Devlin Peck: [00:00:00] Right now, we’re doing a special series on, How to Become an Instructional Designer. We’ve compiled our most valuable content from interviews and question and answer sessions with top experts on how to become an ID, to help you launch your own thriving instructional design career. So let’s get started with Episode 2 in the series, where I talk with LXD manager Melissa Milloway about what she looks for in a potential hire, and what it’s like to manage her team at Amazon.
Devlin Peck: Hello, my friends. Hello, everybody. We have the amazing Melissa Milloway here today, and I am very excited for the session, as I know you all are. I'm going to give Mel a quick introduction for anyone who doesn't know who she is. You probably do, but just in case. Mel has been in the instructional design space for about a decade now, and she worked her way into high tech and got a job at Amazon about five years ago as a learning experience designer.
And after a couple of years doing that, she worked her way up into management. So now [00:01:00] she is a learning experience design manager. But I do want to show off some of her work because she does some really cool learning experience design work. So here is Mel's site. It's melslearninglab.com. If you haven't been here before and if you go over to her portfolio, you can see some really cool projects here.
So I know this is like, in a cool little like, affiliate site that Mel and her partner Thomas built, which is really cool. There's VR stuff in here where there's really nice UI designs in here. I have her Behance site up and you can see like, these UIs aren't what you typically see when you're looking at the work of learning designers like, this is like professional UI quality stuff.
Definitely check out some of Mel's work here from her site. And some of you may know her from the This Side Up newsletter on LinkedIn. It has a 65,000 subscribers, which is just like mind boggling to me so really good content here on [00:02:00] LinkedIn.
Just look up LinkedIn This Side Up and that's how I found it. Let's give Mel a warm welcome and yeah, we're going to have a good session here.
So thank you, Mel. I hope that introduction was sufficient. If there's anything you want to add to give context, feel free, but otherwise, we can start diving into some of these questions here.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah, let's, we can start diving into things. I think that's great. You did an amazing job at the introduction.
Devlin Peck: Why, thank you. Okay, cool. For anyone who doesn't know, we will be answering questions from our audience.
It looks like the question at the top right now is 'what is the workday like for a learning experience designer at Amazon?' So maybe we can take it as just a learning experience designer, and then as like a learning experience design manager. I think getting both of those perspectives would be really cool.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah, that's a really great question. And Devlin and I were just talking about this. So I've been at Amazon for about five years now, and it's absolutely crazy because I think in the global perspective, I've been there longer than 92% of people which is insane. And then, [00:03:00] and in Seattle alone, I think it's around almost 80%.
So I've been here longer than 80% in Seattle. And one of the things that's been interesting to me is I've had three different careers at Amazon in general. So when I first started at Amazon, I came into Amazon logistics and I got to be a part of launching same day delivery in San Francisco, which was really cool.
And I started as an instructional designer there and then I moved into a more of a technical curriculum developer role, and then an LXD role and then a learning manager in our learning experience design team. And so a typical day for a learning experience designer of my perspective, because everyone is going to have a different perspective and every team operates differently, but a typical day would be most people on my team have between four and seven projects.
And so they may have part of their day having calls with SMEs and stakeholders [00:04:00] working on content outlines, and then another part of their day focused on doing design and development. So it's really like a mishmash of things because on our team, folks own the end to end process of learning experience design.
So they'll get a project and they'll see it all the way through to delivery and measurement.
Devlin Peck: Wow, that's cool. I think we'll get into some interesting discussions about that because there are some questions about the makeup of these teams. And I think people maybe were expecting, I don't know, you're doing the design, you're doing the development, you're doing the evaluation, but it sounds like on your team specifically, like these people, yeah, they own the whole process themselves and they can do it.
They can do it all to some degree.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah, it's absolutely true. Everyone does own the end to end process, but people do specialize. So what I try to do is work with our team and partner people up who have strengths in different areas so that they can help each other and coach each other in regards to those areas.
And then I think [00:05:00] your second question, was your second question around, what's my day? So my day, my days really are very different. I may have a week that's almost like 40 hours of meetings. And then I may have another week that I'm really like hands on with my team working to help them solve problems and go into their stakeholder conversations and help with those things.
And even like to the point of doing learning management system administration in some weeks. So every day is completely different. I would say a majority of my time is meeting with stakeholders and really to understand the needs in our area of the business.
Devlin Peck: Wow. Okay. So maybe this is going a different direction, but those meetings with the stakeholders, are you qualifying, like the projects that your team is going to be working on and determining if it's something that you can help support or yeah, are you that first layer between the other stakeholders and then your team and you facilitate that?
Melissa Milloway: Yeah. So the way that our team currently works and I [00:06:00] probably should provide some background to give more context. So we sit in an area of HR. So there's several different areas with main leaders, and then it goes down. And our area is Amazonian experience and technology.
And within that org we are employee services. So we sit in employee services and what that encompasses is there's tons of different areas we support from like work authorization and creating training to help people identify what documentation they need to bring on a global perspective to be authorized to work, to disability leave services, our COVID resource center, our employee resource center, immigration, background checks, or screening services is what it's called. That's another one. Our disability leave services resource center, we have endless areas that we support within our org and we support three different audiences. So people within our organization who are doing the roles, HR people who will be outside [00:07:00] of our organization, but needing to use our tools and processes and then employees to understand those tools and processes and things. And so our team works based on an intake form. So this is getting to your question and when the intake comes in, it goes to my manager, and then she will route it to the correct learning manager.
