[00:00:00] Sabrina: So I'm Sabrina Gonzalez. I'm one of the bootcamp pros on Devlin's team. I'm also a freelance instructional designer and have been doing both of those roles for just a little over a year now, and really excited to have our panelists. So today we have joining us Rachna, Daniel and Robbie, and of course, my cohost, Kristin, and I'm going to go ahead and let her introduce herself.
[00:00:19] Kristin: Thank you so much, Sabrina. Super excited to be here and hear from these amazing panelists. My name is Kristin Dominguez. I'm an Instructional Designer in Bootcamp Pro on the Devlin Peck team. I am a former teacher. After I taught, I was a Curriculum Developer at AWS. And then now I work for the Bootcamp and I'm also a contractor for a tech company.
[00:00:38] So I might jump in here or there if I have something to add. But for the most part, I want to make sure that we're focusing on our panelists who have a lot of great insight to give. Um, so with that being said, we have, um, Daniel, Rachna, and Robbie. And so we're going to go in that order. So, um, super excited to introduce Daniel here.
[00:00:56] Um, and Daniel, if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself and your story. [00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Daniel: Thank you very much, Kristin. I'm very happy to be here, everyone. This is awesome. So, I'm, um, I've been in the field for over 15 years, just about 15 years, and my journey started when I was in school. I'm originally from Canada.
[00:01:19] Quebec, Canada. So if you hear a little bit of an accent, that's, uh, that's where I'm from. And, uh, when I was at school, I struggled quite a bit. I had difficulty learning French when I was in a French school and learning English. When I was in English school, I bounced back and forth as, um, we moved around.
[00:01:35] My father was in the military. Then, uh, I, I realized that, um, the struggles that I had weren't necessarily a bad thing, because when I started becoming an instructional designer, it helped me. It gave me perspective on how people learn, what the difficulties could potentially be, how I would, uh, see certain things.
[00:01:58] I first started [00:02:00] going to university in, um, physical education. So. Essentially a phys ed teacher. I never taught kids, officially, that is, uh, I was in love with martial arts, I did martial arts for a long time, so I went into phys ed, and then I started working for the military as a civilian, I teach, uh, I taught, uh, fitness classes, so I trained them, and because I was, um, bilingual, they were looking for an instructor to train all the fitness instructors across Canada, which I was very Very gracious to to take the position.
[00:02:32] I took that position for about 10 years traveling and training fitness staff. That was my very, very first instructional design job. So I was designing, analyzing, working with subject matter experts, working with stakeholders. But the delivery was very much live events. Towards the end, we were migrating a little bit into eLearning, which was very exciting.
[00:02:56] And since two years now, I've been, [00:03:00] um, out of the forces and I've been working with a construction company as a full time senior training specialist. And now what I do is I onboard people. Depending on their different, um, departments. So if they're in engineering and sales, customer care, I help to design, develop and coordinate all of that.
[00:03:20] And I help to create any type of workshop or solutions that will, um, aid people in their work. So for example, I'm... right now in the process of creating a workshop to help our customer care people, um, better negotiate, better communicate with, uh, internal and external, uh, stakeholders. That's it for me.
[00:03:48] Kristin: Love that, love hearing you.Â
[00:03:49] Daniel: Oh, I'd like to add one thing, sorry, because I saw it in the chat. I saw a person called Bob from Barrie, Ontario. So I am from Barrie, Ontario. So wherever you're at, [00:04:00] Bob, who said that you're 47, I'm 43, so I'm, and I'm in the process. Thanks. If you want to chat, no, no worries. I'm here for you, my friend.
[00:04:09] Kristin: Love that. Love the connection. That's what's so great about these events and love hearing your story. It sounds like such impactful work that you have done and are continuing to do. So love that. Thank you for sharing and would love to hear from Rachna now.Â
[00:04:24] Rachna: Hi everyone. I'm Rachna. I'm, I'm joining from India.
[00:04:28] Um, so my, uh, instructional journey started with like a, just like an accidental ID, I am. Uh, So I started my freelancing journey almost 10 years back. Uh, I was working as a brand and marketing for an IT company. Uh, I wanted to do something on my own. So I left the company and started figuring out what I want to do next.
[00:04:50] Uh, I started with very small jobs and, uh, you know, freelancing jobs, uh, related to content writing, website conceptualization. And later on, I [00:05:00] realized working with one of my clients that they are in need of animated videos. But they also want an affordable solution. And that's how I jumped into making DIY, using DIY tools to make animated videos for consultants, trainers, and other people, other business organizations.
[00:05:17] Um, I think just like any other instructional designer, you come across different things. I was also trying to expand my services. And one of my clients asked me, Uh, "Can you do something in the Articulate software?" And I thought, "why not give it a chance?" So I started learning about Articulate software and, uh, that's how I came to know about the eLearning industry.
