Instructional Design

Business Learning Made Easy

As an Instructional Designer, I partner with stakeholders and subject matter experts to ensure that high-quality learning experiences address clear business needs. By analyzing tasks, learner abilities, and gaps, I develop objective-driven learning experiences that make learning easy.

Read below for examples of how I have solved business challenges, developed solutions, built artifacts, and delivered results.

Challenge: Training development process alignment

Global data center leadership teams needed to be prepared to navigate the unexpected when there were disruptions to normal operations, such as weather events. Everyone agreed that training was needed, but no one agreed on what content to train on, who to train, or how to deliver training.

Solution: a guiding process document.

Every organization is unique and needs to develop custom processes and workflows that match culture and talent. This document was used to align the stakeholders involved in training development on the breakdown of responsibilities, and the overarching process through which trainings would be developed.

The final version of this process document was designed in Adobe InDesign.

Result: A foundation to build from

Once all stakeholders were aligned on the lifecycle of training creation, we could jump into the fun stuff - the content, the audience, and the design of learning experiences. See the next section to see an overview of what we created.

Challenge: Empower local teams

With a training process in place, we still needed to make a plan of how to implement trainings. When natural disasters were approaching data centers, cross-functional responses were inconsistent, and there wasn't clarity if decisions were best made by local leaders or according to consistent corporate standards.

Solution: a scalable training program that combined self-paced eLearning with workshops - powered by data.

Scalable eLearning targeted to specific roles provided concrete guidance on how to prepare for events, what to do when an event arose, and how to navigate the competing pulls of standardization and localized customization.

Workshops prompted cross-functional groups to respond to scenarios which were designed to assess content recall and practical application.

Program measurement was implemented to provide training data that informed a picture of leadership readiness. Metrics measured learner experience, evaluation of discrete tasks, holistic performance, and completion tracking.

See a redacted program roadmap below to see how we got to a solution.

Result: A roadmap to improved responses

We implemented training that was vetted by subject matter experts, approved by stakeholders, and most importantly deemed helpful to data center leaders. Learners indicated an increased confidence with their ability to respond to incidents, more clarity around what decision-making they owned, and better adherence to corporate guidance.

In addition to tracking completion, we carefully monitored learner feedback to identify improvements and new subjects to train on. Learner experience scores were 4.5/5.

Challenge: Experts failing tests

Pass rates on federally mandated testing for PG&E gas employees were lower than expected. Upon inspection, data revealed that experienced employees actually had lower pass rates than new employees. We uncovered that even though the experts knew the work in the field, they were failing tests because of technicalities, updated terminology, and poor test-taking skills.

Solution: provide on-demand access to learning content and coach employees on test-taking best practices.

We built a learning portal that took chunks of up-to-date content from trainings and made it sortable by exam number. This new tool provided quick access to self-paced study. The tool was built using Microsoft Sharepoint.

While employees were highly-skilled, they typically did not perform well in academic environments. Additional resources were built to help them understand test-taking best practices as well as how to best use company resources before and during tests.

OQ Portal

The portal, built in Microsoft SharePoint, allowed users to select the test they were scheduled to take (top). Relevant content populated on a custom page that was sortable by content type (bottom).

Study Skills eLearning

This web-based training focused on study skills and best practices for test-taking. It was built using Articulate Storyline, with custom graphics built in Adobe Illustrator, and scenes built in Adobe Photoshop.

Portal Logo

A custom logo was designed for the launch of the portal. Sample logos were first designed (top) and then a final was selected by stakeholders and polished for publication (bottom).

draft

final

Result: Better prepared test-takers (pilot program)

Early data indicated that leaders and field personnel alike were extremely excited about the portal. This was validated through working groups with field teams, and presentations to the PG&E Academy steering committee which included all relevant division heads.