So it will come to me, and I'll have a due diligence conversation with that stakeholder to understand the needs of that project. And then what I will do is work with my team to identify who's going to be the best person to take that on. And it's really more, it's a democratic process. So we talk through okay, whose skills are best suited, who's worked in this area before and who has capacity. And so that's how we determine the projects and how they're taken on.
Devlin Peck: Nice. Okay, cool. That sounds like a fun environment to work in.
Melissa Milloway: It is. It's fun. And we have endless amounts of projects. I think we've got like almost close to 40 active ones right now that we're working on.
Devlin Peck: Wow. Yeah, that's a lot.
Melissa Milloway: So I'm in a lot of conversations and I [00:08:00] probably have at least like five, three to five new project conversations a week.
Devlin Peck: Wow. Okay. I see. So busy times. Not that I expected anything less, but okay, cool. So I think that answers that question. So the next question we have here is about the difference between instructional design and learning experience design. I know we chatted about this a little, it seems like a popular question and there are even some follow up questions on that about whether people use them interchangeably or not.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah, I love this question. And after being in the field for so long, I've seen so many different titles pop up. And I am one of those people who has been impacted by that because I think six or seven years ago, I was a learning architect. And I'm like, I was an instructional designer.
I don't know, so I think there's always going to be people who are using titles because they've heard about it. And it's popular and so they're using the title, but the role and responsibility doesn't necessarily match that title. And when it comes to learning experience design, and when I'm working with my team, I want to be really intentional [00:09:00] about that we're not just using a title because that's the popular title, but we're actually, we're integrating that into the actual role. So a really huge part of what our team does is the user research and user experience of all of our projects. So not only are we looking at needs analysis and what do the learners need from that learning perspective, but what is that experience look like?
And if we're creating an eLearning, are they able to go through it and get to that one resource that they need right away? How long is it going to take? Are they finding these things useful? So we're really actively iterating on our user research process. We do focus groups now.
That's a new thing that we hadn't done before. We do usability testing. We look at doing user interviews as well. And so we do that in three different parts of our process now. We do it before we get into design. After design, when we're looking at [00:10:00] prototypes, and then after development. And it depends on the project because every project's different, and some may need it and some may need just a part of that, so it's really dependent on the project specifications.
But the user experience piece and like understanding the user is the biggest part when it comes to learning experience design because you're designing those experiences for the user and they have to be usable and they have to be applicable.
Devlin Peck: Yeah, that's always the impression I got about learning experience design is that it definitely emphasized the, yeah, that the user putting the user at the forefront.
What does the user need? What is the user's experience going to be like with this learning product, whatever that may be. So yeah, I think the term definitely does signify that piece of it, but then if you're doing good instructional design, like you will be putting the user at the front of it.
So it's like good instructional design is probably learning experience design, and I like too how it's more about a learning experience instead of creating like, an information based eLearning course.
Melissa Milloway: Exactly. Yeah, because the whole thing is not [00:11:00] thinking about, oh, we have to create an eLearning or it needs to be a video, but what in this instance is going to be the best solution for that end user and the way that we design it, is that going to be the best way, because in instructional design you may say, oh, a video's good or an eLearning is good, but the design. People aren't necessarily saying, oh, it should be designed in this way, but we're doing an eLearrning, we're putting the content in there. But even if you create practice activities and things, you have to think about how you're creating it. What does the UI look like?
Is the person able to use it? . So it's more about, what is going to be the best solution for that person and making sure that's the way that it's design works as well.
Devlin Peck: Yeah, cool. So yeah, I think the big takeaway there is whatever you call it, instructional design or learning experience design, do what you're saying, put the user at the forefront, put yourself in their shoes, and yeah, think consciously about what that experience will look like and design for it.
Good. Cool. Cool. [00:12:00] All right, we're getting into a popular question now. How important is an online portfolio in the hiring process? And maybe before you dive into that ,can you talk about your role in the hiring process? Because I know you're a manager, but I know Amazon has a very like specific process.
Melissa Milloway: We do have a very specific process. I don't know that I could really talk to that. I'm not sure like how much I'm allowed to like share on that. But I think just in general, when we're talking about portfolios, it's important to, It's very important to have a portfolio regardless of the type of role that you're in. So if you're not a designer or developer and you're just, you're an instructional designer, you know, have a portfolio of some storyboards, and they don't have to be from your work.
It could be something that you put together on a passion project. You'll see like on my portfolio, everything that I have is ,they're completely passion projects. I have tons of work related to work, but I can't show it to people. So I go and create my own kind of snippets [00:13:00] of things. And one of the first things that most hiring managers that I have talked to are looking for is, as soon as they get a resume, they 'look for that, link to your portfolio.
That is the first thing that I've been told people are looking for, and that's really going to help them understand the type of work that person does, and their skillset. And that's so important in that whole hiring process. So when I've been talking to a lot of these hiring managers, they're looking for it and I appreciate, even if someone sends me their portfolio, send me your portfolio, like, comment it on a post. If the people that do that, I think will probably get noticed first.
Devlin Peck: Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree with that. There is a follow-up question to that, which I think will be good to discuss. What are you looking for when you view a candidate's portfolio?