[00:05:37] Uh, slowly and slowly and, uh, gradually, I, I learned a lot about what are the designing principles, what, uh, you know, and I joined the DevLens Bootcamp to have a better understanding about it. Uh, as a learning, um, as a learner myself, I loveLearning new skills. I, I, I just recently learned pottery, so not just as the instructional [00:06:00] designing things, but I also learned a lot about other crafts and other things out.
[00:06:04] So as a learner myself, I was, uh, really excited. Um, and, you know, to know more about, uh, what actually the instructional designers do, how they facilitate their learning for every learner. Uh, and I was, uh, really in, you know, inspired by Dev. Bootcamp when he talked about how you make a performance oriented learning.
[00:06:23] How do you focus on making learning more interesting, uh, not just interesting, but how do you actually make trainings more impactful for the learners? And that's how I came across Cathy Moore's, uh, approach, uh, of action mapping. Uh, I think, uh, one of the, uh, one of the hurdles that I still face in the, um, when I approach for any, uh, learning project is how do I, uh, How do I convince my client to focus more on the learner?
[00:06:51] How do I convince client to focus more on making application based learning and not just theoretical programs? So I think I am on that [00:07:00] journey where I, I, I, where I am still figuring out that part. How do I, how do I take my learner, you know, uh, client's focus? from being focused on theory oriented learning programs to more practical and application based learning programs.
[00:07:14] That's it from my side. Thank you.Â
[00:07:17] Kristin: Love that so much. And I love how, you know, it's clear that you've had such a great journey so far, but as you know, people in the training field were always lifelong learners, and it's clear that that's what you are really passionate about. So I love that. Thank you for sharing.
[00:07:32] Thank you. Robbie.Â
[00:07:35] Robbie: Hi everybody, I'm Robbie Christian. Um, my story has a lot of similarities and parallels to Rachna's, uh, where I was working at a, uh, university and not, not the parallels yet. Uh, I was working at a university doing scientific scuba diving, um, but the bottom line is we wanted to expand the program and we, we didn't have a way to do that.
[00:07:58] And so we got a [00:08:00] quote for what it would take to do that. Turn our lectures into an eLearning curriculum and it was much higher than we expected it to be. And so my boss and I looked at each other and we were like, okay, well, how about we just buy the software and I'll, I'll just make it. And so that began my journey of instructional design without ever knowing what instructional design was.
[00:08:26] And that was back in, like, 2011, before Storyline came to be. I was working with Articulate Presenter. And so once Storyline came out, I immediately latched onto that and started developing. And like Rachna, I slowly started figuring out, like, okay, like, what is all the theory behind all of this? How do you put it together?
[00:08:45] Let's see. Work on the visuals and like, and how, how to make a good eLearning. And so when I left that job after about 10 years, uh, I looked at my skills and my passions and determined that eLearning is sort of the way to [00:09:00] go and instructional design is the way to go for me personally. And so I stumbled into Devlin's Bootcamp and, um, learned what instructional design was and put a portfolio together and then, um, after a few months started landing work as a freelancer.
[00:09:15] And so the thing that I like most about about my job is is really being a freelancer to be able to to have my foot on the gas to take on more projects or back off on some of the projects and take time with family and have that work life balance and it's taken a few years to really establish and figure out that balance of how many projects to take on at a at a time but but I've I feel like I've I'm finally arriving at that point where I I have great control over it and um and then on the job it's just working with wonderful people.
[00:09:47] People. That's like one of the best things about this job is working with such diverse people from all over from different, um, from different arenas and, and different industries. And then of course, [00:10:00] solving problems. And so that's what we're going to talk about today.Â
[00:10:05] Sabrina: It's so great hearing all of your stories.
[00:10:06] We work with so many transitioning teachers, and that feels like such a natural transition coming from education, knowing how people learn. But hearing like these other backgrounds is really cool because you bring such a different perspective, just like not just the education side, but just like in the field in these different industries.
[00:10:20] So it's really cool to hear how you've come to instructional design. Um, so yeah, let's get into some questions because that's, that's what we're here for. We dig into the good stuff. So the first question I have for all of you, uh, feel free to just come off mute whenever, whenever you're ready to answer. But the first question is, can you talk about one professional challenge you have faced in your role and how you overcame that challenge?
[00:10:42] Daniel: I can jump in here, uh, Sabrina. So one of the first challenges that I've, um, faced when I first started my, uh, job. ID job at the construction company was onboarding, so that's one of my main tasks. And the challenge was prior to [00:11:00] me, so I was the first training specialist for the company. They've never had anybody help them out like that.
[00:11:06] And all department heads prior to me did the best that they could. So they created programs. They created a schedule. They created a bunch of things laid out, and my job was to essentially go through it myself and to see what works and what doesn't. So Imagine getting a schedule for three, four weeks, and every, every 15 minute block is, has something in it, whether it's coffee break, or you're going to be at this level of your eLearning, you're going to be at that level of your eLearning, you're going to meet with this person, it was just very, very overwhelming.
