Engaging with stakeholders to ensure relevance of learning

Ensuring relevance of learning is without a doubt the single most important thing when designing/developing a course. Learners will simply not be able to gain anything from a course if it does not cater to what the learner wants to achieve. Relevancy in a course can be achieved by accurately determining course requirements (what is covered in the course and how the course will be done) and stakeholder expectations (how a learner wants to learn, how do they like to get feedback, course duration, medium, depth etc.) and then meeting them to the maximum extent possible.

However due to a combination of situations, constraints and stakeholder demands this is easier said than done.


The technique that I have used to make learning relevant is to gather as much information as possible from as many stakeholders (managers, learners, SME, customers etc.) as possible. Now given the short production times I am not always able to get as much info as I would like to have but I always try to get as much info as I can. This tells me what I need to build, how I should build it and what direction I should take when building it. Simply put the more I know the better informed I am about what is likely to work.


As I get this information, I start putting all of it under different categories in an excel sheet (word could also work but excel is better). I put the main headings, limitations, strengths, what has and has not worked in the past and their reasons. Then I put all relevant details under these headings. Doing so gives me an aerial view of where things are in both broad and detailed terms. This tool is also massively helpful if I want to run things by my manager or other stakeholders


I got in the habit of doing this because I have developed projects in the past where I was told by the manager of the department regarding what needs to be built and which areas I needed to cover. However, after doing user acceptance testing and other evaluations there was always something missing. So, starting about three years back I started questioning people about a whole range of aspects related to the course development, formally where possible and informally otherwise. Some examples of the questions that I asked were along the lines of…….


• What is according to you the biggest factor that is affecting performance of this team?

• What things would you like to see in the training program that would ensure its effectiveness?

• What would you say are the things that reduced the effectiveness of the training program in the past?

• (Giving an example of the one of the things to be included in the course as per the departmental manager) – What are your thoughts on including this aspect?

• If you could change one thing about the previous course, what would that be?

• (To the manager) Why do you think the previous course failed to meet its objectives?

• (To the team member) How do you prefer new information presented to you and what mode of training do you prefer

• (To the team member) Would you say that you would need additional resources and assistance, apart from the eLearning to help you perform better?


Asking these questions, I came to realise that what was relevant according to a manager was drastically different to what was relevant from an employee perspective. A point of caution – this approach requires some diplomacy and careful presentation as some insecure or arrogant managers may not appreciate this approach. However, after collecting all the information and putting stakeholder responses on the excel sheet and comparing all the information and quotes, I started to see things in a holistic manner. This information helped me in identifying the training method favored by most employees and also what is and is not likely to work. This information also helped to identify how the training needs to be supported and whether an elaborate eLearning course needs to be built or a simple checklist is all that is required.


Bottomline is instead of making glorified guesswork regarding how to make a course that would appeal to most learners and be engaging for them - why not just ask the people (management and team members). Far too often we learning designers fall into the trap of relying on management input regarding what sort of course is required. Now if management is well aware of learning styles, constraints and issues faced by the frontline team member then this can very well work. However, in my experience that is rarely the case. What is a lot more likely is that a management or HR (even worse) representative who think they know what is required and will provide the course brief to the learning designer. The end result – a course will be built and will have snazzy graphics and sometimes even breathtaking animation or some other ooh-aah points that will again fail to improve performance to the desired standards.


In the learning design business, we always talk about how it is important to ensure that course is engaging and relevant for the learners and then without missing a beat go on and develop courses without getting an input from the people for whom we are building the course! Relevancy means different things to different people so why not ask relevant people (Team members) what is relevant for them and then make a course keeping all the information provided by them in mind. That is one way how relevant learning can be provided.