Melissa Milloway: That's a really great question as well. What I'm looking for, it's really going to depend on the role.
But what I'm looking for when it comes [00:14:00] to design is, I want to see consistency, and I want to see consistency in the user interface, in the styling. I want to, one of the biggest things that I don't usually see, but when I see it, I'm like, wow, this person is good: accessibility.
When I can see a design that's using like high contrast, that's accessible. I'm like, I'm absolutely blown away because that takes it a step above. So I would say that's like raising the bar completely and presenting the content in a way that's easy to digest. And especially if you provide context around the content.
And I think one of the things I would say, a lot of hiring managers are looking for when it comes to work is diamonds in the rough. You don't have to be perfect. Don't harp on being perfect. Show that you have those like general skills because then you can know, that person can be coached or that person can help continuously improve.
And you want to see someone who has a [00:15:00] variety of work, because that shows they're constantly learning new skills. So have maybe a short video, have a user guide, because that's going to show that you're investing in yourself in a variety of different ways.
Devlin Peck: Nice. Okay. Really good answer. So the consistency in the design you were talking about, you just meant, you mean like buttons and colors, like it's, it's not like all over the place, click next, click a button over here...
Melissa Milloway: Yeah, absolutely. That's one of the biggest things that I see because I found, and this is something that I could have done better in the beginning. When I first started doing design, I was like, just really into oh, I'm going to do animations and gamification and doing all these different things.
And if there's just these like foundational skills in design when it comes to consistency and styling and things like that really help improve a project. And then you can start to think about some of those other things. So I always try to help people understand, it doesn't have to be the glitz and the glam.
Simple. Sometimes simple is the [00:16:00] best thing.
Devlin Peck: Exactly. Yeah. I was just having this conversation earlier. It's like you don't need to do anything super fancy, like using some basic design skills, like you can make a really clean, like intuitive layout just with like shapes and text. So yeah, Dan says that the portfolio is 80% of his hiring decision.
Nice.
Melissa Milloway: Oh, wow. Yeah. See, you've got a real testimonial there.
Devlin Peck: True. All right. I think we are ready to move on to the next question. If anyone has any follow up questions about portfolios, definitely add them. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up accessibility. Yeah, accessibility too, because that isn't brought up a ton.
Like you definitely see it brought up, but interesting to hear that would be really valuable from a hiring manager's perspective to make those considerations.
Melissa Milloway: And it wouldn't be something that like I would look for as a make or break. It would be a bonus. I would be like, wow, like this person really is, there's some little things like that,
that's a big thing, but there are things like that where you go, yeah, like that's something. And the other thing I think that might be helpful [00:17:00] is, I really love when I see people's work and I think wow, I never would have thought about that. I'm blown away when I... when someone teaches me something that's something that's really important to me too.
Devlin Peck: Nice. Okay, good. I like that. I like that too. So maybe not do the common advice, like building, you learning on like how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, like actually try to teach something. Cool. Okay, good. That's a really good point. If you can teach the hiring manager something, then it's probably a good sign of your instructional design skills.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah. In regards to the topic and also the approach to things, if it's an approach where I was like, wow, that's a way better approach than I would have even thought of to this project.
Devlin Peck: Cool, cool. Okay, good. Nice. All right. So let's move on to the next one here. Oh, wait, this is actually pretty similar.
Maybe we should have asked this one first. What are your biggest considerations when hiring new instructional designers or learning experience designers? Maybe like what you're looking for in those candidates specifically, [00:18:00] maybe this will be really interesting on your team because you are looking for someone who has a little bit of that, a little bit of the skillset and like the full range of the process.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah, and something I just recently posted about this and I don't know that this is like super specific. And again, like every team and role is going to be looking for potentially different things. So I can't speak for all learning managers across the world here. One of the things that I look for, and I like to use the analogy of playing like a MMO like an online massive...
Devlin Peck: massive multiplayer online game.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah, so what I like to look for are people who are generalists, like across the board, like they have at least like beginner skills or like beginner intermediate skills in a lot of things. It could be instructional design. It could be visual design. It could be like technology.
It could be UX. And then look for people who fit a specialization and are really good at one thing. And I like to, I [00:19:00] like Matt's comment there. I like to refer to it as like when you're playing a game with a group of people and you have a boss that you have to defeat. You have someone who is going to be like doing damage to the boss.
You have someone who's going to be healing the people who are like fighting. And you have people who are going to be like taking the damage from the boss in the boss fight. And you have all these people who have all these skills that are different. And it makes up this team that they can work and help each other on a project and build each other's skills in certain ways. So I like to look at it as having like strengths that of people that all come together and help each other to accomplish something. And so when I'm looking for someone, I'm looking for someone who has those foundational skills across the board, but then it's filling a gap that we currently need on our team and not just like a gap for like now, but a gap for three years from now.
So what are we going to need on the team three years from now, even.
Devlin Peck: Yeah. And I see this commonly referred to as like T-shaped [00:20:00] and I see you use that in like your recent article. You have the full breadth, but then you go deep into one area. And yeah, it really, it's really nice getting your perspective, as like leading this team, because you can see do we have someone who's really good with the data and analytics?
If that's this person's specialization, let's bring them in here and they can help coach up the rest of the team. So like their skillset kind of makes like the whole team stronger, not just tho one project they're working on. So I really like that. That's a good way to go about it I think.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah. And the team that I'm on, like the people on my team are the most amazing people in the entire world.