[00:11:48] So what I did, thankfully, we have the LMS just. Start up when I, um, started working. So her learning management system, I was able to take everything that [00:12:00] was. Asynchronous. So the eLearning stuff, put it into the LMS and everything that's meeting. I was able to automate, uh, automate it through outlook. So I was using the, this, the, uh, the scheduling there.
[00:12:15] And I met with the stakeholders after a few months of myself and others going through it and vetted. a little bit what was needed. So I looked at some periods or some meetings that I figured, is this necessary for the person to be ready for their job? And that was the main question. Are they going to be able to do their job effectively or to what level are we expecting them to do?
[00:12:40] So I made the, the head of the department's work a little bit, which was fun. I got to meet them and We cut a lot of things, which was fantastic. Cause one of the comments that I received was great experience. Everybody loves it. However, it's overwhelming. There's a lot of things. And that was the feeling that I got.
[00:12:58] I was [00:13:00] overwhelmed meeting 20 people in a team meeting that once that might to retain their names or whatever. So we were able to streamline it. And the other thing that I was really proud of might not seem like a lot, but the previous schedule. Add meetings at lunchtime. So for me, that's, that's a no, no, you don't touch lunchtime.
[00:13:17] That's that's sacred. Uh, so I played around with it and once everybody was happy with the schedule. So the, um, the stakeholders were good. We made enough cuts. We added certain things that made more sense or amalgamated things. Then every time I have a new hire. The onboarding process takes me an hour or two hours, whereas before organizing it, it took almost two days to do so.
[00:13:43] So I'm, I'm very happy because it, um, it makes for a quicker process as it's mostly automated and I'm able to focus on other really fun types of work like designing or analyzing and things like that. [00:14:00]
[00:14:00] Sabrina: Yeah, automating tasks is like such an, I think like an underrated skill to have, especially like as an instructional designer, like we want to just get the information out there.
[00:14:08] But like considering where you can use those automations is like brilliant. So I love how you described how you streamlined that. Rachna or Robbie, do you want to jump in?
[00:14:21] Rachna: Okay, so I'll go. Uh, I think there are a lot of professional challenges that we face as an instructional designer or anyone working in this field. What I face normally is having, you know, whenever I start any conversation or the client reaches out to me, they generally send a lot of information. Like it is kind of information dump that is happening, and they're expecting us to go through everything, even when the contract has not started.
[00:14:47] And that takes a lot of time. So I think, um, I, I, I, rather than you even seeing that information thing, I generally start with a two or three basic question. What is the objective of the [00:15:00] training? What do you want your learners to do after doing this training? What I think these two questions is, and who is your target audience?
[00:15:08] you know, what they actually know until now about whatever you are thinking of training them. So I think I started these basic questions and Just like Daniel pointed out that, you know, there are sometimes clients want to show everything, like there is no limit on what is the need and what is actually need to be, you know, actually need to show to them.
[00:15:30] So I think restricting that part is this, does this checklist need to be a part of the training experience or can this go as a resource to the learners after they are done with the training so that they can, you know, while they're doing that process, can they just, you know, It, keep it handy and do it.
[00:15:46] So, uh, uh, handling the information and, uh, making client understand that it is not just about putting the information in a kind of online software to make it web-based training program, but also understanding from a [00:16:00] learner point of view and putting it in certain informed wherein, uh, they are, uh, you know, they are able to apply all the behavior that they'reLearning during this job.
[00:16:09] I think navigating that part is something that I am still finding it very challenging, but I'm, I think with every project done, I am somewhat getting nearer to my goal of making more performance oriented learning experiences.Â
[00:16:27] Sabrina: Yeah, that's such a good point of just like, yeah, you get all of this content dumped into you and like, all right, you got it from there.
[00:16:35] And I was like, as a teacher, I always like thought of like, yeah, if I'm not having fun teaching it, kids are probably not having fun learning. And I totally see that as an idea, right? If I'm overwhelmed developing this training, learners are going to be overwhelmed going through it. So yeah, having that skill of how to like really just make sure we are, we have solid learning objectives.
[00:16:52] And the content we provide is meeting those objectives. Yeah. It's such a good skill. Thank you for sharing that Rachna. Robbie. [00:17:00]
[00:17:01] Robbie: Those are such good answers. Um, mine is, is a little bit different from that. Mine, mine focuses on, on scope. That's something that, that I have seen on a handful of projects that I've been a part of.
[00:17:13] And it's, it's something that we get asked a lot about. And so I want to, I want to talk about two different times where I had, I had to deal with scope creep. In, in one instance, um, It was all about communication with the client and saying that, um, listen, this is your timeline. This is your budget. And you really feel passionately that this information needs to be in this course.
[00:17:36] And so let's reset our expectations. Let's rebudget the whole course out again. Let's like submit a new quote and everything, a new proposal. Let's, let's expand this course and make, let's make it a lot bigger so that we can fit in all of this stuff that you're really passionate about. Um, in a. A different scenario and a different situation.
