I remember the day everything changed around how I perceived my role as a learning and development (L&D) professional. Early in my career as an instructional designer, I developed a training intervention for account associates in our organization. My extensive needs analysis involved focus groups, job shadowing and countless subject matter expert (SME) interviews over several months. The outcome was a beautiful program. Rich in content. Creative. Engaging. Actionable.
And completely ineffective. I couldn’t understand how, after so much attention to the training audience and its needs, I had delivered such disappointing results. After licking my wounds for a few days, I set out to discover what had undermined my implementation.