And we all work so closely together and like a typical like team meeting or like conversation where we'll have is Hey, I have this, like this problem and I can't like solution for it, who has ideas and people bring these. Different perspectives, things that we would have never thought of to help us solve the problem.
And yesterday, I was having a conversation with a stakeholder about a new project, and we had already done some work in regards to this [00:21:00] project. So we were like, why aren't they using the materials that we've provided, like the performance support materials and we're thinking through it and they're like if they need practice, like, why don't we help them to build their skills in using those performance support materials versus creating a whole new eLearning or something like that.
And just people are constantly bringing different ideas to the table that it's not something I would have thought of, or someone else may have thought of.
Devlin Peck: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. And it probably says a lot about you as a manager that you like have facilitated that like kind of environment, like where people feel comfortable bringing those ideas.
And it's, I don't know. Cause I know that I'm sure there are many environments where people can't, they don't really work like that. And it's just here's what you need to build now and build it. So I think it's really cool, what you've built and that environment sounds like a cool team to be a part of for sure.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah, they're like, they're some of the best, like best people ever. Just in general, but it's really cool too, because a lot of the folks like who have been on the team or are on the team, like they're part of the learning [00:22:00] community. They're people who have been sharing on the eLearning heroes.
One of the guys on our team, he didn't report to me before I moved into the manager role, he reported to someone else, but I talked to him on eLearning heroes before he ever joined Amazon. And I was like, so impressed by his work. And I was like, wow, I can't believe I get to work with this person.
Devlin Peck: Cool. Nice. People are really loving the the game analogy.
Melissa Milloway: It's like that, but also you could do a restaurant analogy. You have people who are really great bakers, and then you have people who are great chefs, but just because you're a baker doesn't mean you can't cook, and just because you're a chef doesn't mean you can't bake, but you don't specialize in those things.
I can do analogies all day. I love analogies.
Devlin Peck: Yeah. Alejandra really appreciated your perspective on diamonds in the rough because he's feeling pretty rough right now.
Melissa Milloway: I'm gonna be honest with you. I will never look for someone who's a unicorn. I always look for someone who has potential. You want to find someone [00:23:00] who has the potential.
And one of the things that I think I struggle with when looking for people too is like, how can you identify what's going to be easy to coach people on and build their skills on and what's not? So that's something also that I'm thinking about more and more often because there are things, that it's going to be a lot harder and you'll have to be a way more hands on probably like, with that person on those things that are not easy to coach or build skills in quickly.
Devlin Peck: I imagine a lot of people are here probably feeling some relief hearing you say that, because a lot of people, especially in this field, they feel so much
pressure to be so good at all of these different areas of instructional design, and it's so interdisciplinary, so it seems so overwhelming.
So I bet it's relieving hearing that, but could you maybe, what are your latest thoughts on things that would be harder to coach? If you have those thoughts crystallized already?
Melissa Milloway: Yeah. Oh my goodness. Stakeholder engagement is really one that I think it takes a while, [00:24:00] and to build those skills in because you're working with stakeholders, and I was watching your one with Cathy Moore and she was coming on, you're supposed to come at the the project from a
consultative perspective, right? And I think it's, that's so hard to do for a lot of people and sometimes it's hard to do for me. It's something like I'm improving on as well. So when you have a stakeholder who comes to you, is adamant that they need an eLearning, and it has to have a test, and it needs to be done this way.
Like, how do you handle that conversation? That's a difficult conversation. And I really loved what Cathy Moore was saying on your crowdcast where she was talking about how, don't even mention like the, that it's an eLearning or this or that, but really try to get at what is the problem that they're trying to solve, and get that personal investment from them.
But it's really, it's so much easier said than done. It's like one of those things where it's like, when you're in that moment and you have a stakeholder who's, 'I need this tomorrow,' and they're really aggressive sometimes about [00:25:00] these things. It takes a lot of skill and practice to do that.
And so it's definitely something that is harder to coach people on because you have to put them in that difficult conversation. And really be able to provide that feedback.
Devlin Peck: Nice,yeah. So to me, it's sounding like maybe soft skills, like this type of soft skills, maybe. Yeah, Dan's referring to it as business acumen.
And Matt's saying just about that conversation, don't talk so much about the solution. Don't say, 'yeah, let's talk about that course'. He's just saying, yeah, talk about the problem. 'Yeah, I'd be happy to follow up and talk about the problem you're experiencing further and we'll identify the best solution' or something.
But yeah, Cathy Moore has tons of examples of that in her book Map It, but like you said, it's definitely a lot easier said than done.
Melissa Milloway: You have to be in the situation. It's like one of those things like, oh like people will say ' oh, I'm going to do that when I go in the conversation.' Then when they get in the conversation they're like, 'oh my gosh, like that was intense. That was very intense.' And some people, it's harder because like I've seen over the years, some [00:26:00] people where like they'll just say yes, because that's the easiest path. The path of least resistance is the easiest path for them. But in the long run, like you look at the repercussions, like maybe that what we agreed to wasn't scalable.
How does that impact the business? How does that impact our customers? There's so many different things like that. So I do think, I think that's one thing. Another thing that I really want to touch on that is important and is really hard to coach on are things that people don't want to do, that they're not passionate about. So if you're hiring someone to do design and maybe the fundamental skills, but they're, they don't like design, and they don't want to learn design, they're not going to learn design. They're not going to do, necessarily thrive in something that they're not passionate about or want to do.