[00:17:55] I was working with a client that had a very strict timeline and while they [00:18:00] were so passionate about their information too, uh, we really had to to sort of whittle things down and focus on like, Hey, listen, what are the goals? What, what do you want your learners to walk away from after this training? Um, it was a, it was a live, it was like a two day long, um, sales, national sales team meeting that we were, that we were putting together.
[00:18:24] Um, so after these two days, what do you want all of your employees to come away from doing? and how, how can we make it so we're not like forcing them to sit through like eight straight hours? How can we give them breaks in between to digest the information? And so we, with communication, just like the first one, we broke it down and said, listen, let's bring it back to the goals.
[00:18:45] Let's bring it back to the objectives and let's prune everything that we can be willing to part with. And so in, in those two different cases, there are some where you embrace the creep of the scope and. Others where you're like, nope, [00:19:00] putting my foot down, like this is how much we're gonna, we're gonna do for this, uh, for this particular case.
[00:19:07] Sabrina: Yeah, I think like, for those that are aspiring instructional designers in their journey, I think this is like, scope creep is something you, you keep hearing about, and it sounds terrifying, but it's nice to know that there's ways that you can embrace it too, that like, yeah, we're, we're passionate about this and it's, It fits those objectives.
[00:19:22] Yeah, let's figure out a way to work that in. So, thank you for sharing that, like, other side of it. Because I know, as I was getting into it, I was like, oh gosh. I'm going to have to, like, manage this and, like, wrangle these things in. It sounds scary, but it's nice to know that there's, like, both sides of that.
[00:19:37] Alright, our next question is a little bit more about what you do as an ID, um, specifically. So, can you talk about one business challenge you have solved with training? So, as we know, in businesses, there's sometimes problems come up and training may not be the solution, but In this case, when have you solved a business problem with training?
[00:19:58] Daniel: I have an interesting story here, [00:20:00] Sabrina, if I can jump in. At the beginning, no, maybe I was six months in my job, uh, my current job as a training specialist for a construction company. And, uh, there was a engineering and sales annual conference coming up. I wasn't a part of it. It was mostly a other section working on it, but I knew one of the people working on it, and I was just kind of helping them out, organizing and adjusting certain things, and I got the opportunity to Contact the head of the engineering department.
[00:20:38] And I remember exactly what he said to me. He wanted me to help out. And he said, I asked him the questions. What is it that you want from your engineers from this three day conference? He says, I want them to behave. Like the sales department, which I knew was a totally wrong [00:21:00] Avenue to go But I understood that I needed to fish in a little bit more So what I did is I booked a two hour meeting which he wasn't used to having so that I could ask a lot Probing questions because I knew that that didn't make sense.
[00:21:15] What he had in mind was to bring a third party Vendor that trained the salespeople so imagine someone coming to a conference for three hours, maybe costing I don't know upwards of fifteen thousand dollars for three hours, and then you don't get much out of that Maybe you're you're jolted about it.
[00:21:34] Maybe you're you're motivated, but you don't necessarily improve your skills so after chatting Getting a deeper understanding of what, um, our head of engineering wanted. I realized he wants them to be able, he wants his engineers to be able to communicate with the customers effectively, especially about technical issues.
[00:21:56] So our engineers are notorious for [00:22:00] being a little bit more introverted. So communication is not something that comes out. naturally as my, for teachers, for example. So what I did then is I continued the analysis by surveying our engineers. So, uh, just a bunch of surveys to get some general information.
[00:22:18] And then I picked, I handpicked, thanks, uh, with his help, a few focus groups, which I chatted with them through MS Teams across the country. Then I got a better understanding and essentially, What they needed is basic communication skills, how to take complex concepts and translate it to someone in the field, so that they're able to work on their designs together and make it quick.
[00:22:48] And one of the best ways of doing that was through scenarios. So what I did is I got, Our sales department to create realistic role plays of realistic events that they [00:23:00] faced, adjusted it a little bit here and there, just made these pieces of paper with the role plays, who was playing who, and at the conference, I got the managers to talk about these basic skills, just to give a, a breaking the ice, if you will, and afterwards on day one, Our engineers were put into these role plays where one salesperson was helping them, the other salesperson was acting as the customer, so they got a real live event.
[00:23:29] And a manager was at one of, at each of those tables with a guide, a monitoring guide, taking notes on how the engineers were performing. We did the same thing on day two with a twist to the story, so something a little bit difficult to, to, to do. to challenge them, and it was cool to see that from day one to day two, the engineers got really, really more comfortable, and the managers saw that on their monitoring guide.
[00:23:59] Sabrina: [00:24:00] Very cool. I saw a comment in the chat from Kelly says, love the probing and defining to really identify the root cause and need. Yeah, that's great. Because when you, when you're like, get these problems sent to you, they may know what they want or think they know what they need. But really, it's our job, right, to ask those questions and make sure that like, Are we actually solving the problem?
[00:24:20] Is what you're suggesting going to actually help us out? Yeah, so yeah, great, great answer there, Daniel. One of our other panelists?
