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As learners and learning technology evolve, we have a great opportunity and urgent need to take a fresh look at our learning

design models. Here are some tips on changing learning designs:

1. Short and Shorter. Our learners are distracted and pressurized. Create learning modules and activities that are shorter! Develop them in 10-to-15-minute “chunks.”

2. Stories and Serial Stories. Use the story as the core metaphor for your designs. People have an incredible appetite and tolerance for stories. Some

of your stories can become serialized. Return to the same characters

and plots, using familiarization as a

key design tool.

3. Content Must Be Extendable. Our learners want to improve, comment on, correct, and self-heal content. Make your content extendable. You can

volume 2 issue 1 summer 2007

straight talk on strategic issues

TipsforEvolvingLearningDesign

theWATERCOOLER

Elliott’s message is continued on page 7.

Case Study: Panda Associates learn electronically!

What do Wall Street, baseball, and building capability have in common?

Plus a ready-to-use visual tool you can use now!

Look Inside!

Visit us atwww.rootlearning.com

Words from the Wise:An Expert’s Viewpoint

still review, edit, or ignore content before it goes to a wider population, but one-way content is just not organizationally smart.

4. YouTube Your Content. As the web evolves to a view-and-watch environment, we must shift our learning designs. Engage the ears of your learners and occasionally let them watch as well as read. Ironically, the production quality of video does not need to be Hollywood-like if you make the viewer YouTube-like in appearance.

5. Artifacts Rock. Let learners have artifacts and takeaways, even from e-Learning. It’s sad how few digital programs let learners print out job aids or even some “bling.” Learners love to have something that can sit on their desk or be worn on their body to extend a learning program.

Engage the ears of your learners and occasionally let them watch as well as read.

By Elliott Masie, The MASIE Center

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WallStreet,Baseball,andBuildingCapability

From the CEO’s Desk

Jim Haudan President and CEO Root Learning, Inc.

A n interesting change is taking place. To learn about a company, Wall Street analysts are skipping the “road shows” where companies

sell their vision for the future and outline initiatives that will bring those strategies to life. Instead, analysts are asking human resource leaders about the company’s “total capability” to execute its strategy. Future value is increasingly being based on an organization’s capability to execute today and to create talent to run the business tomorrow.

Consider the professional baseball farm team system. In baseball, level A teams are for brand-new talent, AA teams are for more developed young talent that’s not quite ready for the major leagues, and the AAA teams represent the back-up talent pool for the pro team – one

short step away from the big time. The future of the baseball team is based on the talent under development at each level in their farm system. Total capability is determined by the health and readiness of players throughout the entire system.

This concept of building a business farm system can be called strategic curriculum design/redesign. We’re talking about creating comprehensive capability development at all levels of an organization (A, AA, and AAA) and making sure that the essential connections are in place between each level.

In our experience, these are the common threads of leaders of strategic curriculum design/redesign:

1. They see total capability building as an architecture, starting with onboarding and moving to preparing managers to lead strategies and developing executives to mentor them, and knitting all this together as a seamless, integrated system.

2. They recognize that change occurring at any level (A, AA, and AAA) has a ripple effect throughout the entire system, and course corrections are vital so people can realign expectations and capabilities.

3. They look at the entire organization, considering the interrelationships at all levels, to determine where they need to improve.

4. They interlace training into current strategic imperatives. The best curriculum design/redesign works to be relevant to emerging company strategy and practical to what’s required, in terms of skills and abilities. The training maps tightly to the strategy.

5. They are increasingly abandoning the piece-by-piece process of training, where courses and experiences are developed without a holistic view.

6. They are arranging for learning to take place in the workplace rather than in classrooms. This not only frees up managers to mentor, but also provides a “laboratory” for demonstrating new skills.

7. They make sure that managers are linked to learners as part of the process, that the training includes both pre- and post-learning components, and that people can practice in a safe environment.

The whole concept of strategic curriculum design/redesign is one of creating, maintaining, and sustaining total capability. It’s the farm system for business capability.