So we want to make sure people are passionate about what they're going to be doing day to day. Otherwise it's going to be so hard to get them to create high quality results.
Devlin Peck: Yeah, I see. So yeah, so it's you can't really coach people into having a good attitude about [00:27:00] these things or like having the passion for it.
You should be passionate. Come on. Can't really coach that. That makes a lot of sense. That's cool. Nice. Okay. I think we did it. We did good with that question. Okay. So moving on to the next one. We have a question from Joe. Completely hypothetical question here, Joe? What are the biggest challenges during the first year for someone who lands an ID role at a company like Amazon, especially if it's their first ID role?
Melissa Milloway: Oh I can speak to it not being my first ID role and what was challenging for me then, but I'll try to imagine what it would be like for my first ID role.
One of the first things that's really amazing about Amazon that I love is, we have this huge learning community, and it's a lot bigger than it was five years ago when I joined. So we've got a lot of people you may know, like Kristen Anthony's there. We've got Mark Oller, we've got Bill McDonald who, he's like the CMI 5 guy.
We've got all of these like amazing people who are actively [00:28:00] working with the community and coaching and helping people. So that's the really good thing about it. So if you're coming in and it's like your first year there, like you have these amazingly talented people that are going to be there to help you in the community and help you navigate that.
When it comes to like my first year and one of the things that was I think difficult for me is that when people say a big company, like Amazon is like ambiguous, there's a lot of unknowns no, one's going to tell you, 'you have to do things this way or that way.' So I was just having trouble, I think, in the beginning navigating that because your leadership is constantly changing. Sometimes people are coming in that hadn't been there like the day before and processes are, we move so fast, so things are constantly changing. And so you have to be able to so quickly adapt to change.
For instance, like we had a project, I think the other week where they were launching a new tool. And we [00:29:00] had five days to turn around like a complete eLearning to go to 30,000 people to be able to like, do that. You have to know what to give up and what to focus on. And that can be so uncomfortable with people who are used to like, okay, I've got 3 months to work on this.
And so that's really difficult. I think that something that I've seen with people in general joining bigger companies. When you have to do things really quickly and not have all the information or answers.
Devlin Peck: So the challenge, is it prioritizing or just working towards the best solution you can given all the constraints, would you say?
Melissa Milloway: I would say it's probably both, because there's going to be a lot of unknowns and you have to be able to quickly weigh, what are the risks? How can I mitigate the risks? How do I navigate and get the right people on board in this project even? Because there's so many different areas within the company as well.
Devlin Peck: And you were mentioning some of the people at the company being really willing and open to coaching the rest of the [00:30:00] community. So would you say leaning on the networking within the company and talking to people who have been there longer, and reaching out to them and asking them, like internal networking, like would you say that's an important part of your first year?
Melissa Milloway: It's so important. And I constantly have projects that need to go out to other learning teams, audiences, like in operations, or different areas. And so for me, it's really important for me to be connected to these other learning teams to say, 'hey, like we have a project that's coming out that's impacting your audiences. What's the best way to get to your customers?' Because they're going to know way more about their customers or learners than I'm going to know. So really being able to navigate that whole ecosystem and use those resources in that way. And get buy in, because you don't want to necessarily, I don't want to say step on toes, but you don't want to put something out there for someone else's audience when maybe they already did something, or they have a better way to promote it, or maybe they'll see a gap. So just really understanding like how to navigate that is important.
Devlin Peck: [00:31:00] Yeah, that seems important. Good points. I wouldn't have thought of that. Nice. Julie mentioned she didn't realize Kristen Anthony is with you. Rockstar team.
Melissa Milloway: So, Kristen is not currently on my team. Kristen was on my team. And Kristen's the most amazing person ever. Kristen does amazing work for most of, for anyone who's seen Kristen's work, I'm sure they would agree.
But Kristen really helped us on our team to be able to shape our LXD process and our user research process. And Kristen is the most detail oriented person. I just have so many good things to say about Kristen is basically what I'm trying to say.
Yeah.
Devlin Peck: Kristen's amazing. When I was getting into the field, I was using so many of like her resources and getting inspired from her, learning experiences.
That's, I didn't know she was actually on your team. That's really cool. That's like power team right there.
Melissa Milloway: So Kristen was on our team and now Kristen's in more of a tech position. So my, my team isn't, we're not learning technologists and that's something that Kristen's really passionate about.
So Kristen's in more of a learning tech role now, [00:32:00] because our team is, our team's like more like you're focused on the end to end. So I can let Kirsten speak to what they do.
Devlin Peck: Okay, nice. Thanks for that. This next question is, we can transition into it nicely. It's about the specific LXD process that you and your team use.
And I think we, you said Kirsten helped you shape that. So I think it would be cool to just hear a bit more about that.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah. And in our design system for our team, and I wish I could share this, but I can't. I'm not allowed to share what the actual stuff looks like, but within our design system, we actually have a visual of our entire process that embeds all of the different documents we use.
There will be a block that's like the initial contact, here's our meeting notes template that we use, then it goes into like the kickoff meeting, and here's like our learning plan template, and click a button and it opens it. And we basically have our whole entire process outlined.