[00:24:34] Rachna: I think, uh, Daniel has a very good experience when it comes to, you know, most of us as Instructure Design or Econics. Uh, designers are working, um, quite far away from the client and not actually interacting with a, uh, client off, offline, actually. Uh, so, um, I think I, I'm, I'm mostly working with the companies, uh, who are, uh, based out of UK and Europe and they are, uh, working in the, uh, field of privacy laws and, um, yeah, they also [00:25:00] need to, uh, train people about it because, uh, I think it's very important, uh, to know that.
[00:25:05] And, um, there are a lot of copyright and infringement issues if it comes up. Um, and, uh, it is always very challenging to put, um, these things in simple words because they're complex in nature. And, uh, it is also that, you know, you can't, um, Simplify to a very basic level. You still need to have these laws in place and tell them people.
[00:25:28] So I think one of the business challenges that I kind of addressed is, How do we, you know, actually make people learn about these laws? But still keep them, um, you know, engaged in it. And, uh, just like Daniel talked about the scenario based learning experiences. So I, I, whatever, um, I could do in this direction is I, I tried, um, chunking the, uh, chunking that, um, you know, laws into smaller pieces so that [00:26:00] it is easy to understand.
[00:26:01] It is easy to absorb the new information and also kind of generate a scenario that, you know, for example, if some, if there is some kind of laws around phishing. So, um, you know, How about telling them about a life scenario that they might be facing at their job and how they would handle it. So I think that makes sense.
[00:26:22] learning more impactful because they are not just seeing the video that explain about what happens in the fishing, but they are also kind of trying that out of, you know, in a, in a, in a safe environment. And then when they are facing the similar situation in their, on their, you know, actual job, they are, They're much, uh, you know, kind of ready to, to handle that kind of experience.
[00:26:47] So, um, I think that is one of the business problems that I tried solving, uh, in one of the, um, you know, with one of the clients that I've worked with. Uh, to be very frank, uh, we are still, um, you know, kind of reaching that [00:27:00] phase wherein people are thinking of it as a business problems and start with that to, uh, you know, uh, wherein they want to solve a business problem.
[00:27:08] They mostly come with, can you just develop a training around this? You know, that's what, uh, you know, we normally get, um, as training requests. Uh, so, uh, also kind of, uh, assessing a business problem from all the training requests that, um, we are getting is also one of the challenge that we address in the initial stage of discussion, wherein we talk about, okay, these are some of This is your training request, but what kind of business problem are you trying to talk solve with this?
[00:27:35] Because that makes a training more impactful. And you also get the, to understand the ROI of training when it comes to analysis, analysis of any training or training that you do.Â
[00:27:48] Sabrina: Hey, you brought up some really great points. Um, I even saw someone too in the chat about chunking the information and it, it sounds like you took such a great approach to this because I, I could see that being super difficult with like laws [00:28:00] because you really can't.
[00:28:01] Take things out of there to make it clearer and more concise because you need some of that like actual language in there. So having people being able to like actually experience it in theLearning I think is such a great approach. And yeah, and to Yeah, to emphasize that, yeah, once you know the business problem, and then, then we're good, but it's identifying that you're absolutely right.
[00:28:20] Kristin: That is amazing, and I love hearing from just different, all of you presented a different problem, and I feel like the solution not only helped with what you were trying to solve, but other areas of the business as well, which is so cool. Um, I am going to ask a, uh, one other question before we open things up to the audience.
[00:28:38] Um, so keep asking your questions in there. We're seeing them, um, and we'll open it up the floor soon. But I did want to add one quick thing that I've done on the job. Um, and it's actually a little bit different because this was actually for my team to solve a team problem. Um, and so when I first joined one of my teams, there were a lot of new processes and we were all new to the team.
[00:28:58] And so there was lots going on and we [00:29:00] were spending a lot of time Locating different information. So, okay, where's our resources for the storyboard? Where's our resources for QA, subject matter expert communication? It was taking so long to pull those. And so what I did was I created like a hub document for all of us.
[00:29:15] So every time we created a new. a new project. It had our project management checklist. It had our subject matter expert templates. It had our links to house beyond just so everything was there. And that ended up saving us about two to three hours of development time on average, which was really great. So not, it wasn't necessarily a problem that we solved with training, but it was something that allowed us to more effectively create training because we were able to just do our jobs a little bit more efficiently.. Um, and so as IDs, we really are problem solvers in all areas, not just with creating training, but also helping our team. Um, the one question I want to ask, speaking, I mentioned subject matter experts, and that's something we get asked about a lot, because everyone's role working with a subject matter expert [00:30:00] can look different.
[00:30:00] So I'm curious, um, what is working with subject matter experts look like in your roles?
[00:30:10] Daniel: For me, Kristin, it's a, it's a lot of fun. I have the privilege of working in a company that they understand my role, despite me being new and I'm never embarrassed to say Pinging on people's time. So I've worked there, I'm going on my third year and I've worked a lot with subject matter experts and every time people are very, very willing, open to sit down with me, they're not afraid of the, Two hour meetings that I'll book to really dive in that initial kickoff meeting to really understand what the, the, the major issue is.