By Jim Haudan

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A well-thought-out, holistic curriculum architecture is a key differentiator of a forward-thinking, successful company. Many organizations believe

that they have this type of architecture in place but, in reality, they essentially have a mismatched “patchwork quilt” consisting of a series of training courses that have been added over time – often to meet immediate needs – with no real vision of how they fit into the overall training plan. The successful design or redesign of a holistic curriculum architecture requires inclusion, vision, and focus to ensure ultimate success.

Organizational AlignmentWhen an organization has decided they need a curriculum designed from the ground up or a significant revamp of the existing curriculum, one critical step is to gain alignment of the key stakeholders. This is often accomplished in a session that focuses on the current state and desired future state of training. For some, this may be an easy exercise, as they have little to no training or structured curriculum. For others, this is a significant task, often involving an analysis of all existing training and the effectiveness of tools and delivery modes. The outcome is aligned, committed stakeholders who share a common view of the future state vision and the critical metrics that establish the groundwork for the build.

DesignOnce the future state is clear, it’s time to design the curriculum architecture. There is no “cookie-cutter” approach, as design heavily depends on the organization.

Some prefer courses to be structured by job role; others by function or department. Regardless, the future state vision should be the blueprint for the design. The outcome associated with this phase is an organized curriculum architecture – a baseline for the development phase.

DevelopmentThe next step is to create a develop-ment plan for producing the courses that are most critical to the organization. From there, the build process begins. Another benefit of this process is that, in developing individual curriculum plans, leaders must think about the roles within the organizations.

ImplementationThis often-underestimated step is crucial to the success of the curriculum architecture. Even if you have the most aligned vision and build the best learning tools, the

effort will fail without effective implementation. It is the responsibility of the key stakeholders – who were, ideally, part of the alignment session – to drive the new curriculum to ensure its success and realize its full impact.

Few organizations have thought about training programs from this holistic perspective. For those that have, impactful, tangible business results follow.

David Serdynski is the Digital Interactive Group Director with Root Learning and previously worked at IBM as a Program and Training manager.

To learn more about curriculum design/redesign, contact him at dserdynski@rootlearning.com.

TheProcessof CurriculumArchitecture

Point of View

By David Serdynski

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What’s the state of curriculum design at your company? Does it resemble this sketch? Gather your team around this illustration and ask the questions on the facing page.

Try this!

1. First, look over the illustration and describe the room in general.

2. Describe the scene at the upper left and read the sign and quote bubbles. Has this ever happened to you?

3. Next, describe the Curriculum Architect at the left. What problems is he having?

4. Look at the Curriculum Engineer at the center and describe his solution to curriculum redesign. In your experience, is this typical?

5. What does the wall of bookcases represent?

6. The woman at the lower right is not happy! Why not?

7. When you think about training at your company, does this scene seem familiar?

8. What would you change about this scene?

CurrentCurriculumChaos

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Case Study

A t Panda Restaurant Group, based in California, we have 950 restaurants and approximately 16,000 associates. We are the nation’s largest Chinese food

restaurant company. With an aggressive growth plan, we had a major obstacle to achieving our mission – a lack of consistent learning that embraced skills and values across the organization.

We needed a learning solution to equip all associates with skills and behaviors to effectively and consistently provide the best guest experience and strengthen the Panda brand. We were looking for short, modular learning sessions that could be customized to each learner and would allow associates to learn “just-in-time” in the store environment.

Comprehensive – and Quick!We worked with Root Learning to create a 41-module electronic learning system that provided custom learning for Back of House and Front of House associates as well as all of our Restaurant Managers. With support from Root, we also implemented a Learning Management System for hosting the modules. All modules were developed in English and Spanish, so associates could toggle back and forth to learn English more easily. The electronic modules are used in combination with demonstration, practice, and coaching to ensure effectiveness.