There's blocks for user research. So you click that and it opens like a whole folder of all our user research resources and [00:33:00] templates. And that whole process basically like encompasses our end to end flow if we incorporate everything, but depending on the project, people will skip some of the steps like user research we may not need on something that's, hey, we just need to create like a user guide on this, like one little thing. So maybe we don't need to do user research on that. But it's all outlined. And another really important part of our process is quality assurance. So on every single project, I have another learning experience designer who does QA on the project.
And they're brought in at every key milestone to audit the project to make sure that it's the highest standard that we could have it. So they look for things like, 'does the content make sense in the context of the design? Is it accessible? Are there even grammatical errors or little things like that?'
So that's a part, a huge part of our process too, is our quality assurance. That's really important.
Devlin Peck: Cool. And it sounds like how you have this built up, it's it's like you have all this performance support, like for you, for your team.
Melissa Milloway: We are like the learning [00:34:00] team that learns, and like we really, we practice what we preach.
So we have all that, like we create documentation or videos on everything. And I would say there's so much more that we could do, but we're flying. We're flying the plane while building the plane always.
Devlin Peck: Yeah. Nice. Okay, cool. But yeah, it seems like that keeps it very iterative and you're adapting and, good stuff.
Melissa Milloway: And our process is updated every single week because one person on our team, their role across the team is to do UX and visual design, but they also own the design system and up doing updates to that. So it's a living, breathing thing that we're like constantly evaluating and changing.
Devlin Peck: All right. That was a good answer. Too bad you can't show us everything.
I'm sure we could do like a whole session on that if you were allowed to. It sounds so interesting. But but we'll move on. I think it was a good answer given the constraints. This is a good one. I definitely want to make sure you get to this because I'm sure a lot of people here are interested in this.
How did you transition from a learning experience designer [00:35:00] to a learning experience design manager? So like transitioning into leadership in this space.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah. And this was something like I was thinking about for probably two years before it actually happened. And it was really difficult.
And I was just talking to some folks on LinkedIn, Keith Anderson and then Tim Slade about imposter syndrome. And so when I was on our team, we had two people who were peers of mine who were like, they had folks that were directly reporting to them. So they were people leaders in their respect.
And I was always like, why not me? Like, why I was like, why can't I do this? And the thing that I would say that I regret the most is not, no one knows what you want in your career. No one's going to do that for you or guess. You really have to drive your own career and make it known to your managers or leaders that hey, this is the career path that I want to be on, and how can I get on this path?
And so I was really intentional. I actually [00:36:00] left. I left the team that i'm currently on and I went to a technical curriculum developer role, because I was like, what I'm doing as an individual contributor is not fulfilling me at this point. In what I was, in the role that I was in. So I was like, I really like tech.
Let me try this out. I did not like, I did not like that role. Let's just say that. That wasn't for me. So I came back to the team and I made sure like my manager knew this is something like, I don't know if I'm going to be good at it, but I feel so passionate about finding problems on the team and coming up with solutions outside of just my normal work, and helping to get people to adopt those solutions and being able to see, what's the outcome? So how much money are we saving? What are we doing differently? And also, like being able to coach people, and I really was doing that very informally. And so I was very intentional then, hey I know these people got a shot, can I like, just let's test it out, do a dry run type of a thing, like pilot.
And I was just really intentional [00:37:00] that I wanted to do it. So we tried it out and I think I had five direct reports, like when I first started, which is a lot for a first time manager. So I, I got on that path and I didn't look back. And I think one of the things people were also curious about is, because the people who were on my team or were my peers before too. And so people were like, isn't that awkward? And I was like, I don't know. Cause I feel like we're also friends. And at the same time, I think that it was awkward in some ways as well. But I think the thing about it is just being really intentional about what you want and saying, what do I need to do to get there? What do you need to see from me? And how can I get there? What's my path?
Devlin Peck: Nice. Okay, good. Yeah, I think that's really good advice. And that's what you did when you came back. Yeah, you just told your manager, 'this is what I want. I'm willing to take the steps to get there. Can you help me?' I guess [yeah] the best path. Give me the opportunities I need to prove myself in this capacity, like that sort of thing.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah. [00:38:00] And it's a reversible decision too, like if for some reason it wasn't something that I had a strength in, or something that I didn't enjoy, or, maybe it wasn't working out in whatever way, it was something that could be reversed.
It wasn't something that's, set in stone either. And I think the thing that I tell people like, when you're talking with your leadership, and if it's something you're interested in, say 'can we do a pilot? Can I work with maybe one person?'
It doesn't have to be five people. I think there's different ways to go about it. But just being really intentional about what you want your career path to be and why is really important.
Devlin Peck: Great advice. Nice. Alright, let's see what we have next on the list here. I think we probably covered this question.
It's about if LXD should have a broad skill set across ADDIE or a deep skill set in one part of the process. And I think the answer is both based off of what you were saying. So yeah, I know what goes into each of those steps and have some experience in each of them. But if there's one that you're particularly interested in and you want to pursue deeper and specialize in, [00:39:00] then go full steam ahead [yes, yeah].
Nice. All right, what are the learning design processes you and your team use at Amazon? Is evidence-based learning one of them? Can you shed some light upon it? So I think we, we touched on the process. There's this question about evidence based learning in here. Did you have anything to say about that?