[00:30:53] So, uh, I'm, I've, I really feel fortunate. I will say this, and I've, I saw this [00:31:00] question here just on the chat there, I think it's from, uh, Mekna, Mekta, if I'm pronouncing it well, I do apologize. Um, Where, in terms of what do we do, like how do we find data from past performances? I'll do, you could do surveys, but every time, surveys is not a bad way to break the ice, but I would say it might not be enough.
[00:31:25] What I do, for example, when I go to Going back to my onboarding story is I will meet with every single employee once their onboarding is finished and I have a big document that essentially all I do is I sit down with them for about 30 minutes to an hour and Ask how their experience was probe them a little bit on how things could be better if they have certain ideas and I use that as a platform to make things better and When I go into the subject matter expert meetings, it's the same thing.
[00:31:56] Uh, I go in with a structured approach. [00:32:00] So I think it was, uh, Shaka that was asking how, how do we break down with the subject matter experts? I would say, don't just book a meeting. and have an ad hoc discussion. The discussion most certainly, and often reels out, which is good because then you get, you get to understand a little bit of the emotions that are attached to how people feel about certain training or experiences that they're living.
[00:32:25] So it's good to tag those emotions, but it's. It's rarely, it's paramount to have some kind of a structure documentation where you have either questions or topics that you want to really understand. And just to piggyback a little bit of what Robbie was saying, it's not just understanding what they want, but it's going into what they need.
[00:32:50] And sometimes. Or most times, I should say, subject matter experts, just like any human being, it's really hard to articulate what we need. So we have to go through a [00:33:00] conversation, and we have to veer off. And, uh, I use that form just to make sure that when we are veering off, I'm going back to the important points.
[00:33:10] So that's how I adjust my meetings with, uh, my SMEs.
[00:33:17] Kristin: I love that. Thank you so much. That sounds so very helpful. It looks like a lot of people in the chat are finding that helpful too. Um, Rachna, what is looking like, what is working with subject matter experts look like for you?Â
[00:33:29] Rachna: I think, um, before even I start the project, I also try to understand, you know, who am I working with, who's the decision maker, who are the SMEs?
[00:33:36] And I also try to understand what kind of time, um, do they have, uh, they do they have enough time for the kind of, uh, theLearning experience that they are, you know, asking for. Uh, so even before I start working on project, I try to understand and assess the time duration that SME has, uh, for until, until now, I have a good.
[00:33:55] Experience working with SMEs, because I'm mostly working with agencies and, uh, [00:34:00] you know, um, they have a good kind of feedback cycle to give it to me. Uh, but I have also faced, uh, SMEs wherein they are not readily available. They just, you know, kind of send a lot of information, but they're not ready to actually come on the con, you know, call and have a discussion around it.
[00:34:15] They just kind of, you know, uh, whatever question you ask, they will send you another document to go through and, you know, understand. So I think in that case, I also, um. Uh, kind of, uh, uh, act as a learner that, you know, uh, okay, you're sending me this training in this learn, this, uh, document, but I still am not getting through it because if I can't understand it, I can't put forward a learning experience that is easy or, you know, can, could be learned by other people.
[00:34:41] So, um, uh, I kind of, um, you know, uh, go through, uh, go, uh, behave like a very basic learner who doesn't know anything about it. And I, and I'm okay with that part of it because, uh, when you're working as an eLearning designer, you come across a lot of, uh, [00:35:00] And if you want to make something that is more impactful for your learner, you also need to understand them thoroughly from a very basic point of view.
[00:35:09] Like, you know, how do you explain that basic thing to a learner? So, uh, I think I am being blessed with a mixed kind of learners, mixed kind of SMEs where they're readily available also. And I also trying to assess the ability of SME before starting the project so that I don't spend a lot of time in going through and through and they're not actually available.
[00:35:29] Um, so for me, uh, what has this has saved me as a, as an, uh, you know, freelancer that I understand the availability of SMEs before I actually started working on the project.Â
[00:35:40] Kristin: So good. And so important because we know that subject matter experts are so busy and they're doing things. And if, if we're not checking their schedule and looking at all of that, it can get a little bit chaotic and.
[00:35:53] In the long run, not, you won't be saving time. So I love that.Â
[00:35:57] Sabrina: Yeah, I could not agree more. That communication is [00:36:00] huge, especially when you are working with a client or business where that team is bigger and there's lots of moving pieces. You want to make sure that everybody is on the same page for sure.
[00:36:09] We have a question from, Archie. And he says, or they say, how do you stay updated with the latest trends and best practices in instructional design?Â
[00:36:21] Daniel: One thing that really boosted me since I've joined the ID bootcamp was really that community. Right now in the job that I'm in, there are no other instructional designers, training specialists.
[00:36:36] I'm the only person, and it's funny because people will trust me just because of the title of my position. So I have that going for me, but at the same time it could, it could backfire if I don't embrace the role. So I do a lot of reading myself. As I've mentioned, and Robbie said, the community is so helpful because just at.
