This is a question that you might hear in a fast food restaurant.
However, when a request for training comes to the L&D team and we provide it – we’re effectively asking the same thing.
Do we want to be thought of as the people who create training or design content? Or do we want to be known as the people who solve problems in our organisations?
If it’s the second question, then we need to really determine the problem we are trying to solve. This means starting with curiosity and not content.
Here’s some ideas about how that can happen and questions you can ask.
Look at the current state.
What’s happening now? How has the need been identified? What data is available to validate the ‘problem’?
Determine the desired future state.
What should be happening? What do people need to be able to do? What are the business goals?
The gap between the current and future states is the problem to be solved. If you define the gap now, it will help you to evaluate the effectiveness of the solution later on.
But you also need to ask some more questions.
What are the consequences of poor performance in this area? What barriers prevent the desired performance? Do any policies and/or procedures impact on performance? If so, how? What feedback or data do we have from users?
Define success.
How will you measure successful outcome(s)?
Hint: consumption of content or having knowledge isn’t success. It needs to be a measurable behavioural change or performance improvement.
The next thing is to find out who the end users are and learn about them.
What are their characteristics, context, role? Does anyone do this well? If so, what do they do?
Create a problem statement/design challenge.
How might we help (end users) to (required behaviour/performance change) given that we know (user and gap insights).
From here, you’ll figure out the solution that will solve your problem statement. Create it. Measure and evaluate it. Make changes/improvements based on evaluation.
Obviously, this is a simplified process and not one that I’ve invented. I stand on the shoulders of giants when I say that I’ve drawn on the work of the following people in this post (click on the bold text for more):
Arun Pradhan and in particular, his Performance Canvas.
Cathy Moore and her Action Mapping technique.
Andy Lancaster and his Driving Performance Through Learning book.
There is much more to discover in each of these resources that can transform us from order takers to problem solvers and ultimately value creators.
Comments
4 responses to “Can I take your order?”
Hi Matt, I like this approach. An observation to make; determining the current/futures state and a few other activities listed are common tasks in business analysts (BA) type roles. Most of my effort is in ID, though I often step in and out of the BA function. From an instructional design/finding a solution perspective, many BA activities have utility in providing a systematic way forward. The ones in this context I think are handy include, eliciting/gathering/validating/tracing business requirements and user requirements, process mapping, baselining, and change impact analyses.
Of course, scale/complexity/risk and how novel the change/challenge is will help determine what’s useful and what’s overkill. I think it’s good for IDs to have a high-level understanding of these activities and how it all fits together with a view to doing a deeper dive if and when it’s required.
Thanks for your comments Ben, in my experience some of these activities are performed by others too – in my case Business Partners (BP’s). I think it’s useful for everyone involved to be thinking in this way so that we are getting to the bottom of the problem rather than just creating ‘training’ on request. I’ve also found that sometimes these activities aren’t always done well. This is where the designers should step in and find out some more information just by being curious and asking a few questions.
Hey Matt,
I’m trying to communicate to my department (a very large L&D team) to think first about solving problems for the business, and measure if we’re successful based on business goals. I’m on board with everything in your post, and I’ve been starting to live and breathe Action Mapping.
When I was a teacher, I was assessed based on test scores. High test scores were the goal. So many people in L and D seem to be fiercely loyal to the “School Model” (as Cathy Moore describes it). We all shared an experience in school, and it’s a challenge to communicate that there’s a better way. We’re a business, we have business goals and people who need to perform at a high-level to reach those goals. Our team should be in the weeds and knocking down barriers to that success.
Do you have any tips for me to help broadcast this message? I’m not in a position of leadership, but I have the ear of influential people.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
Hi Mark, thanks for reading and commenting. You’re spot on in that many L&D folks are caught in the school model which is problematic because it becomes what we’re known for.
In my experience, evolving and being more focused on solving problems is something that takes time to get others on board. Having the ear of influential people will help you. How do you currently evaluate the impact of what you and your team do in your organisation? Completions, attendance and satisfaction don’t mean impact but many L&D depts evaluate at this level.
Often it’s hard to determine impact when we don’t define the problem upfront. I’d definitely talk to the influential people about how you (and your team) can have more impact by doing things differently (as you probably know, you can’t keep doing the same things and expect a different result). Paint a picture of how you can evolve, give some examples and share your learnings from Cathy’s book. I’d be keen to hear how it goes!