By Shelley A. Gable
How often have you encountered eLearning packed with
information, yet lacks an outlet to apply that new knowledge in a meaningful
way?
Designing eLearning around problems that learners encounter
on the job can help avoid this pitfall. Scenario-based
training prompts learners to solve problems they will encounter on the job,
helping to ensure we prepare them to perform their jobs successfully.
Branching scenarios can simulate many workplace problems
especially well. In a branching
scenario, an eLearning slide might only provide the start of a situation.
Perhaps the first segment of a conversation or an initial glimpse into a
problem. Based on the information available, learners choose their next step
from a few options provided. And instead of giving them feedback
like “correct” or “incorrect,” their choice takes them to a slide that
describes the next segment of the scenario...a segment that’s a direct
consequence of the option they chose. The scenario continues like this, over a
series of a few slides, until learners reach an outcome.
Here’s how I approach drafting a branching scenario…
--1-- Identify a scenario.
This step likely seems obvious; however, depending on the
scope of your training, it warrants some thought. Of the array of situations
your training needs to prepare learners for, do a few seem especially worthy of
developing into branching scenarios? Perhaps it makes sense to focus on
situations that learners will encounter most frequently. Or, situations that
tend to challenge newbies the most.
Additionally, I’m most likely to use branching scenarios for
situations that require a series of judgment-based decisions and where the
consequences of a decision are immediately evident.
--2-- Identify
outcomes.
On the job, what range of outcomes is typical for the
situation?
For instance, a sales scenario might have three typical
outcomes: the customer accepts the sale (successful outcome), the customer
decides to “think about it” (partially successful), or the customer declines
the offer (unsuccessful).
Alternatively, depending on the business result you are
targeting, a sales scenario might have typical outcomes more like this: the
customer buys the deluxe package (successful outcome), the customer buys the
basic package (partially successful), or the customer declines the offer (unsuccessful).
--3-- Flowchart the steps
and decisions that lead to the most successful outcome, based on observed
behavior of exemplary performers.
To identify the decisions that lead to the successful
outcome, I like to ask
clients to walk me through the steps and decisions they’ve observed in
their best employees. This usually results in a linear set of steps from the
scenario’s starting point to the successful outcome.
--4-- Flowchart the
decision points and decisions that most directly lead to an unsuccessful
outcome, based on common mistakes of novices.
Next, I ask clients to walk me through the steps and less
optimal decisions they’ve observed in less experienced employees. This usually
results in a separate set of steps from the scenario’s starting point to the
unsuccessful outcome.
An important tip here is to specifically prompt clients to
recall the less optimal decisions they’ve actually observed. In other words,
I’m not asking them to think of possible incorrect decisions someone might
make…I’m asking for the incorrect decisions people actually have made. This
helps keep the scenarios realistic. And hopefully, learners who slip into
common mistakes during training will remember the consequences presented in the
scenario, helping them to remember how to avoid those mistakes
on the job.
--5-- Review the
flowchart and identify realistic opportunities where a learner may be able to
recover from a bad decision to get back on the “successful” path (or move from
an “unsuccessful” path to the “partially successful” path).
In most situations in life, an initial bad decision doesn’t
doom you to be unsuccessful in an endeavor. In real life, when the consequence
of a decision shows you that you’ve made the wrong choice, you may be able to
correct the situation with better decisions and still succeed. This is what I
try to tackle next when outlining a branching scenario – where these crossovers
can occur between the various paths.
--6-- If a middle
outcome exists (e.g., “partially successful” or something similar), flowchart
the path to that.
Often, I find that creating the “partially successful” path
doesn’t require adding decision points to a scenario. Sometimes, it simply
results from a different path among the steps charted previously.
What’s your approach?
If you’ve designed branching scenarios for eLearning, how
did you figure out the branching paths?
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