[00:36:59] Tip of your [00:37:00] fingers. You can ask any question, any, however silly it sounds like, Hey, what do you guys think about a workshop like this? Does it, has anybody ever done this? Or what do you do when you face difficulty with this? And you'll have people come up to you and share their, their experiences. And even people that are novel in the bootcamp, they're coming with wealth of experiences.
[00:37:20] The bootcamp serves the purpose of, uh, bringing you up to a certain level with your eLearning skills. But. Within the bootcamp, you have these people that have been teachers for 20, 30 years, even more, people that have been in different industries and stuff like that. So it's just like this, this wealth of information that you have access.
[00:37:43] My previous job, I did have the privilege of working with three other people similar to me, but still we were in an echo chamber. So we were able to bounce off ideas, but the um, The bootcamp is definitely a place to go, uh, online information as well, uh, whether it's, [00:38:00] uh, through, um, Devlin's, uh, YouTube page, or, uh, any, any other type of, um, forum that you can find, or you can chat with people, it helps, it helps a lot, I would say, uh, uh, yeah.
[00:38:16] Use Robbie's communication skills and chat with people as much as possible.Â
[00:38:22] Kristin: We are going to go ahead and jump to the next question and it is, What advice would you give to people who would like to get into Instructional Design? What were the challenges you faced when you first started working as an Instructional Designer?
[00:38:36] Rachna: Um, I can take this. Um, I think, uh, know, um, There will be very few instructional designer who started as instructional designers. They are somehow, you know, uh, went into that role somehow, you know, from doing some different things. And, uh, they found ID, and then they, uh, chose that path. Uh, so I think, uh, uh, what helped me initially was, uh, learning about the [00:39:00] process.
[00:39:00] I was not very familiar with the edit learning principles. What are these? And also seeing the other people, um, you know, um. For example, I would go to the communicate community of Articulate and see what other people have done, how they have applied that adult learning principles in their, you know, the kind of learning experience that they did.
[00:39:20] So I think implementation, seeing the implementation of what are the theories, you know, are there, is kind of quite beneficial. Uh, I started my learn in the Instructional Design journey with Cathy Moore's book, Map It, because I loved reading. So I could understand a lot about the process by that book itself.
[00:39:41] Then I read, um, you know, very other, uh, different kinds of book related to Instructional Designing and learning as such. You know, how people learn, uh, there were, there are many, uh, books around that. Uh, so being a, being a reader, I enjoy reading, uh, so that also helped me. And [00:40:00] regarding the challenges, you know, when I, to be very frank, when I started this journey, because I have not studied about it formally, so I was always very, you know, kind of not sure whether this is the right approach to go for it, or what kind of questions that I asked my client.
[00:40:18] Devlin's Bootcamp really helped me out because I developed a portfolio out of it. So I started from scratch, you know, not knowing anything about what, what is the business problem about. So starting from scratch and then making a portfolio out of it. Really helped me in understanding the process not just by learning about it, but also applying it that in my portfolio.
[00:40:40] So I think, um, that helped me, um, you know, that was my challenge and that help in this bootcamp helped me in figuring it out.Â
[00:40:51] Sabrina: Yeah, so it's really great points. And this next question kind of follows up with what Rachna was just saying. So, um, After [00:41:00] you've like made this transition or got into Instructional Design and you're in this first role, did you, did any of you have mentors or were you just kind of on your own figuring things out and if you were on your own or even with the mentor, how are you navigating some of these challenges that you've talked about?
[00:41:17] Daniel: That's a great question, Erin. For this particular job that I started, I was And continue to be on my own, but what's really cool is that you can find mentorship in different, in different spheres. So for example, if, if you just look at it at face value, you might feel a little bit afraid and be like, Oh, there's no, there's no one here to help me.
[00:41:45] My company, what's really cool about it, it's an international company, therefore, there are, when I learned about this, uh, I learned that there are other people like me at different areas of the world, so I started scratching a little bit through, um, just our [00:42:00] website, and, uh, Some names popped up, and I just contacted certain people that have been doing that, or do a similar job, or do something that has the same title, but completely different.
[00:42:11] And now we meet on a regular basis. I'm meeting with some people tomorrow morning. It'll be 7am here and they're from Malaysia, so I think that will be 7pm for them. So we, we make it work, which is really, really cool. Uh, the other thing of course would be, um, not to sound like a broken record, but the bootcamp really helps.
[00:42:33] Like I've had some meaningful discussions with, uh, Robbie, you've. Help me out, Kristin, as well, and you, Sabrina, as well, uh, these, they really got my back, saved me probably hours and hours of research just with a quick, uh, video here and there, and, um, I would say just to follow up with the previous question on what are the skills when starting off, I would I thought about this a [00:43:00] lot and I would encourage people to be the social butterfly of their office.
