How a Learning Needs Analysis Transformed One Training Program

Sometimes you need to adjust your goggles to see the coral right below you.

I want to take you out on a trip. This one explores the all-too-easy trouble of focusing too narrowly on one aspect of training when the beauty of it all is best observed from a few kicks back.

What started as a desire to make something elegant and beautiful, yet unhelpful, slowly transformed this one training program into a statement piece among the flotsam.

Let me give you the dive brief on this project and why a learning needs analysis doesn't always need to be about the content.

Scoping the Dive Site

This organization, like many others, was expanding rapidly and needed it's training program to scale with it as well. They decided to move their training online which would give their learners a centralized place to find their learning, and the company could standardize the experience. Everybody wins.

My task was to help this client manage their learning management system (LMS) that would house their training. Some recent courses they developed and uploaded were the pinnacles of well-designed and engaging training. Except for one thing...

Learners couldn't find them.

These beauties were lost among the huge catalog of courses, the labyrinth of links, and hidden beneath the surface of other offerings. Learners would get swept up in the login process, the search to find relevant training, and then get stuck tumbling through a myriad of curriculum learning objects, only left to be discouraged from finishing any of their training at all. Sound familiar?

It may not seem intuitive, but a learning needs analysis is precisely the kind of strategy you can use to fix a business problem like this user experience!

Submerging Past the Surface

It's easy to spot when learners get caught in a current of poor learning design. They don't finish, they don't understand, they don't care. What's more difficult to spot is what happens when there is poor learning experience design (LXD).

So how do we get these employees engaging with and completing this marvelous training that's been developed for them? The client believed that a job aid showing learners how to navigate the LMS and search for training would make it easier, but that left many more confused or with more questions.

We asked some questions ourselves.

A learning needs analysis can also include the learning experience - meaning everything from how the messaging for new training is written and delivered, how managers talk about and assign the courses, and how learners start and finish their training.

I suggested we answer three questions:

1. What are the specific performance issues are learners experiencing?

2. When and where learners experiencing these issues?

3. Who is most likely to experience these performance issues?

   
   

Here's what we found out.

Treasures Uncovered

It wasn't that learners were not interested in the courses this team of instructional designers put together. It was that they couldn't easily find these courses in the LMS. Without a robust search function and a lack of meta-tagging, there weren't enough keywords for learners to find these courses that were relevant to their role.

Not only that, but learners rarely even visited the LMS to search for training. Often they'd ask colleagues about how to do something, so they'd overlook the lengthy courses for a just-in-time approach.

Lastly, this type of behavior wasn't exclusive to new hires. Even senior managers were troubled whenever they had to dive into the course catalog to find a course that may help them with something.

All too often, we think that if we build it, learners will come. That they'll engage thoughtfully and be implement everything we've asked.

What's more common is the opposite.

When we can't make the audience take our courses, there is something else at play. A cultural hesitancy to take lengthy training or courses that are mandatory. Most employees are trying to find solutions to their problems, not trying to bolster their foundational knowledge by taking courses somewhere that is outside their flow of work.

Adjusting the Dive Plan

So what we did was reevaluate the design of the LMS, and also the messaging that went along with it.

We involved the support team to find a way to dynamically assign the training to learners who were assigned to cohorts based on their role. Now learners wouldn't have to go searching for topics, they'd have them readily available to them as soon as they logged in.

We also teamed up with the marketing department to figure out the value-add these courses offered. By mentioning the specific pain points these trainings addressed, learners were reporting that they understood why the training was created and why they should be taking it.

Finally, we collaborated with the senior managers to get endorsement for these courses. When it comes from subject matter experts that these courses are worth checking out, learner adoption of voluntary training increased markedly.

Surfacing with Insights

What started out as a pursuit to get learners into the training turned into a rich exploration of what makes the journey worth taking.

• We conducted a Learning Needs Analysis to figure out what was happening, when and where, and to whom,

• We collaborated with support and marketing teams to enhance the learning experience design, and

• We encouraged senior managers to share the value of the training as tools of troubleshooting, rather than more laborious training.

If you find your training is floating around without direction, try conducting a learning needs analysis. It can often uncover bounty that you may have easily overlooked!