Melissa Milloway: I guess what would be the definition of that?
Devlin Peck: Yeah, that's what I was wondering too. I'm wondering if maybe it's about [I think it's sometimes...] evaluation? Like what kind of...I don't know.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah, I think it's sometimes harder to answer questions with things when they're not predefined, but I can try to touch on that.
And so something that we try to do on every project is have a data source to compare against. So what do we want to do? What's the KPI? Do we want to reduce defects? Could be like pay defects or something like that. Cause we work with a lot of like time and attendance systems. So we want to reduce pay [00:40:00] defects by X amount, X percentage.
How can we look at that? There's not necessarily like a, like direct correlation per se, but so maybe we create a module or performance support to help people in regards to correcting missed punches or something like that. I don't know. And then we pull in data from like a system that shows there's X amount of defects after these people have taken this learning so we can compare and contrast.
So I think with every project for us, it's really important to say, do we have something we can compare against from the beginning, and KPI?
Devlin Peck: I love that. I think maybe I took that there because that's what I'm interested in. It's like following up on the. Cathy Moore, like action mapping. I love it.
[Yes.] But people are suggesting in the chat, like Helen and Matt saying maybe it's about learning science and instructional design like, principles, methodologies. Do those formal like, processes and principles play a role in your process or yeah, what consideration is given to those, I guess is the [00:41:00] question.
Melissa Milloway: Yeah, I don't think it's something like that we're like, super intentional about. It's something we could always be better at. And one of the things like we talked about is how we don't like, we don't even currently do like action mapping. We'll go through a very light needs analysis and we'll talk through,
okay, here's our goal of the project. Here are the objectives that like, go up into the goal, but we, I think we could do so much of a better job, like on our team in regards to that learning science and also just that analysis phase of things as well, because the biggest hurdle that we have is that our projects go so quickly.
And so sometimes you get a project and it's, 'this has to be done in the next like two days or next like week because we have a system launching, or a date that can't be moved'. [Yeah. Wow.] So it's just really hard to flex and integrate that in.
Devlin Peck: Yeah, that's the impression I get. And that's what it's like on my freelance projects, too.
The [00:42:00] pace is always fast. Like, you're picking and choosing from like different models, different processes and building kind of your own. Cool. I think that's a common approach. So here's a question. Do you still get hands on with the design and development tasks now that you're a manager?
Melissa Milloway: Yes, I do. [Nice.] So yeah, I do get really hands on. And it depends on the project and what's going on. So I mainly get hands on when our team is like, way above capacity.
So when people start to get so bogged down with things, I will jump in and say, I will never let people like, fail. I will always be there and say, ''okay, what can I give up to help them?' And then in retrospect, 'okay, what can we do differently moving forward so this doesn't happen again?'.
So I have to constantly be like jumping in, but then also saying, 'okay, now what are we going to do differently? How can we make this better next time?' So if everyone's like super busy, because the work's never going to end. It's constantly going to be coming in.
So we have to continuously improve on our processes. [00:43:00] So I will jump in, I will do design, I will do learning management administration. Like I will do everything. But I don't always do everything. Like I try to really make sure that's not my main job, but I'm just doing that when people really need it.
Devlin Peck: Okay, that makes sense. Good. And Divya is here in the chat, and she mentioned evidence-based learning, meaning designing something based on the science and actual results. So it seems like we hit both of those elements. So nice. [Yeah.] Hope that helped answer your question, Divya. And then Helen shared a helpful link, learningscienceweekly.com. for that evidence based learning stuff.
Good, all right. Let's see. On that question we just asked, Holly had a follow up question. Is it easy for you to let go and let your team make decisions without letting your opinions sway them, even in cases when you would have approached certain decisions differently?
Melissa Milloway: Yes, so I just had this conversation like two weeks ago with someone where I was like, 'I don't agree with your approach. But you should do it because like you [00:44:00] believe in it, and you have a path forward,' and I do not always agree with people, but it's important for people to -- like, they're on the project, I'm not on the project. It's important for people to lead their own projects and evaluate the risks and mitigate the risks on their own, and to have that backup plan, and to do the things ,and it's okay to fail. Like, I tell my team all the time, I'm like, 'you can fail'. I'm like, 'try new things, do things differently'.
It's what you do afterwards. And what you learn that is the most important thing. We try to like, mitigate those risks, but you're not always going to. So I don't necessarily always agree with people, but I'm like, 'you can do what you think is best on the project, as long as you make sure like, it's in the best interest of like our teammates and our customers and our stakeholders', like that's the most important thing.
So I would definitely say like, I have opinions about things, but don't follow my opinion, like I may not be right all the time like I'm not always right maybe not even a [00:45:00] good percentage of the time [laughs].
Devlin Peck: Yeah, nice. I love, yeah, just the iteration, the adapting, like it just seems so, so apparent every step of this process, and like everything you're doing. So it definitely seems like you're practicing what you're preaching. Patricia says you sound like an awesome manager. And yeah, I think If there's anything clear from this conversation, it's probably that, just from how you're talking about these things, yeah. It sounds like, a team, like anyone would probably want to be a part of. So I think that's really cool.
Melissa Milloway: I hope so. I don't know.
Devlin Peck: Okay. I think it looks like we will have time to answer maybe a couple of more questions --
Melissa Milloway: Oh, Dom's here! Dom's on my team.