Results? “Phenomenal”The modules were introduced initially to a test group of 16 stores. A “control” group was also monitored to ensure that any changes

could be attributed to the new learning. To evaluate the impact of the new curriculum on business metrics, we engaged a third-party research agency, E.M.P.A. (Employee Motivation & Employment Assessment, Inc.). The results were outstanding, with the test group outperforming the control group against several key indicators – increased number of transactions, total profitability before advertising, productivity, and total gross sales. The results showed that, if the curriculum were rolled out system-wide, gross sales

would increase by as much as $2.4 million annually – a phenomenal return on investment! While these preliminary results are exciting, we will continue to measure the effectiveness of our new learning system.

We also got enthusiastic feedback from associates:

• “Having the Manager demonstrate after the module

helps us to grow and learn.”

• “I’m a cook, so I like to know about food safety, but I also want to know about guest service.”

• “Panda is always busy, but this made it easier to find the time.”

• “I learned what Panda does for us and what we should do in return. When Panda grows, we grow as well.”

Although the focus was primarily operations skill-based, Panda leadership felt that this project was also strategic because it built a line of sight between associates’ behaviors and strategy, thus helping Panda fulfill our mission: “Deliver exceptional Asian dining experiences by building an organization where people are inspired to better their lives.”

Cyrus DeVere Vice President of Field Human Resources at Panda Restaurant Group

OnlineCurriculumServesUp Bottom-lineResultsBy Cyrus DeVere

Trut

h,co

ntin

ued6. Gaming Is Not Always a Game. While some learning

games can really rock a learning process, we can also find ways of leveraging the educational qualities of gaming to be a subtle improvement of the design process. For example, elements of competition, failure, mystery, and even uncertainty can be added to make content way more immersive. And you don’t even have to use the “g” word.

7. Usability Changes Everything. Most learning designers never do usability testing. What I mean is the honest and informative process of really watching a learner use our evolving learning content. When you watch and then debrief real users, they will tell you directly how to make it shorter, faster, longer, different, or more impactful. Every learning design should be tested for usability!

8. Learners Drive! Our learners want a steering wheel to drive and determine the sequence and scope of most learning activities. As a designer, I was trained to make those decisions! Yet, we now must start to share the control of these items with our learners. You can still lay out the ideal order of content, but be prepared for some who want to do it backwards. And if they hit competency, who cares?

9. Drop the “e.” It is now time for us to stop using the letter “e” in front of learning. Let’s just stipulate and assume that almost all learning will use some form of technology for delivery, practice, collaboration, assessment, or reference. I don’t say that I am “e-commercing” when I buy a book from Amazon. I shouldn’t have to think about e-Learning when I gain knowledge online.

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In response to our readers’ question in our last issue regarding growth inhibitors, we learned that most of you are concerned about: • Shifting areas of focus (48%)• Mixed messages from leadership (42%)• Too much work to be done (42%)

Here are other areas you reported:• Not enough time to complete training• Lack of sponsorship/alignment• Vague job expectations

We’ll address these concerns in upcoming issues. We welcome any suggestions on topics you’d like to read more about.

We’re also beginning an exchange page on our website so you can read and reply to questions from other readers. Go to www.rootlearning.com/thewatercooler to see what others are thinking!

Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself. - Chinese proverb

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Elliott Masie heads The MASIE Center, a Saratoga Springs, NY think tank focused on how organizations can support learning and knowledge within the workforce. He leads the Learning Consortium, a coalition of 240 Fortune 500 companies, and he is the author of a dozen books, including the recently authored free digital book called My Most Memorable Teacher (or Trainer).

ReaderIdeaExchange

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The next issue of The Watercooler will be published in October.

EventsandNews• SHRM Strategy Conference, October 10 – 12, Tampa, FL,

http://www.shrm.org/conferences/strategy/

• Elliot Masie’s Learning 2007, October 21 – 24, Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL, http://www.learning2007.com/

• ASTD TechKnowledge Conference & Expo, February 26 – 28, 2008, San Antonio, TX, http://tk07.astd.org/TK2008.htm

Learning is not compulsory, but neither is survival. - W. Edwards Deming