The business world moves fast, and organizations need to keep up with the pace of change. When new strategies disrupt operations or innovations alter business models, your workforce needs to swiftly pick up capabilities that allow the organization to execute, compete and win. But traditional learning design approaches are slow, linear and struggle to meet rapidly evolving skill requirements. Extended development cycles drain time and resources while leading to learning solutions that address yesterday’s skill gaps - not tomorrow’s needs.
That’s why more learning teams are adopting agile frameworks like design thinking, lean methodology and rapid prototyping to accelerate and iterate learning design. These approaches allow you to quickly gather user insights, ideate solutions, and validate concepts with end users, reducing waste by failing fast and pivoting when ideas don’t connect with learner needs.
The Challenges with Traditional Learning Design
Before exploring agile learning techniques, it’s useful to diagnose the shortcomings of conventional linear design that agile approaches aim to resolve:
Lengthy Needs Assessments: Traditional front-end analysis like skills gap assessments can take 3-6 months, meaning data is outdated by the time solutions are ready.
Overstuffed Design Documents: Big design docs spell out every learning detail upfront, leaving little room for flexibility as needs shift.
Long Lead Times: Handoffs between specialized functions with further review cycles mean long lag times before build.
Massive Initial Releases: Traditional design builds fully-featured courses, curriculums or programs right out the gate rather than iterative releases.
Lack of Validation: Solutions get pushed out without evidence they’ll achieve outcomes or resonate with user needs.
Minimal User Input: Little emphasis on learner testing and feedback during development means solutions are designed for users, not with them.
By the time traditionally designed learning interventions are ready, the skills gap may have changed altogether. Agile approaches help resolve these pain points through rapid prototyping.
Agile Learning Design Frameworks
While agile learning design may seem less structured at first, implementing core methodologies can focus rapid prototyping efforts:
Design Thinking: Immersive upfront user research maps learner personas, needs and the operational context to guide solution prototypes. Design sprints rapidly build and test concepts with users through minimum viable products. Examples like Stanford's dSchool framework provide tested models.
Lean Methodology: Small, cross-functional teams use "Build-Measure-Learn" cycles to swiftly build prototypes aimed at maximum learning value. User data and feedback refine solutions through continuous measurement and learning. Principles like minimizing waste and optimizing for speed help focus efforts.
Rapid Prototyping: Release incomplete but functional "Minimum Viable Products" quickly to elicit user feedback for rapid enhancement rather than wait for polished products. Consistent scoring rubrics can quantitatively assess iterative solution improvements.
Digital Technologies: Leverage cloud-based authoring tools, apps, multimedia and modern web capabilities to compress production timelines while still providing engaging learner experiences.
Agile Learning Design in Action
As an example, Gap Inc. adopted agile learning design to rapidly upskill retail employees on customer experience changes during a major brand relaunch. By leveraging design thinking principles and digital tools to prototype experiential store learning scenarios with employee input, the learning team created immersive solutions and rolled out customized versions across regions in just 8 weeks - a fraction of traditional design cycles.
The Results with Agile Learning Design
While adopting true agile learning design requires a shift towards cross-functional collaboration, transparency and releasing a measure of control, the payoff is responsive solutions that evolve with changing business needs. Additional benefits include:
Accelerated Speed-to-Market
Reduced Wasted Efforts
Enhanced Innovation
Continuous Improvement Cycles
Increased Learner Engagement
For organizations that embrace it, agile learning unlocks workforce agility and a competitive edge in times of disruption through future-looking skill building powered by human-centric design.
Tomuz Academy
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