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October 2020

Oct 29
Love0

Attention Learning Leaders! Do your eLearning programs use Flash?

By Learning

Adobe is Retiring Flash on December 31, 2020

As if 2020 hasn’t brought us enough challenges and disruptions, Adobe is ending support of the Flash Player at the end of the year. If your eLearning programs were built before 2016 or rely on old versions of authoring tools, they probably contain Flash elements. After December 31, 2020, Microsoft will not allow Flash to operate on supported versions of Windows.

Opportunity Knocks: Transform Rather Than Redevelop!

A traditional approach would be to replace all the Flash elements with HTML5 or redevelop using one of today’s popular eLearning authoring tools. This approach will work and allow you to check off the box on your to-do list that says, “make sure all your programs don’t blow up.” You will maintain your quality standard, but as a Learning Leader, is this enough? Shouldn’t you take a more strategic approach?

Transform Mission Critical Courses

Get started by thinking about this activity as a project, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Create a goal, determine your timeline, and get moving! Here is a jump start on what you have to do.

  1. Identify the mission-critical courses in your eLearning portfolio that leverage Flash. Don’t over analyze this determination. You know which programs the business cares about. If you are not sure, talk to your executive sponsors.
  2. Look at each course and determine if the goals and objectives are still valid, the content is accurate and complete, and the examples continue to be relevant. You may need to partner with a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to conduct this exercise.
  3. Once you and your SME agree on the course status, you are ready to transform your courses into modern day learning experiences. Rather than fix the old “page turner” with a few simple animations, videos and branching activities, you can design a truly modern learning experience with a multitude of options, which can all be delivered to the learner’s desktop, phone or tablet. (see diagram below)
  4. Now that you have a design plan, you can develop and deploy your program using agile design and development methods.

 

MODERN LEARNING METHODS

Retire or Redevelop Non-Critical Courses

So now you have a plan to address your mission critical eLearning programs. Great! But you also need to have a plan for the rest of your programs. What should you do? As with everything, you have several options. Here are two for you to consider:

  1. Retire Non-Critical Courses– In today’s incredibly fast-paced world, do you have the resources to carry non-critical content in your learning portfolio? Programs sitting on an LMS carry overhead, such as internal support allocations, system testing, and administrative time. Are these nice-to-haves, i.e., topics that were important in the past but are no longer relevant? Training on out-of-date content? Ask yourself: “What would happen if these courses disappeared? Would anyone even notice?”
  2. Redevelop “as is” using a supported authoring tool – At first, this approach may seem like the easiest way to go. Nothing is lost, the curriculum remains intact, and learning stays under the radar. But think about it for a moment. Say you have 50 non-critical one-hour courses to redevelop. If each course takes 100 hours to redevelop and test, this project could keep a team of four to five developers busy for over six months! Add to that the fact that a SME would probably need to review and sign off on each course (and want to make some “small” tweaks). A project like this could take the better part of a year. All focused on non-critical courses! Is that how your team should be spending their time?

As a Learning Leader, we know you are dealing with huge challenges right now. Hopefully, this blog stimulated some ideas and will help you strategize your plan for dealing with your Flash issue.

Want to learn more about transforming your Flash eLearning? Need help with transforming your Flash eLearning? We’d love to connect. Contact us at marketing@thecaragroup.com

Oct 08
Love37
Book on table

Driving Double-Digit Client Engagement Through Storytelling

By Change Management

“Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”
– Ancient Proverb

This is the story of how our client, a global manufacturing company, partnered with The CARA Group to incorporate storytelling and metrics to achieve double-digit increases in total employee engagement (over a five month period)…

ONCE UPON A TIME, a global medical devices client implemented a global manufacturing production system impacting several thousand employees worldwide. The new production system had a goal to standardize manufacturing processes, simplify communications and transform their manufacturing culture globally. While the production system was delivered on-time, within budget and scope, our client faced numerous post-implementation challenges from an employee adoption and acceptance perspective:

  • Low adoption given a perception that global initiatives are driven from headquarters (vs. being driven at a local level)
  • Low compliance as managers and employees felt ill-equipped to follow new global standards
  • Low awareness as local HR did not have the necessary tools to effectively manage this change
  • High resistance as this new initiative was viewed as the ‘flavor of the month’

Given the many adoption and acceptance challenges above, The CARA Group engaged with our client to deliver change management thought-partnership and guidance over a 20-week period with a goal for leaders, managers and employees to embrace the new manufacturing production system as ‘the way they work’. Using CARA’s proprietary ‘6D Solutions Framework’, we successfully delivered a long-term OCM solution resulting in double-digit growth in 12 of 13 engagement areas (over a five-month period). While all phases of our framework were leveraged, two critical phases in particular led to significant client success: “Diagnosis” and “Destination”.

