Professional Development Program for a SAAS company, customer-facing, EdTech.
Problem
Management at the SAAS company wanted a rapid, complete refresh of the customer-facing training program (6 month timeframe). Historically, this program resulted in at least a million dollars in ROI, but had not received a significant refresh in over 5 years.
With a small team of 5 taking the lead on this project, I served as the Lead Instructional Designer and Project Manager.
Teams within the education and training department agreed to update old courses and create new ones.
The strategy discussed below refers to the parts of the project I directly managed, led, and contributed to.
Strategy
- Team: First, a team was convened to lead the project with each person taking on a specific set of responsibilities. A program mission statement and internal proposals were written.
- Analysis: The two individuals with learning design experience (myself included) reviewed and analyzed previously existing courses to determine if any of the material could be updated or used. Upon analysis, it was determined that most of the training was significantly out of date.
- Design – Since the older courses needed radical revision and the LMS software had been significantly updated, the overall course design, course pages, and badging/certification. This redesign included updating language, research, and content areas as well.
- Development – Using Agile sprints and project management techniques, teams worked together to develop new courses. In addition, the course platform (Catalog and LMS) had to be redesigned and adjusted to reflect the new program. This development included badging, certifications, course ID cards, banners, icons, and user guides.
- Implementation – Within 6 months, 25+ new courses were launched in a new, updated online learning management system. Within 1 year, 50+ new courses were launched, including two new professional development learning journeys (5 courses, badges, and certifications).
- Evaluation – User satisfaction surveys were developed. Course reviewers used quality surveys to evaluate courses before implementation and during revisions.
Outcomes
Style Guide – Based on my expertise as an instructional design, technical writing, and project management consultant, I created a complete analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation process for all new professional development courses. In addition, this document contains my audience analysis for the program and the language and design expectations for each new course created.
User Journey: After the team began production of new courses, we needed to track the user experience from enrollment into the program through completion of a course. I created a user journey based on a customer’s journey from sales to implementation. The user journey helped the team identify pain points, places we needed to intervene with users, and refine the user experience process.
Course Page Design:
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