Introduction
I currently work for a company called GP Strategies Corporation (GP). Companies around the world hire GP to assist with services such as business consulting, learning & training development, and technology implementation and adoption.
Overview of the Service
I have been employed with GP for a little over two years now as an interface between GP and one of GP's clients. Based on my experience within my contract, GP offers many valuable services to different departments within our client's company.
In my role specifically, I see the finished outcomes of the project(s) and use the learning and training materials that are created through internal GP processes created for their clients. Recently I have sought to learn the service processes GP offers (i.e., training and learning solutions). I want to learn more about what the ideal plans GP’s instructional designers and client project managers are seeking and the process for researching challenges, designing, and developing solutions, testing these solutions, and the process for updates and changes.
GP Strategies takes pride in following the design thinking process to empathize with their clients and define pain points and challenges. They have demonstrated the ability to ideate and create solutions, design prototypes of potential solutions and test these solutions.
Agile vs Waterfall Method in GP Strategies processes.
Challenge
I spoke to several instructional designers who work in many different client contracts. I reviewed their processes to understand more about their procedure for in-taking projects and the step-by-step process to complete the project. While reviewing these processes, I noticed one issue. GP had issues with their project intake process with their clients to understand the needs and objectives they wanted to discover.
While observing, one of the patterns I started to see in their service process is the team started migrating to a more agile project management methodology rather than a waterfall approach. Unfortunately, this transition was not going smoothly nor was everyone adapting to this method both within the GP Strategies side and their client's side.
The waterfall method works as a serial system that requires the team to complete each phase of the project before moving on to the next milestone. However, the agile method encourages the team to work in parallel on different phases of the project. The team identified that they struggle with the initial project-intake stages involving conversations with clients to understand their needs and challenges.
An example of a project GP Strategies was working on was a Customers Sales and Service (CSS) program with one of their clients. This program was designed and developed for their client to have resources for gathering data and creating content to drive leads for their company. The client's team met with the GP Strategies team believing their issue was that they needed training to understand how to use the resources in the CSS program. For several months, they had multiple meetings discussing training ideas and materials for the GP Strategies team to focus on designing training materials for the CSS program. Unfortunately, the GP Strategies team and the client realized their need was not training but communication and CSS program awareness. There was no set process and plan the team was following. There was a lack of communication of the needs and challenges as well as insufficient time management.
To improve GP's workflow for the services they offer to their clients, the goal is to research to understand how to design a more efficient process that will improve project intake, time management, identify the needs of the client, and improve customer satisfaction.
It was important to get a better understanding of their project intake process. What were the GP’s team steps to understand their client's needs, organize, research, start the design process of completing the project. Another goal would be to work with the team to incorporate the agile method and slowly redirect their team away from the waterfall method.
Expected Benefits:
Better communication between stakeholders and the organization regarding needs rather than only wants.
Have a clear understanding of expectations and timeline of completion.
Prototypes and samples are created throughout the process rather than completing the entire project all at once. This will improve time management and speed up the time between projects.
Offer a process open to agile methods, completing tasks as able to, reducing the waterfall method.
Create a service that is more usable, efficient, and effective.
Design a process that is easy to follow for all steps and all project roles.
Client Journey Map
Business Client (customer) Journey Map. Pre-contract Signup.
Business Client (customer) Journey Map. Onboarding and project process
Service Audit
Specific categories for this audit:
Customer Actions – What do customers do during the service experience?
Frontstage – What do customers see and who are the GP Strategies employees they interact with in this process?
Backstage – What actions do GP Strategies employees take? This includes preparations or responsibilities customers do not see but make the service possible.
Overview of the Process
Customer Actions:
Customer Actions:
Customers may do their own research on GP Strategies website.
Reach out to GP Strategies directly via email or form online from the GP website.
Word of mouth and talk to other colleagues from other departments within their business about GP Strategies (if the company has worked with GP Strategies in the past).
Frontstage:
Customers connect with GP Strategies via meetings to understand services needed, research opportunities, and any other support the company may want to focus on to improve their company business.
During the stages, GP Strategies will reach out to business clients to discuss the progress of the process using a waterfall method between each process portion.
Meetings to go over content, research findings, and final plans.
Backstage:
GP Strategies conducts the research, designs strategies, and creates content as needed.
GP Strategies team consists of an account manager, instructional designers (ISD), content designers, and a project manager.
Ethnographic Research
To understand GP Strategies as a corporation, I did some research on the history of the company. Some key findings:
GP Strategies was originally founded as a patent exchange company.
The company focused on sciences, engineering, medicine, and new technologies.
The founders were too ambitious while developing the company. They were interested in too many categories and subcategories to invest in for patents. This caused a lot of ups and downs in the company stocks throughout the early stages of the company's development.
Though there were three founders, Jerome Feldman contributed the most to the development of GP Strategies Corporation.
GP Strategies is the only company remaining active to this day.
Field Study
The purpose of this plan is to strategize the best location to observe GP Strategies in an in-person training session. GP Strategies has had in-person training and learning development for decades. The purpose is to see where to bridge gaps between in-person and online training methods to improve the overall experience. Field Study Observation both Online and In Person for the same training session. Observations will be on:
Training Material.
Engagement and Participation of trainees and trainers.
Purpose and Goals of the Research Study
Learn and compare GP Strategies training online vs in person.
Compare GP and client trainers with online training vs in-person.
Discover ways to improve engagement for participants in training.