DIAGNOSIS:

Our “Diagnosis” phase is the process of collecting supporting data and developing key findings. For this engagement, we synthesized and assessed data collected and leveraged it to inform our Change Management, Training and Communication strategies. Unique to CARA is the use of “Survey Focus Groups” to capture the hearts and minds of those impacted by various change initiatives. Survey Focus Groups involves a complement of two data collection techniques: confidential real time survey response (using CARA’s survey technology) and small group meeting facilitation.

OUR APPROACH:

  • We conducted six Survey Focus Groups as a precursor to the start of our client engagement (each focus group had an average of 20 employees and managers per session representing 25% of the total plant population)
  • The results from the Survey Focus Groups served as a baseline and were leveraged to understand employee and manager levels of awareness, engagement and adoption
  • Upon completion of our engagement, we conducted six additional Survey Focus Groups to re-assess employee engagement as compared to the baseline (five months prior)
  • We developed a comparative analysis to measure post-engagement survey results (and analyzed pre & post engagement results)

KEY FINDINGS:

  • Leaders and employees were not involved in the initial design of the new production system leading to low engagement
  • Employees lacked the capabilities and skills to operate within the new operating model leading to confusion and low process compliance
  • Leadership was unable to measure employee adoption of the production system as the future of work
  • Leaders and employees had not fully embraced the new production model and supporting processes
  • Leaders lacked the capability and change leadership training to support the new operating model

DESTINATION:

The “Destination” phase of our Solution Framework included the transfer of knowledge to internal client
teams including 30-60-90-180 day action plans and recommendations for ensuring long-term sustainable results. With that said, we provided the following deliverables with a goal for employees and managers to embrace the new production system as ‘the way they work’. Each of the following OCM tools addressed specific competency gaps (at both the manager and employee levels), coupled with creative solutions for providing specific action plans for managers to drive long-term adoption and acceptance.

  • Storytelling As A Service
  • Change Management Leader Training
  • Change Sustainability Planning
  • Continuous Improvement Recommendations
  • Leadership Action Planning

STORYTELLING AS A SERVICE:

Unique to this client solution offering was the design, development and delivery of ‘change stories’. The purpose of the change stories was to partner with our client to tell their story as it related to the new manufacturing production system. Our goal was to capture the hearts and minds of client employees and managers resulting in change stories that represented the employee-base of each location. As a result, each change story would be prominently displayed at various plant locations company-wide.

At the completion of our engagement, 10% of plant employees and managers collaborated to understand the global production system vision and committed to making it relevant to their local plant. As a result, each plant location voted on the change story that best represented their personal journey. In total, eight change stories were developed in the form of poster boards, videos, photo albums and even a creative poem penned by a plant employee. These stories were displayed throughout each plant and served as a visual reminder of “why” and “how” the new production system was transforming their company.

The table below represents double-digit growth when comparing survey results at the inception and conclusion of the client engagement. And while we are pleased with the results from our Storytelling as a Service approach and delighted with the business outcomes, we could not have anticipated the energy, collaboration, partnership and passion of the employees and leaders who volunteered to tell their stories using various medium. This engagement inspired employees and leaders to write the next chapters of their own personal change stories; stories that will live on within each plant location for many years to come…

CARA / CLIENT ENGAGEMENT RESULTS: (Comparing Survey Data Between Sep, ’19 and Feb, ‘20)

Client Engagement Survey Metric* Post CARA Engagement Results
Employee ability to CONTRIBUTE to new production system success + 45%
CONFIDENCE that the new production system was the right approach + 34%
AGGREGATE SURVEY scores between pre-engagement and post-engagement + 30%
Employee INVOLVEMENT in new production system success + 21%
Perception that new production system would improve client COMPETITIVENESS + 18%
Perception that new production system will improve product QUALITY + 10%

*Results provided represent a subset of outcomes achieved

For more information on CARA’s 6D Solutions Framework, our Storytelling as a Service model or for insight into the 13 indices we measured for this client engagement, please contact us at marketing@thecaragroup.com.

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