Paperless training: Create a custom digital learning programme for your law firm

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Three things you will learn from this Masterclass:

1. How to move to an integrated approach to digital learning
2. The key principles of digital learning design
3. How to allocate responsibility for a digital learning programme

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The only thing we know for sure about the future of the legal sector is that technology is going to play a much bigger role in how legal service providers operate than it has to date. Over the next year, with new competency-based regulatory requirements being rolled out by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in England and Wales, it’s a good opportunity for law firms to create high quality and customised continuing professional development (CPD) programmes.

A recent Managing Partner survey found that digital learning will be adopted by many UK law firms under the new CPD regime.¹ Two thirds (63 per cent) said they intend to use recorded videos/webinars, while a further 61 per cent said they will use live videos/webinars. The majority of respondents (60 per cent) said they expect to use a combination of internal and external L&D providers to produce their learning materials.

These circumstances make it an exciting time for learning and development professionals; the scope for innovation
and impact has never been greater.

Learning outcomes

Good training design involves having clarity about learning outcomes. All types of training, including digital learning, benefit from clarity of purpose at the design stage. Content and method of delivery are some of the last pieces
of the jigsaw when putting together
a high-quality training programme.
This is important to bear in mind
when choosing e-learning platforms.

Many e-learning solutions or tools look attractive because they are scalable and/or convenient to use. Keeping a clear focus on outcomes will help to guard against the temptation to buy an attractive learning tool before addressing the preliminary issues. It will also help to resist any pressure to merely use e-learning as a new way of presenting old-style didactic learning.

Digital learning strategy

An overall learning strategy, based on a robust training needs analysis in conjunction with a clear view of how learning can serve business goals, will provide a strong foundation from which to consider a variety of approaches to learning. Within the context of such a holistic approach, digital delivery can
add real value.

Skillsoft has developed a useful learning growth model which includes a staged approach to the evolution of your learning strategy (see Figure 1). In stages one and two, the approach allows for small ‘quick wins’ and experiments with digital learning to reach a greater number of learners. This can supplement and support specific initiatives and address formal training requirements. It also enables the L&D team to initiate an incremental approach to the transition to digital learning without feeling that they have to ‘boil the ocean’ and convert everyone and everything to a digital format all at once.

This iterative approach, in which experience of working with e-learning is developed in stages, should still fit within a strategic framework. For example, is the e-learning you want to buy compatible with your existing learning systems and does it enable you to capture and record the learning undertaken? One of the key advantages of digital learning is the ability to track return on investment (ROI), provided an informed approach is taken
at the outset.

Stage three is the first truly transformative phase. Having demonstrated the value of business-focused learning, buy-in from senior stakeholders becomes a realistic prospect. This phase places greater emphasis on building performance-orientated programmes and job competencies. It is in this stage that a learning team establishes clear and repeatable practices to target, align and measure the impact of learning.

To move into stages four and five, L&D teams must expand their expertise to drive a learning culture from within the business, spotting opportunities to generate organisational learning and enabling the sharing of knowledge and experience to flourish. Organisations that achieve these stages experience enhanced levels of productivity because their focus is on how much performance has improved. A sophisticated and integrated blend of informal and formal learning modes are aligned with business objectives and measured for business effect. It is in this phase that strategic goals for digital learning are likely to be realised.

Learning Design principles

Integrating digital learning into a training strategy requires a clear understanding of which types of learning activity are ideal to meet a given learning need. ‘Learning Design’ is an emergent practice which seeks to find ways to notate and capture learning processes, activities and delivery methods. It was devised to enable teachers and course designers to make more informed decisions about how to design learning activities and interventions which take advantage of developments
in learning theory and make best use
of technology.

When considering designing courses or learning events, a common mistake is to think about the information which needs to be taught and to design the course to deliver that content. But, as WB Yeats said, “education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire”. So, avoid filling your pail with content and instead focus
on setting alight a desire to learn.

Learning Design rejects learning that delivers ‘information dumps’ in favour of active, experiential learning. How we learn is predominantly experiential, as shown in Figure 2.

It follows that we should design learning around activity and experience. Different types of learning experiences
are facilitated by types of learning
activity, as Figure 3 demonstrates.

There may be only one activity in a particular learning session, or there may be a sequence of activities. A useful free tool for creating learning designs can be found at Learningdesigner.org to sequence learning activities using learning types.