[00:43:06] What I challenged myself to do when I first started was, this is going to sound a little bit intimidating, but was just before going to my desk, which is at the second level, I enter instead of going upstairs the direct way, I go around the whole building, say hi to everybody. Uh, the first time I got people's names wrong, but hey.
[00:43:29] I learned and I never got them wrong after again, feeling embarrassed, but that was the whole challenge. And now I do that every single day that I go to the office. I just go around, greet people, say hi to them. Cause I've learned that one of the best ways to get. people to talk to you about problems and issues, which is what you want to hear is through these ad hoc conversations.
[00:43:53] Very rarely someone's going to knock at your door and say, Hey, do you have a minute? I'd love to talk about a situation. [00:44:00] It's more so, Hey, what, what did you do last weekend? How are your kids doing? Oh, I see that you're doing this. Uh, can I help with that in any way? And then it, it blossoms a beautiful friendship.
[00:44:11] So just wanted to. to throw that in there if that helps.Â
[00:44:17] Kristin: I love that. So, so good. Um, we do have another question and this is for anybody on the panel. So, what are the fundamental skills that a self taught ID should focus on developing first? I'm sure, like, I think there's so, there's so many different ones that I'm sure we could all think about, but if any of you have, like, one or two that you think are most important to share, I think that would be really valuable for everyone.
[00:44:40] Daniel: These are going to sound a little bit weird. There's two that come to mind. The first one when I was thinking about the question was leadership skills and it's kind of weird but we. Being a training specialist, an ID, uh, specialist, we're put into a situation where [00:45:00] we might not have the role of manager, or lead, or whatever it is.
[00:45:05] Whether we like it or not, we are leading programs, we are leading training, we are leading, uh, especially conversation with subject matter experts. Stakeholders could be the CEO. I've had the CEO, I have the, I have the Director of Sales, which are the two highest positions in my company. And it. It could be extremely intimidating, and it is, but funny enough, you have to just put on that hat for that two hours or so and say, Okay, I'm the leader of this conversation, and I'm going to make sure that we're guiding this in the direction where they want, despite the fact, if they want to joke around and do certain things, I still have.
[00:45:43] I have, I'm at the helm, right? Like they're, they're the ones sitting down, they're the ones, um, having fun and all that, but yeah, leadership was something that I learned through, through experience that wasn't easy at first, because it is intimidating. It's, it's very easy to, [00:46:00] to just sit there and say, Oh yes, that sounds like a great idea, but it might not be a great idea.
[00:46:04] And we might be the only ones to know that. So we have to step up and it could be. It could be scary, but we have to brave it. The other thing that I would say that I learned from Kristin and Robbie is storytelling. So I'm working on that. I'm by far no pro, but if we wanted to change behavior, the best way is not necessarily through the facts of information that we put on a piece of paper, but it's through stories that we can tell.
[00:46:36] Muster up that we can use from our experience or just, um, use from SMEs and crafting a story is quite the art that I'm learning at the moment, which I enjoy. So thanks. Thanks for your support, guys.Â
[00:46:52] Kristin: I love that. It's, I don't think anyone ever is a full pro at storytelling. It's something you're always working at and getting better at it.
[00:46:58] And so I absolutely [00:47:00] can't agree more. It's so important. Um, Racha, what about you? Anything you want to add?Â
[00:47:06] Rachna: So it'll be really quick because we're just ending it up. So, um, I think, um, what Robbie and Daniel has talked about is, you know, learning about different tools and also, um, yeah, but, um, I think what the basic skills, if I, uh, if I talk about is, uh, is.
[00:47:24] Communication, written, verbal, oral, every kind of communication you need to be very strong with because you are conversing with client on emails, uh, you're conversing with a lot of people. So I think communication is one skill that has really kind of, you know, very helpful other than the specific tools that you learn in.
[00:47:42] Project management skill is something that also comes handy because you're, you're kind of handling a lot of information by different, different people. Uh, and, uh, I feel you are never equipped 100 percent as an ID and even an expert would [00:48:00] say that there is something a lot more to learn on. So having a passion to learn, you know, yourself, like new skills because every single day something new is coming.
[00:48:11] So I think a passion to learn new things is something that is also as a skill is needed when you are working in this field. I think that's it from my side. Thank you.Â
[00:48:21] Kristin: I love that and couldn't agree more really with all of you. This was such a valuable, valuable conversation and I'm so appreciative with just all of you coming and sharing your, your, um, experiences.
[00:48:31] I'm sure it'll be very helpful for many. Um, and so, um, just for everybody, Rachna and Robbie went through the ID Bootcamp and Daniel is currently going through that bootcamp to sharpen his skills. Um, in the ID Bootcamp, you'll learn how to apply You can apply problem solving skills throughout the bootcamp to create a standout, industry relevant portfolio project.
[00:48:49] So we would love to have you join us. The applications for the August cohort are open today. So you will be taken to the bootcamp page after this event is done. Um, and yeah, so [00:49:00] keep working on the transition, stay tuned for more free content on the YouTube channel throughout this process, and we will all see you next time.