Devlin Peck: Hey,Dom.
Melissa Milloway: Dom's awesome.
Devlin Peck: Yeah, hopefully he heard you say all the nice things about him earlier [laughs]. Alright, so we have a question from Darota about how you handle difficult SMEs, or collaboration with people who are supposed to provide you with content or information. So you touched on that a little bit, right?
Melissa Milloway: [00:46:00] Yeah, and I'm not like, the main person working with the SMEs. So it would be more the LXDs on the team. But for me, working with difficult SMEs is really trying to understand like, where they're coming from and what might be going on. For them to be approaching it in more of a difficult way,
are they getting pressure from their managers to get something done? What are they really trying to get out of it? Like, how can we see it from their perspective?
I will say -- I'm going to, hopefully don't pronounce her name wrong. Connie Malamed? She did this such amazing workshop with Miriam. And I'm going to, I would butcher Miriam's last name if I said it. But they did an amazing workshop at Learning Technologies where they gave you personas of difficult stakeholders. And we had to like, work with these personas and try to solve for them in the workshop.
Like, how would you approach this difficult stakeholder? And one of the thing we've been talking about on the team like really briefly was like, what if we had personas about like common situations we've been brought? [00:47:00] How would you go about solving for those? Because it's really hard when you're trying to... what is it called? Something without authority, like influencing without authority ,because you don't have that authority. That SME's not reporting to you. Like, how do you get them to give you the materials? Come to the meetings? How do you get them to be a partner? Because you really want them to be a partner.
It's really easier said than done. So I think something like that would definitely be very helpful.
Devlin Peck: So what I'm hearing is it sounds like empathy, and trying to empathize with that SME. And then also considering, like what their goals are and like, how you can speak to their goals to help them see like you're both working towards like a common goal. Is that...?
Melissa Milloway: Yeah. Yes. Correct, yeah.
Devlin Peck: Cool. Nice.
Melissa Milloway: I go on tangents about things. So it may not have been super clear [laughs].
Devlin Peck: All good. We have a couple more questions above five upvotes, so maybe we can get to them. I think this one's going to, I'd really like to get your perspective on this one from Ryan. Ryan's a mid to senior level in all aspects of ID and eLearning development.
What are you [00:48:00] predicting are the most valuable skills in the next two to three years in the ID world?
Melissa Milloway: Oh, that's such an interesting question. And I want to say it's not -- it doesn't have to do with technology or those types of skills, because when I think back to like, even five, six, seven years ago, I think the same skills really do hold true to be honest.
Back in like 2013, 14, like we were talking so much about, ' everyone needs to know about gamification'. Like, gamification was like that buzz word and everyone was into it. And looking back, I would never be like today, 'Ooh, I really was looking for that person with those gamification skills'.
I think it's still those foundational skills that like we would be looking for. And especially like at a big company, you want to find someone who can really think future looking and saying like, 'how can we scale? If we're going to be in X amount of countries and doing these different things?'. Having that ability to think in that way, and not just thinking like a one timeLearning, eLearning course. It's going to [00:49:00] be important.
Devlin Peck: Nice, okay. Great answer. That's where I thought you might go with it, but good to hear. Cool [laughs].
Melissa Milloway: I wish I could say like AI or something like that. I don't think that's the right answer [laughs].
Devlin Peck: Okay. Let's, maybe let's get to this question with five upvotes, and then we'll call it a wrap? Sarah is asking about the techniques you use for coaching and giving your team feedback, particularly when they've gone a little off track with a project or assignment.
Melissa Milloway: Oh, gosh. Maybe Dom could speak to this. I think the most important thing is like, having just really open, candid conversations with people about things. The thing that I pride myself most on is like being super candid with people in general and trying to understand like, why something's happening or why something's not happening and saying, okay, if you have seven projects you're working on and maybe you're like missing a deadline for something, hey, let's talk through reprioritizing things ,or let's talk through why this isn't happening ,or getting to [00:50:00] the root cause of things and just really trying to understand, why is this happening or not happening? And it's more than anything about just having a conversation and not going into anything.
Never blame people. You should never blame people. Like, you don't know what is going on. Like, I'm not in every conversation. So it's really trying to understand and ask better questions to be able to solve problems.
Devlin Peck: Awesome, okay. So just transparency and then just really trying to understand not, 'oh you caused this big problem. What's wrong with you?' [laughs].
Melissa Milloway: Yeah. But there are people. And that's honestly one of the things that made me want to move into the people leader position, because I've had managers in the past who, they didn't even want to have a conversation. They're like, 'you should just do your work, and do your work, and get it done, and why didn't you do it?' And not really empathizing and understanding like, the full picture and for me, it's, I think it's so important to have someone there to listen to you and to understand you and having been there myself I have the understanding of being in that person's shoes as well.
And everyone's [00:51:00] going through different things as well. So it's just important to get their perspective and help uncover what's going on.
Devlin Peck: Nice, okay. Great answer. All right, well thank you, Mel. I think that is a wrap for all the questions. Let's all give it up for Mel in the chat. And, yeah, check out Mel's website, melslearninglabcom ,and subscribe to This Side Up if you haven't already on LinkedIn.
Melissa Milloway: Yay! Thank you for having me.
Devlin Peck: Yeah, of course. All right. Bye bye, everybody.
Melissa Milloway: Bye, everyone. Have a good day.