Technology Adoption Position Paper

Where did you create this artifact?

I created this artifact for ICT 733 - Technology Adoption and Implications, during the spring and summer terms of 2021. This qualitative research study and position paper was the semester project for the course. However, I took it a step further. The MC ICT program at UW - Stout, because it was a professional program, required an digital artifact portfolio in place of a thesis. The assignment to write a position paper making learning technology use recommendations for my organization represented a great opportunity for both myself and the company. For myself, I viewed it as a capstone completing the research track on technology enhanced training which I had followed throughout my program. For my company, it was an chance to improve how Learning and Development used technology to add value to the company.

What did you learn?

The project objective set by the instructor was to propose actionable recommendation(s) to a business unit regarding the roles and use of technological systems, or processes related to these systems. For the business unit to be studied, I chose my department, Corporate Learning and Development. There were four phases to the project - defining the parameters, conducting interviews and an analysis of the department's IT ecosystem, writing the position paper, and presenting findings to stakeholders. Through the interviews with colleagues within the department I found that the primary issues facing the organization were lack of engagement with our learning content and poor integration between the various systems and platforms in use. 

Compounding these issues were the challenges faced around the COVID-19 pandemic, remote or hybrid work being the norm for SHI employees for the foreseeable future. Technology was essential to employee training and skills improvement, however the department was not utilizing technology according to the most current corporate training industry standards, which increasingly demands a more dynamic, collaborative "in the flow of work" learning experience and less around static e-learning courses. I had started out my studies with the theory that traditional static, page-based e-learning was becoming obsolete, and giving way to a more curation-based model of instructional systems design using skill platforms such as LinkedIn Learning. The findings from thus study confirmed my hypothesis. It turned out that more personalized learning was something that was on every interviewee's wish list. The research centered around learning platforms and creating a roadmap to a technology ecosystem that would enable the introduction of personalized learning.

How did you learn this?

The project was started in March 2021 and the final presentation to stakeholders was given on September 17th. The original parameters called for a qualitative research study interviewing 4-6 people, but I ended up interviewing eight people (four managers and for other employees) from the department. Prior the start of the semester, I had envisioned a larger pool of interviewees from across the company. When that proved to be out of scope, I decided to focus my research on individuals with recent educational or professional experience outside of our company, to get an outsider's view of learning technology use. I believed that for those of us designing instructional systems, it is critical to get outside perspective, especially from learners. With corporate training, that would normally take the form of post-course evaluation surveys, focus groups, or in-person interviews. After completing all eight interviews, I undertook an in depth scan and research into solutions for the problems which had been identified. Because of the additional interview data and the complex nature of SHI's digital learning ecosystem, the project extended out past the end of the spring term and into the summer. In late August, I finished writing the position paper.

What were some challenges that you overcame?

This was easily the most challenging work I did for my master's degree. Even for a relatively small pool of interviews, it took a long time to transcribe and review all the interview data, because each interview was about an hour long. After I had completed the interviews analysis, I found that the Corporate Learning and Development digital ecosystem was a complex grouping of systems, applications, and third-party platforms that mostly functioned separately with minimal integration. Research into the specifications and systems which would allow for integration led to an examination of learning experience platforms (LXPs).

Given the complexity of these platforms and their usage within organizations, writing the paper was complex. At times it felt as if little progress was being made, which was also frustrating because of how important the paper was for me personally. Work also paused for a few weeks while I focused on class assignments for the compressed summer term. When I resumed work on the paper in August, I set myself a daily goal of putting in at minimum one hour of work on it a day, as well as imposing hard deadlines on myself for both the paper and presentation.

Over the course of the project I also faced external challenges in the form of product release announcements of new and potentially disrupting learning platforms like Microsoft Viva in Teams and LinkedIn Learning hub, both learning experience platforms with the potential to be industry game-changers. Both of these announcements caused me to have to make adjustments to my analysis and recommendations to account for these platforms. In the end, my recommendations split into two buckets: near-term improvements that can be made using existing  apps and platforms with minimal added investments; and long-term recommendations for learning experience platform adoption.`

How will you apply this information in the future?

I believe that this project can serve as the stepping stone in the next phase of my career, which is shifting from instructional content design to also doing technology-based instructional systems design. The knowledge gained from this research puts me in the position right away to help my company right away making incremental improvements and providing learning platform knowledge. The qualitative research practice could also be beneficial in implementation planning and ROI assessments, for example by conducting pre and post-rollout interviews with project stakeholders and using the data collected from those interview to drive decisions..