People come to me having decided e-learning is the right choice for their requirements. And, I’m happy to help. But I ask them to ensure these 4 questions are answered first, to help clarify purpose:

1. What is the specific capability gap/opportunity you have identified?
2. Why has this gap/opportunity come about? What is the root cause? This is when people start to explore whether it is a true knowledge/skill gap, or is the issue stemming from a systems, policy or workflow issue, or even from undesireable attitude or behaviour. If it is a systems, policy or workflow flaw, then fix it. If it is an attitude issue, then implement a change plan (include education, communication and modelling the right behaviour).
3. What is the learning activity that will best help staff to develop the knowledge/skill gap or opportuity? For example, will they learn the particular knowledge/skill best by engaging with information, from action (doing) or from collaboration (contributing and learning from others)?
   Information – hear, read, see.
   Action – test, practice.
   Collaboration – debate, discuss, brainstorm, group problem-solving and decision-making.
4. What is the best medium to enable the learning activity? The decision needs to be mindful of budget/resourcing/effort, available technology, end-user characteristics, culture and climate.
   Information – intranet, booklet, briefing, comms, workflow prompts, just-in-time learning ‘bytes’, podcast, video, simple e-learning with no simulation.
   Action – e-learning with simulation, role play, apprenticeship, shadowing, systems practice area, user guide, decision-tree.
   Collaboration – facilitated classroom activities, webinar activities, asynchronous platform activities.
   Soft skill development will usually require some form of social learning – e-learning courses will only provide staff with core principles.

A worked example:

Staff are not correctly completing three important processes of a critical system. Working through the questions…

1. Yes, it’s a capability gap.
2. The root cause is that the system is not intuitive to most users.
3. At this time, a learning intervention is not required - the correct action is to fix the system

But let’s say the system can’t be fixed - it would be too expensive. Then…

3. The learning activity is hear/read/see information. Users will learn how to do this task correctly and accurately by referring to a source of truth.
4. Consider the medium in relation to end user and technology characteristics. The most valuable location for this information would be inside the system itself – at the point of need. The best kind of support would be to use dynamic prompts – pop-ups that predict the user’s next action and succinctly answers ‘how’ to do the next action.

However, say the system didn’t support dynamic prompts. How else might we support the hear/read/see of information? One thing to avoid is lengthy e-learning that sits in the LMS – it is too far away from where the information is needed, and the course is likely not to have been designed for navigating to a specific information need.

How about creating video learning bytes (e.g. 1-3 minute screen captures) situated on the intranet (a platform that is in most people’s workflow), readily categorised, searchable & retrievable. Also include an overview byte to provide people with context. Make sure to communicate where these bytes are located. Make them consistent. Where possible, create hyperlinks back to the system help function.

For an example of this ‘learning byte’ design, see how Camtasia has arranged their online video tutorials.

Do you add a ‘practice’ component? Some screen capturing tools such as Captivate enables you to create a “Let me try”, enabling the user to both watch and practice the functional movement. In my experience, most people don’t ‘practice’ – they are happy enough to know how to find help again if they need it. However, users often like the option of printing off a short PDF guide of a specific systems process (1-2 pages). They can refer to this when they return to the system. You could offer “let me try” practice if it is created as part of the publishing process and does not take a lot of effort. It’s probably a nice touch to offer it. Avoid user guides of many pages – it is not specifc enough, difficult to navigate and wastes paper.

The important thing is to communicate the learning solution to users, and monitor use and effectiveness.

Another platform to place your learning bytes could be an enterprise ‘YouTube’-like platform, again appropriately metatagged so the video can be easily found.

This worked example is by no way comprehensive, but may provide a sense of what’s required when deciding the most appropriate learning solution. If you would like to work through your specific learning requirement, feel free to contact me.