Understand how to improve processes to develop and design learning/instructional materials.
Persona
User Profile (Characteristics of Target Participants for Research):
Trainee Participants have been in the workforce for 1-4 years.
Between the ages of 21-35.
Common Traits and Backgrounds: Communication/Marketing/Sales background.
Expectations On Delivery Time:
Five to seven business days
Online training Thursday, April 13, 2023.
In-person training Tuesday, April 18, 2023.
Expectations and roles
Trainees: GP Account Managers
GP Strategies: Trainers, SMEs, Coordinators
Site Visit and Observation Questions To Consider
• How does GP training differ from online training?
• Is in-person training more sufficient than online training? If so, what strategies could we take to improve online training? (Online training is essential for today's remote team).
• Where could improvements be in the design process for creating the training curriculum?
• How can we bridge gaps and avoid the waterfall method while going to the agile method of designing curriculum?
• For the training curriculum that is out live, what are some pain points that need to be addressed once live for the client employees?
• How would we execute the agile way process to fix these training gaps when updating the pain points in the training curriculum?
Key Findings From Observation
• Utilizing tools like Teams, is not an easy way to conduct training, especially in larger groups. Groups of less than 30-40 participants are easier to manage. Consider other software built more for online training communications.
• It was difficult to be engaged with live training without materials to follow along for a hands-on experience.
• Smaller online training sessions of 30-40 people online, help make things easier to engage with trainers and teammates.
• Online training has a recording for future reference for new hires and to refer to if needed in the future.
• Software beta test was not working at the capabilities for everyone to use at once. This became an issue difficult to follow along and complete practice tests.
• Not enough trainers/SMEs to answer questions.
• Both online training and in-person training were more engaging with follow-along instructions and smaller groups (30-40 participants).
• In person had much more opportunity to speak to software trainers from third-party teams and GP and client representatives than online training participants.
KPIs & Service Scorecard
For GP Strategies' learning and training development, the core business goals are:
For relations with business clients: design and develop E-learning/training content for business clients that improves the overall satisfaction of the team and education on important items within the company.
For GP internal processes: adjust instructional designers and other departments and teams to adapt to the agile methodology for completing tasks.
For GP Strategies to assess if they are accomplishing these goals and/or seeing challenges, the following KPIs will be measured throughout a project from start to completion. For these KPIs, GP and the business client will look for behaviors such as motivation to complete training (e.g., how long does it take the employee to complete a training course after opening) and responses and feedback after completing the training.
Job performance Impact - This would be a longer-term study that will be monitored over 24 months after the employee completes the training. This measurement will help understand if the business clients' employees are utilizing the materials from the training curriculum within their job performance. Information GP Strategies will track information.
After employees complete training modules
How many employees received internal certifications after completing the training?
Schedule and participate in employee performance reviews where both the business client and employee discuss accomplishments, challenges, and career path options (GP can only participate in this point if they are more involved with the business client internally). If GP is more behind the scenes, alternative strategies will be planned for measuring metrics).
Analyze data of tasks completed that use training content in a task management tool such as Salesforce, Monday, and Asana. This will also help keep management and employees organized and be able to view the quality of work completed.
GP and business clients will assess overall company performance through each quarter and overall year as employees complete training.
Course Completion Rate - GP will track how many employees complete the training. In this category, we will be mindful of training attendance rate, how long it takes to complete the training when they complete the training (within a timeframe that is assigned to them), and post-training assessment results.
A questionnaire with multiple choice and open-ended questions to see if employees retain information. Upon completing the questionnaire, they receive a certification.
Timelines will be tracked with the learning and training software to see how often employees log in and how long it takes to complete modules and entire coursework.
Learner Satisfaction Rate - Once GP Strategies can see who has completed the training curriculum, a survey will go out to employees. Employees will fill out these surveys anonymously. The purpose would be to understand the employee's experience during the training and gain insights on anything that was working well or any difficulties.
After completing the necessary training, other optional training and learning development courses will be available. GP and business clients will track how often those courses are being clicked and if employees complete other training courses. This helps get an understanding of what employees are interested in learning.
GP will also measure learner satisfaction rate based on business clients’ needs being fulfilled. GP Strategies will send out the satisfaction surveys to business clients' point of contact to gather feedback on learning and development processes. Depending on the contract, the business client and GP may meet up monthly to analyze data together. This also helps GP understand if moving to the agile method of completing projects is:
1. Working for their team.
2. If they are adapting to the process effectively or need to produce other strategies.
The training that is designed and developed within GP Strategies for business clients remains in the client's internal intranet and will be updated as needed based on feedback from these KPIs.
GP Strategies is adapting to the agile methodology for completing their project processes with their business clients. To assess if adapting to this method is successful, GP will collect data and measure these KPIs.
Quality of service meets clients’ standards - Throughout the process, GP Strategies will collaborate with clients to understand client standards. To measure if their services align with their business client’s standards, surveys, and check-in calls will be scheduled throughout the process of the project to understand the overall satisfaction status of the client.
Error Rate - The GP Strategies team will monitor any behaviors where there are miscommunications with the business clients that will lead to errors on projects. The team will assess how often in projects they need to start over or how frequently steps in a process get pushed back due to challenges. GP Strategies will also assess how these errors may be prevented in the future.
Labor Productivity - GP Strategies will gather data to understand how long projects take overtime to complete utilizing the agile method vs the waterfall method.