We have the ambition to create a tool that provides micro-learning to train cognitive biaises. Today we have a prototype. Last spring, we had only a vision to lead us. As told in a previous post, one of my colleague detected a need in an industry and an opportunity for us to create a new tool. He gathered a small team and invited us for a kickoff meeting. We were all motivated. How could we proceed?

During the kickoff, we jolted ideas around, and used sticky notes to draw the project. It was important that we all had a common understanding of the tool we wanted to create. This kickoff meeting was also the moment when we created a team spirit and built personal commitment.

Ownership, responsibility and role

As motivated as I was to play my part, I needed to understand how I could contribute to the project and how much time it would involve. We started by writing down the outputs we expected from the meeting. The expectations were various.

Our expectations for the kickoff meeting

Kevin expected us to take ownership. The initial idea came to him and he wrote a paper about it. He expected us to work as a team and take ownership. This is what he means by ‘Co-sign Whitepaper'.

To me ownership meant responsibility. The moment I commit to a project means that I stop saying ‘Kevin's idea' or ‘Kevin decided' or ‘Kevin meant'. I start saying ‘we think', ‘we decided'. It also means that I committed myself to play my part, make time to work on the project.

I needed to understand, the role that I would play, in other words how, with my competences I would contribute to the project. This is expressed as ‘Where do I position myself?' From the beginning we are a multidisciplinary team. We have learnt to contribute with our respective skills. Understanding my role leads to better planning. If I understand my tasks and how I relate to the other team members, I can organise my agenda and be available when I am needed.

During this meeting we also decided how we would communicate about the project to our stakeholders', which at this point, were internal. We finally defined the next steps and decided the content of the next workshop.

Map the idea – understanding with drawing

We were sitting down, listening to Kevin. Sitting around a table is so limiting! Ideas cannot express themselves, they keep eluding and the energy slowly runs low. We couldn't see what Kevin was explaining. After a moment of deep concentration, I tend to relax a bit, which means that I am not being this concentrated. At some point, we were all running low on energy. Thus we started drawing.

White walls are a blessing. Someone starts drawing and you can add up your idea, then everyone can see and add his/hers.

It started with a sketch, and step by step it became like a map. A map of the idea, where we could navigate, see the stakeholders, start apprehending who we needed to talk to, what we needed to understand, what remains unclear, what is our role, our strengths and weaknesses.

Let your team take ownership by drawing together the idea.

It very much looks like this: drawing, talking and gesturing. When you stand, the flow of ideas wraps you up and before you realize it, you are ‘in it', you take ownership and you belong. You stand and draw together. It has nothing to do with sitting and looking at someone talking, you are part of it.

Our drawing got more complex while our understanding of the situation got clearer.

Be kind to your blue side and deal with uncertainties

Have you ever heard of the DISC assessment? That test attributes colors to people after a test. I never took it myself, but I often heard some friends refer jokingly to it. When they refer to the ‘blue colleague', they talk about his preciseness, attention to detail and his capacity to be systematic. As I started this project, I realised that part of me, that I will call my ‘blue side' backed off, because it was unconvinced. My blue part tends to refrain the overly enthusiastic and risky part (I don't know the color of this side yet ;-)

In other words, during this meeting, my blue side realized that there is a huge part of unknown in this project. When you start an innovation project, you have to be aware of the fact that some uncertainty and risk will always be present. During my studies and work life, I have been trained to try to avoid mistakes and evaluate risk. I usually try to have a fairly good idea of the success I expect  from my actions before I perform them. Starting an innovation process is the contrary of this. It is jumping in the unknown and imagining something that does not exist… yet. You need to be open-minded and accept the risk and unknown.

To conclude: we mapped the project and I accepted the probability to fail

It was time for me to accept that mistakes are part of the game and to come to terms with the probability of failing. An innovation process is made of ups and downs, test, success, mistakes and iteration. The risk is part of the game.

During this first meeting, we mapped the project and the stakeholders It gave us the necessary common grounds to start working together. To draw the project allowed us to clearly see the expertise we needed. We planned the next steps and organized the first workshop where we would invite other experts. The project had officially started.

This quote from Albert Einstein resonates to me like the perfect antithesis to most of the Learning Management Systems that I've seen up to now. In terms of technology and functionalities they are perfect, but there is no experience, no emotion when you use them. They deliver the exact opposite of what learners expect: they deliver just information.

But how can we deliver an experience through a Learning Management System?

Your LMS is more than a simple tool, it's an environment. For your learners it is their Learning Environment. Think of this environment from their perspective: how they learn, what they expect, how they interact with this environment. These type of questions can open endless opportunities to improve their digital learning experience. Below you can find 5 simple steps that will guide you in this new journey.

Step 1 : Create the vision

Before thinking of what your produ

our choices being for the prioritization of the features, tools to integrate as part of your solution or partners you would like to have building this solution for you.   

Step 2: Identify your stakeholders and understand them

Stakeholders

Your stakeholders do not restrain themselves to your learners. Anyone that will have an impact on your environment or is going to be interact directly or indirectly with it, has to be considered. Any of the stakeholder can bring a different piece for your solution: a need or a constraint. Get to know them, understand what are their hopes, pains and influence. Knowing as many as you can, helps you have a complete overview of how your solution could best satisfy them.

Step 3: Design their experience

The experience your learner will have using your solution will be key for its adoption and ultimately its success. Beyond the learning material, assignments and any other feature your solution will bring, the design is the part that can bring emotion and facilitate the learning process. “Small” things like the colors, the font, the amount of information display at once or intuitive structure can change everything. Intuitive and smooth use can move your learner mindset from “another ugly and technical tool that we have to use” to “amazing learning experience”.

Step 4: Formulate your requirements

At this point you have two important pieces of the final puzzle: the needs and constrains your solution have to satisfy and the way your solution can satisfy them. In order to get things done, you need to formulate all of them into requirements.

A requirement captures a comprehensible representation of a need or a constraint. You can for example use User Stories to formulate your stakeholders needs and constraints into requirements.

Step 5: Define your project

You have to start your project before the project starts. Hum… that's a strange statement… In fact, not so strange. Before starting building up a team and start working on your project, you need to properly define it. Why? So that: the sponsor supports you, the project team understand want needs to be done and the users know that to expect at the end.

The sponsor may have a budget that can cover only partially everything you imaged during the four first steps, so you need to prioritize.

Needs and requirements may change, so you need to know how you want to handle it. Little hint over here: Agile Requirement Management and development could help you.

To conclude

These five steps may seem simple but they are essential. At the start of a project, you should always take the time to carefully define what you want to achieve. It order to support you in the definition of your perfect digital learning environment, I will provide an in-depths explanation of each steps.