Developing digital learning

It is easier to design digital learning if the learning strategy, desired outcomes and learning types are already well defined.
This allows L&D specialists to retain ownership of the process, rather than feeling that they are at the mercy of those whose knowledge of technology is more sophisticated than their own.

Different vendors of learning solutions use different types of learning development and design (such as Addie, Assure, Dick & Carey, Hannafin & Peck). However, all will follow an essential pattern from idea development to solution design to solution production. Variants in these processes will depend on the project, client and vendor.

Depending on the size of the project, roles will be spread across a number of disciplines to manage and produce the project. These roles are usually as follows.

Leadership roles

These are the people who will lead and deliver your project and keep it on track, within budget and scope.

• Account managers. Some firms will have account managers to perform all of the client relationship management.

• Project managers. Whether an internal or external project manager, you need somebody to take responsibility for managing the schedule, budget, quality and deliverables. You need somebody
  to efficiently coordinate and
  schedule the different disciplines
  and production phases.

• Learning technologist. Depending on the size of the project, you either want a learning technology specialist or someone with the skill set of a learning technologist who can ensure that learning design not only works for the learners but also, for example, is capable of being used on a range of devices or to ensure that learning materials integrate with learning management systems using learning technology integration standards.

Design roles

These are the people who will design the structure, look and feel of your course.

• Learning designer/ instructional design lead. This person will work closely with an L&D specialist to structure an activity flow and content flow for the project, sometime referred to as the learning architecture.

• Interaction/ UX designer. An interaction designer will ensure that the layout and function of the course solution works for the user. You may be using templates or rapid authoring; if so, this role will have been taken care of in the design of those templates.

• Graphic designer. This person will style the presentation layer of the project to create the look and feel
  of the digital learning solution.

Content development

These roles will research the content, share their knowledge and develop the details of the content flow using storyboards.

• Subject matter expert. This is usually somebody within the client company who has the domain knowledge of the area for which the training is being developed, who works closely with an instructional designer/writer to develop the course content.

• Instructional designer/writer. Writes the detailed content and designing activities as per the intentions of the learning designer, working with the subject matter expert to ensure accuracy of content. Sometimes the role is performed by the learning designer as well, depending on the scale of the project.

Additionally, you can also have transcribers, reviewers and proofreaders at this stage.

Content production

These people will produce the elements and develop the course from storyboards to online drafts.

• Developer/programmer. Depending on the learning solution, the programmer could develop the course using a rapid authoring tool, an enterprise learning content management system or specialist programming tools like JavaScript.

• Video/audio production. This can vary greatly in terms of roles, depending on the scale of the project and the type of video. Animation, interviews, reconstruction and simulation are all popular methods of digital learning, and production of these elements can require camera operators, video editors, animators, motion designers, sound editors and actors.

• Quality assurance. Solution testing
  the course is vital to ensure it works and has no bugs. This often incorporates a user testing group
  within the client organisation before
  the course is published.

 

Setting a budget

Budget allocation does not always
reflect where the best learning occurs. Contrary to prevailing norms in the legal sector, practical experience is a more effective way of learning than knowledge acquisition (see Figure 5). This offers
huge potential for learning in informal
day-to-day settings.

Technology offers the opportunity
to capture informal learning and recognise its value as a learning activity. A planned approach to learning design can integrate informal and formal learning, but this requires expertise and needs to be funded.

It is, therefore, important to ensure that sponsors and stakeholders understand these issues when considering training budget allocation. But, all too often, budgets are not allocated to the development of day-to-day learning opportunities.

Keeping it real

Having a well thought through and resourced plan to implement a digital learning strategy is a must for legal practices seeking to prepare their people for success in a rapidly-changing market. The opportunities which digital learning
can offer for scalable, interactive learning and assessment are significant.

Increasingly, the potential to
collaborate and generate new business ideas using digital platforms make digital learning highly attractive. As long as outcomes trump content, the quality of learning is likely to be high and will help to set up the firm’s lawyers to feel truly confident in declaring themselves competent to practise.

Jon Harman, director of learning
design at Honeyboot & Lemon
(www.honeybootlemon.com), was
formerly head of digital learning at
the University of Law. Nicola Jones, formerly a barrister, is an L&D specialist and director at Athena Professional
(www.athenaprofessional.co.uk).

Endnote

1. See ‘EXCLUSIVE: Lawyers to spend less time on L&D under new CPD regime’, Manju Manglani, Managing Partner,
Vol. 17 Issue 1, September 2014