My Goals As A Change Agent
Soccer ball in soccer goal
My short-term goal as a Learning Design and Technologist is to drill down deeply into the processes of needs assessment and needs analysis. As part of this process, I earned my Six Sigma Green Belt, Agile, and Scrum certifications through AT&T. I collaborated with external sources to assess employees' current performance and identify areas for improvement, using a needs assessment. However, I hope to learn more about the process of developing a needs analysis to identify whether an instructional intervention is warranted. As a former methods and procedures manager/engineer, I helped to identify root causes of measurable problems at the company where I worked.
I also served as a technical and new products curriculum designer for the same large company. Often, leadership perceived a performance gap without conducting a thorough needs assessment, thereby skipping the needs analysis altogether. Leadership contacted the learning and development (L&D) organization and requested a set of courses to be developed and delivered, addressing the perceived knowledge gap. I often found myself having to lead a team of designers or design a course myself, where a quick and easy IT or process fix could have simply addressed the root cause.
As most of us who have worked in the corporate side of instructional design and training, we understand that training is an extraordinarily expensive solution to a sometimes very simple problem, best suited for a communication or well-written and easily accessible knowledge management system article. I am very passionate about finding efficiencies within systems and processes. A focus on the needs analysis, identifying if training is the correct solution, holds a special place in my heart, having seen both sides of the coin. To meet these goals, I aim to gain a deeper understanding of how the needs assessment integrates into the design and development process through course readings, assignments, and interactions with my peers. I am especially looking forward to interacting via the more informal setting offered by Slack. In my previous courses, the conversations that take place there have proven to be some of the most beneficial learning experiences.
Ironically, my former methods and procedures boss is now the director of online learning at a major university (enrollment of over 40,000 students). Small world. He has no formal background in, nor has he ever been a part of a learning and development organization until recently. However, as someone who values processes deeply, I appreciate his mentorship greatly. I not only share a common appreciation for measurable and iterative process improvements, I admire his dedication as he educates himself to serve his new stakeholders better. He has steeped himself in all things L&D, while maintaining his strict commitment to process improvements.
I hope to have multiple opportunities to utilize “hot and new” eLearning development tools human resource managers clamor for in their job postings. I want to be able to speak with authority about the benefits and drawbacks of some of the most popular software platforms. In my previous role as a senior training design manager, my team and I worked with technical content that primarily lent itself to instructor-led training and hands-on, situational cognitive environments. I rarely designed courses, but rather curated a 10-week technical curriculum. I haven’t designed or developed a course in 10-plus years. Rusty I am. I feel if I am comfortable with using these tools, I will be better able to achieve my long-term goals (more on that a bit later).
I have encountered peers who have been designers without formal training in instructional design. However, they have had training in platforms such as Articulate 360 and aspects of Adobe Creative Suite to buttress their design skill set. I hope to have the opportunity to work with these peers so that I can benefit from their expertise in new technologies.
I hope to make progress in these areas by forcing myself outside of my comfort zone. It has been a decade since I’ve designed and developed a course. These courses were all instructor-led, accompanied by design documents and participant materials. eLearning was not as popular, necessary, or supported as it is now. When time allows, I will use written resources as well as other media (Devlin Peck’s is a new resource on YouTube I’ve recently been introduced to). Mostly, I hope to interact with other students and glean what they have to offer and what resonates with them as effective learning technologies.
My long-term goal is not to be a designer or design manager, but rather an internal or external consultant who helps leadership better understand the importance of each step of the design process. I would like my focus to be on the needs assessment so that leadership can better understand when training is the solution rather than some other, more cost-effective systemic fix.
The person who hired me initially to be a part of the learning and development organization at the large telecom company eventually left for greener pastures. After moving through different titles within different industries, he eventually reached out to me 16 years later to serve as a learning experience architect and manager at another burgeoning telecom company. I immediately left my existing role to work for my original L&D mentor. His education includes both a degree and a Master’s in instructional design. Everything I knew about design before this program, save my own trial and error, came from him. As he advanced up the corporate ladder, we stayed in touch, and his commitment to the importance of learning theory remained unwavering, regardless of the technological trends evolving around him. He taught me how to be a better manager and how to handle tough situations with employees, as well as more challenging situations with leadership. My goal at the end of this program is to be comfortable enough to speak with authority to corporate leadership and L&D leadership so that they accurately identify a problem and, most importantly, find the correct solution.
To that end, I aim to spend more time discussing leadership and learning their perspectives on how learning and development align with their corporate worldview. I have accumulated the required hours and completed the necessary training to sit for my Project Management Professional (PMP) exam. Any of the activities above will steer me towards my ultimate goal for this program.
