Master Client Interviews
Responsibilities: Instructional Design, eLearning Development, Graphic Design
Target Audience: IT Project Managers, Technical Leads and Engineers
Tools Used: Articulate Storyline, Twine
Budget: Medium
Overview
Project managers, technical leads, and IT engineers at a multi-national IT company are often required to conduct client interviews in order to:
build a relationship with the client
determine the needs of the client
assess technical requirements and scope of the project
assemble a project team
Most of the time, they need to do this efficiently in a context of too few resources—too little time, staff, facilities, and money. Often, they are expected to produce reports or make decisions quickly based on their interviews. This can be a challenging process for many IT professionals who might lack interviewing skills.
I proposed a scenario-based eLearning experience that would allow for the IT managers to make real-world decisions across the course of a typical client interview.
Action Map
As part of the needs analysis for this project I conducted research to identify what the existing practices are and what behaviour changes are desired. I used the results of my research to write the following learning objectives:
Recognise the four main aims of client interviews
Develop key client interview questions
Collect, evaluate, and utilise information to make informed decisions
Based on my analysis (including conversations with SMEs and project managers), I created a list of mistakes or errors people could make.
I then used Twine to create a few scenarios with different consequences based on the choices the learners make.
Visual Storyboard
After several iterations on the content of the scenario, I created a visual storyboard.
Development
I began development by creating the main branch (success path). After the main branch was built, I focused on two alternative paths (one leading to an acceptable outcome and one leading to failure). I built multiple points where the learner would be able to return to the "success path" after making a mistake.
Takeaways
This project was a great opportunity for me to create learning experiences that simulate real-life situations. By taking the branching scenario-based approach I was able to incorporate the principles of adult learning theories into my instructional design:
Adults need to know why they should learn something
They want to know how learning will help them specifically
They bring prior knowledge and experience that form a foundation for their learning