idea of informal learning, there will always be a need for formal interventions where access to resources (whether real or virtual) needs to be managed, either for reasons of security or limited availability. As an aside, I've never understood why some people use pay grade or role as a reason to limit access to online materials!

Anyhow, we'll still need to schedule access to limited resources, such as classrooms and experts, and plan where those resources will be. We'll need to send out "joining instructions" to learners, and send out reminders as events become imminent.

And, apart from the management of access, you also may want to support your delivery with IT tools, such as virtual meeting systems, interactive whiteboards, communication & collaboration software or voting systems.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of companies competing for your business in this area - often selling tools known as Learning Management Systems.

You might want to go for a system that can do everything - including the whole talent management piece, such as those provided by the market leaders: Cornerstone, Saba, Taleo etc.

Or you may want to go for a cheaper option that focusses just on the specific aspects you need, eg. CourseBooker, Enterprise Study, Net Dimensions EKP etc (There are huge numbers available. Please don't take a mention here as being a recommendation!). But try to think ahead as to how your needs may develop. You'll need to be certain your supplier is going in a similar direction to you.

Many organisations are turning to the open-source world to meet their needs. Moodle is the obvious answer here. It's a great application, which I've used since version 1.0. But it's important to remember that Moodle is designed explicitly to support delivery of tutor-led interventions, in conjunction with a student record system that handles all the administration and resource management.

A number of organisations have developed add-ons for Moodle that attempt to provide the requisite administration functions, eg. (Kineo - with Totara, Moomis, Face to face module) . Or you may want to look at adapting one of the existing open-source student record systems for your purposes, although most are based around the needs of schools rather than companies.

On the virtual meeting room front there are a number of strong contenders. You could try Skype, although this tends to get blocked by a number of organisations, and does require a significant download.

If you want to avoid anyone having to install software, then use Adobe Connect. This does assume that everyone has Flash installed on their system already.

Other tools include Webex, Saba Centra and Blackboard Collaborate (Elluminate). They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but can all be used to run effective online meetings and seminars.

In the open-source world, we also have Big Blue Button, which is steadily catching up with the front-runners.

Provide learners with access to up-to-date resources

iPod Coverflow Interfaces are a great way of finding content. Image credit: http://www.classycode.co.uk/CoverFlow/

Those people who have already learnt how to learn will be constantly on the lookout for trusted sources that can support their particular learning needs.

If they can't find what they need, they'll go elsewhere.

So, the systems you put in place to deliver content need to be as easy to use, and as smart, as the systems your learners use in their everyday use. You will be compared with the likes of Amazon, BBC, Youtube, Slideshare etc. If the content you're providing is available more easily somewhere else, you will find your learners leaving you.

Please note, that, in my opinion, there is no difference between learning content and information content. Too often we put information content in our intranets, and hide learning content inside our learning management systems, with no connection between the two. As I've said before, I believe only assessments should be placed inside the LMS

You will need to consider the typical behaviours of a modern learner when accessing content:

They'll want to be able to get to it on their mobile device, as well as at their desk.

If it's text or contains complex graphics, they'll probably want to print it out at some point.

They'll want to be able to post a link to your resource in an email, an instant message or in your internal communication systems, and expect that recipients will be able to get to it without a lot of additional navigation.

They'll want to be able to make comments against the resource; asking questions of the author, adding additional ideas, or simply reviewing it.

They'll want to rate it or tag it - partly so they can find it more easily again, and partly to make it easier for their colleagues to filter out the good from the bad.

They'll want to be notified by email or RSS when new resources are published - ideally ones that fit a particular category or search term.

They may even want to add their own resource, for use by their colleagues. Although you might want to identify "official" resources in some way...

When considering content delivery, you will need to think about how you intend to create your content, publish it, and then deliver it.

Companies such as Xyleme and Exact Learning (formerly Giunti Labs) provide ways to create your content once and then publish it in multiple ways. That may be appropriate for you, or you may decide that all your content will use a particular format, and stick with that. Be aware though that you run the risk of seeing every problem as a nail if you only have a hammer. This is particularly true of people who have bought into elearning content development tools like Articulate, Captivate, Atlantic Link etc. They then become the default way of producing resources, regardless of whether that is the best mechanism.

In my opinion, I would always start with the learner, and consider the best delivery system to meet their requirements. But think about that alongside the types of content that I would expect to be providing for them. There is a new breed of tools out there now, including Fusion social learning and Wisetail's Learning Ecosystem, that take the best functionality people use on the wider web, and make it available to more closed groups and organisations.

Support informal learning

Informal learning is driven by need and by recommendation. To support informal learning effectively you will need to consider both drivers.

When learners need to know something, they will take one of two routes. They'll go to a search engine, or they will ask someone. The actual route taken will depend on the learner's perception of which one will offer the best answer the most quickly.

As a minimum, your systems should include a good search engine - ideally one that can search any text inside your content, and not just the metadata [link] about that content. It's not enough to say that a particular elearning module contains the information they need. They'll need to be able to get to that information quickly - not by trawling through until they reach page 33 of 45!

The more forward-looking organisations are beginning to also implement social communication tools that are built around the concept of interlinked networks. These are fantastic at allowing ideas to filter across even the most siloed organisation. [See the Deloitte case study on using Yammer].

Networks do take work to maintain - both by the individual and by the organisation (which needs to provide central resource to help the network to develop). But their value in facilitating innovation and reducing duplication of effort is huge.

The risk to organisations of not providing internal networking tools is that your employees will end up more connected with people outside of your organisation then with those inside.