You Need it When?

"Would you be willing to present the topic of Manage Assignments at the department meeting on Friday? Our goal is help staff understand how time reporting effects their utilization. I want to empower staff so they feel more in control of their own time reporting and assignments. Show them how they can figure out these four metrics....blah, blah, blah...."

Okay, I can do that, I thought to myself. By Friday, hmmm... Do I even know how to Manage Assignments? Let me take a look. Hmmm.... no not really. I think I'll need to walk through lots of steps but I only have five minutes to present the topic. This probably isn't going to be my best work. I would like to have this be a hands on session and at least thirty minutes. How staff are managing assignments today? Are they even aware of this functionality in the system? Maybe they know an easy way to manage their assignments. Where do I start? Hmmm....

Breathe...
I have five days to develop this. I can do it. Break it down.

First Step: Learn the functionality. - Found a handy short cut.

Step Two: Document steps knowing that five minutes is much too brief a time frame to effectively deliver this content to 150 users. - Ready step by step process hand out, to be posted on the Intranet immediately after the presentation.

Step Three: Review current level of task competence with a cross section of users. - None were familiar with the functionality. Ground zero level of competence.

Step Four: Ask user to walk through the task without my intervention to understand ability to assimilate the process for completing the task. - Able to complete after initial review with two or fewer interventions. Topic relatively easy to assimilate but a handout will definitely support the effort.

Step Five: Update Documentation to reflect initial user experience. - Revised.

Step Six: Present the task completion process to several individuals to gage understanding of material presented. - Feeling more comfortable with my ability to deliver a refined presentation in simple terms.

Step Seven: Ask for documentation review and make final updates. - Develop email to department and send when document has been posted.

Step Eight: Deliver content during Department Meeting and post handout. - Done - Phew!

Step Nine: Follow-up with users to gage level of understanding. - People are using the functionality and asking questions about additional functionality.

Lessons Learned:

As I neared completion of the above process, I realized many of the steps that I had been completing were those described in Dick and Cary's Model of instructional design. Wow, I was doing it as prescribed. I also reflected on how the process of instructional design in business, in many cases, can be abbreviated when compared to the same process in academia.

In business, when there's an immediate need to deliver content that may be impacting operations, designers simply do. It was actually a luxury to have the input of users to understand current level of competence with the task. It was interesting, and at some level empowering, to apply the concepts to authentic real-world learning. Each application will lead me closer to my course goal of being apply to think in terms of instructional design models and options when facing with a described situation and deciphering the language of instructional design.