This is one of those challenges that given enough time, is bound to arise and can become a major problem for any company. You may have hundreds or thousands of products for which training must be made available covering a multitude of versions, while still trying to adapt for future learning trends and unending requirements.

I have faced this multiple times in my job role and will seek to lay out some key principles I follow to succeed in any transformation project. This has enabled my team to break the shackles of older technologies in pursuit of an evolving solution that supports IBM’s future training strategy.

Be a Force for Change

“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” — William Pollard

That quote covers in a nutshell what learning transformation needs to be in any company. The downfall of any learning strategy is thinking either there is no need for innovation or that the strategy is complete in producing the desired result and needs no further improvement.

As my team is completing one stage of transformation, we are inevitably being thrust into the next phase while keeping a constant eye on the long term vision. Our work is never done and there is always something to look forward to in the next phase to support newer innovations and technologies.

When I started in the education business at IBM, we were primarily a classroom-based set of offerings with formal, multi-day courses built using proprietary, custom-built applications for managing the business. There was little to no digital delivery and content was developed multiple times to support every audience.

Over the last few years, we have transformed the business into a strong digital delivery presence with additional instructor-led online and classroom capabilities. We have abandoned many of the proprietary applications and moved toward open-source solutions for support of the business along with cloud-based delivery platforms to support the administration of the course content and web interface for customers.

The net result is the ability to quickly adapt to support the latest trends in learning, along with rapid deployment of micro-learning through modular development and content reuse for various audiences. As an example, we have been able to shorten the formal course development and deployment process from one month down to as little as one day.

The following are 5 key principles I have tried to follow in learning transformation projects, but they are applicable to any business transformation.

1. Have a Clearly Defined Vision

I’m starting with this key principle because if a clearly defined vision does not exist, the entire team will be unable to properly prioritize tasks and they will not produce a cohesive output aligned to the business objectives. It is imperative that the team members understand not only what change is coming and why, but how it benefits the entire team to change with you.

One of the most powerful forces on a team is everyone in pursuit of a common goal and each person doing their part to ensure that common goal is realized.

Consider the following objectives:

  • Dream big and consider what can be market differentiators for the solution, but define the vision clearly.
  • Consider multiple aspects of the transformation project. For example:
    • What are you trying to transform?
    • What is the end goal?
    • Are there key objectives that must be met?
    • Do cost savings need to be considered and provable?
    • How will you measure success?
  • Design a conceptual model of the vision that is both implementable and realistic.
  • Produce an executive summary showing the benefit to the customer and the business.
  • Seek special funding for the project and don’t cannibalize your operational budget to produce the output.

2. Pursue an Outside-In Viewpoint

Far too often, I talk to teams and get a negative response when I ask the simple question, “Was this validated from the end user’s viewpoint?” I know it can be a challenge to step away from the work and gain a customer’s perspective. However, this is mandatory if you are going to produce a solution that will keep a customer engaged and happy with the output.

The above is the goal of IBM’s Design Thinkingand I would highly recommend this approach to anyone working on a transformation project. It all starts with looking at things from the end user’s perspective:

  • Who is the audience (user personas)?
  • What are they seeking to do?
  • What are the user’s key pain points when trying to accomplish their objectives?
  • Are there things that may be relevant that a user hasn’t even considered?
  • How do you produce a cohesive solution that a user will return to over and over to utilize?
  • How can you solve for the user pain point and create a ‘wow’ scenario that the user cannot do without?

After clearly defining ‘hills’ at the conclusion of a design thinking workshop, you should be able to begin prototyping the result. Don’t immediately jump to coding, but engage users for testing all along the way. The goal is to identify sticking points or problems before they are developed and adjust the design and course correct quickly, thereby saving time in development and producing a higher quality output.

Once the changes are deployed, don’t stop collecting user feedback. Implement tools like Net Promoter Score (NPS), quality metrics, web analytics, etc. to quickly evaluate if you are on the right track or need further adjustments to show continual improvement. This is where I find some of the most valuable feedback from customers and I often gather and define iterative improvements based on NPS and other quality metric feedback that is provided by end users.

3. Tackle the Objectives in Bite-size Format

When you get to starting the development, divide the requirements into stages that allow you to tackle the project in an agile manner. I’ve been part of teams that followed waterfall and agile development over the years.

Both have their merits, but I often would find with waterfall that development is too focused on producing a perfect output and the development cycle is too long. What happens is by the time the project is deployed, the requirements have changed or the user needs have changed and the final output is less than optimal.

With agile, on the other hand, you can pursue iterative, quick improvement cycles that each enhance the solution and allow for adjustments based on user input and feedback. The net result is a higher quality output that relieves customer pain points when done properly. The danger with agile is to become too focused on daily scrums and delivering the sprints at the sacrifice of quality and user testing.

The best agile implementations are those that focus on a simple approach to development cycles while removing clutter and bureaucracy that can inhibit the team’s productivity. An agile approach doesn’t eliminate the need for planning, but should be interwoven with a detailed project plan.

A great summary of principles to follow are from the Agile Manifesto. Follow these and you will be well on your way to delivering a successful transformation project that delights management and amazes users.

4. Provide a Transition Path to Bridge Old and New

While I would love to cut over to the latest technologies and capabilities in a project, it often is not realistic. Typically there are business processes that need to be supported from the old while the new is being put in place and work being transitioned. You need to have a plan that can bridge that gap to support the old, get users excited about the vision of the new with advantages like simplicity and time savings, and then have proper training in place to show those users how easily they can transition.

When bridging this gap, make sure you lay the fundamental groundwork to flexibly support future things that have not yet been considered. Your plan needs to be effective in bridging past, present and future while meeting the business objectives.

5. Measure, Monitor and Iteratively Improve

Data, data, and more data is needed here. Look at web stats, learning stats, user stats — consider everything in the environment to help evaluate what is working and what is not. Be flexible and honest enough to recognize when something is not working and change. The goal is not to produce a perfect solution with the initial release, but to iterate and improve the customer experience with every change.

Balancing Creativity and Change

“Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.” — William Pollard

There has to be a balance of creativity and the change being implemented. Pursuit of the end goal cannot come to a halt due to creative overload. The creative process should aid the changes, but neither one should be done at the sacrifice of the other.

Do you want to be known as a driving force of a successful transformation or one that resists change and gets left behind as technologies continue to evolve? Don’t shy away from transformation. Seek it out. It will always happen and you can grow a very successful career around being an innovator that drives that evolution.