In this article, my first for the Australian Flexible Learning Community, I want to focus on the issue of not only identifying the potential for e-learning projects in your organization or community but also convincing your boss to support it and eventually release the budget for it. (Note: there’s a freebie at the end of this article that you might like!)
At some time or another, I guess you would have gone through the experience of getting excited about a potential e-learning project (or any project) only to be put down by a stakeholder who could not see the potential you saw. This is a typical case of differing perspectives: you see performance gaps; she sees strategic factors.
I like to share a method that I’ve been using for a while, and which I’ve found to be effective in firstly, determining the performance gaps and relating them to strategic factors, and secondly, in communicating these findings to stakeholders. I should mention that the concept behind this method is borrowed heavily from W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne’s article: Your Company Strategy—In Pictures.
I will use the following scenario to explain this method: You are part of a technology support team, and for long have felt that e-learning can solve some of your department’s problems but have never managed to convince your boss about it.
Here’s how you could identify a possible project and convince your boss of its feasibility.
- Invite few people (3-4 will do) who you think really matter and form a group.
- Explain to your newly anointed members what you are after and the strategic inputs you expect from them.
- Brainstorm on the strategic factors that matter to your organization. For example, let’s say you’ve identified the following list of strategic factors:
- Number of requests
- Number of complaints
- Turnaround time
- Success rate
- Service quality
- Number of support staff
- Cost per incident
- Draw a chart with the above strategic factors on the X-axis and their value on the Y-axis. Now brainstorm and plot your current position for each of the strategic factors from the management’s point of view. See Figure 1.0.
- Next, brainstorm and plot the ideal position of each of the strategic factors (where they ought to be). See Figure 2.0. Your strategic gaps should immediately become visible.
- Now ask yourself: Can I use e-learning to bridge any of these gaps? If you find yourself getting to a “yes”, you most likely have identified your e-learning project.
- You can cycle through the steps many time till you are satisfied with the outcome, be it positive or negative.
- Once you’re done, thank your group members and give them some goodies.
- Now take a snapshot of your chart and write down the stories that were shared in the session.
- Make an appointment with your boss and ask for 10 minutes of her time. Explain the story behind the negatives in the chart (she’s not going to like this) and then suggest ways to turn them into positives (she’s going to love this), preferably for you, by using e-learning.
Note that at the end of this exercise, you and your boss are on the same map (pun intended): you still see the gaps, but now she sees the strategic factors!
Figure 1.0
Figure 2.0
I’m going to give you a simple software application developed in Macromedia Flash that provides you with an interactive platform to create the sort of chart that I’ve just explained. So, forget the drawing paper and whiteboards, just use your laptop. What’s more the application is free to download and use.
Although the interface is pretty intuitive to navigate, I would still advise you to go through the help section first. Also, you can always use the “Comments” feature to discuss with me.
Download Interactive Decision Object
This application is part of a broader effort known as Interactive Decision Objects, which I’ve been researching with some friends. You can read this article for more information.
Have fun and happy charting!
I’d like to mention the contribution of Ryan Yacyshyn and Patrick Lambe for their effort in developing the software.
