What an amazing learning experience to work through a real business problem that resulted in prototyping a digital learning solution. As I reflect back on the last eight weeks of my academic journey within LRNT527, I am thankful for the immersive experience of working through the design thinking process. Having the opportunity and support to elevate my understanding through the various stages of design thinking: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test in context of a real instructional design project I’m working on, New Employee On-boarding Program, has brought an additional layer of considerations and human connectedness that were brushed over, muted and at times lacking from the basic model I follow within ADDIE.
The opportunities to really connect with end users and hear, observe and empathize that will be impacted by what I chose to design and implement was immensely enriching and further clarifying especially as it came to issues and solutions that were not even a considered by our learning an development team.
The transition from the empathy interviews to really concertizing, synthesizing and confirming what is we are trying to solve was revolutionary. Trying out techniques like the Point of View (POV) and How Might We (HMV) to re-frame the challenge in to actionable statements was rewarding and really enabled us to shift to ideating and populating limitless and boundless ideas.
Lastly to be able to create and begin building a digital learning resource in the prototype phase to help make it things come to reality was encouraging, as ideas began to come to fruition for the new employee on-boarding program and acclimation, socialization phase.
As I reflect back on the rigor and accelerated timelines, I was proud to have accomplished what I had within the 8 weeks. It took good planning and persistence at times with colleagues in the workplace to execute all the one on one interviews, as well as the design thinking workshops, however it was achieved, with a result of some great ideas, participation, and early adaption and buy in, along with a collective sense of ownership to a successful new employee on-boarding experience.
In addition here are some additional reflections based on feedback from my instructor and peers that were also considered, valued and truly appreciated.
What was the most surprising thing that you learned by participating in the design thinking process and designing and developing your digital learning resource?
How easy it is to get trapped in the mindset as an instructional designer and expert in the field of adult education, that you know the answers and the solutions. It may seem to be quicker to be exclusive within your learning and development team to deliver on learning solutions, however the POWER of having not just subject matter experts, but end users and those in the extreme pockets to participate and engage in the process is so revealing to what we have not or could not have considered in isolation on our own. To really demonstrate empathy, empowers a level of willingness to share and be vulnerable to be expressive from our end users. It is such a critical part to moving on to design and developing the digital learning resource.
What suggestions and improvements did you receive? Did you get any feedback that you did not expect? What feedback needs further investigation?
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- Further consideration around what specifically happens after 90 days as the cohort graduates and moves on. How can the SLACK discussions and resources and all the richness be accessible and perhaps further leveraged for future cohorts or even shared among cohorts that are starting in the same quarter but different times.
- What if there is a lack of participation during the pre on-boarding phase. What kind of expectations are created and expected of the new hires, who actually have not yet started officially and may also be winding down with their previous employer. How would other peers in the cohort perceive that?
- Giving individuals more choice to either post their introduction via video or in written format, enabling those that may be less digitally savvy or reserved to have alternative options to posting their introduction.
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What are the next steps you would like to take to build upon your digital learning resource?
I will be making changes based on the feedback received, as well as continue to build out further what day one, week one and future activities and posts would be on SLACK as it relates to ACCLIMATE – SOCIALIZATION. From there I will start to look the other 2 elements of ACCLIMATE, which are administration and organizational philosophy and use of the DLR Slack.
How you might utilize the design thinking process for the design and creation of digital learning resources in the future, or for other tasks that you may encounter within your instructional context.
I intend to overlay Design Thinking with the use of the ADDIE Model. Currently when we are in the Analysis, Design. Development, Implementation and Evaluation phases for instructional design, we leverage subject matter experts at certain times. However, I will start to embed tasks from design thinking and incorporate it within the ADDIE model to ensure we are also engaging end users into our design and development. Engaging in various types of activities to lean in to empathy, define, ideate, prototype and test offered up by Standford D.School.