Webinar Highlights: Embracing Agility: Transforming L&D for the Future of Work

1. Focus on Real Problems: Make sure your L&D efforts address actual issues that impact your organization. Solve what’s really important.
2. Experiment Without Fear: Try out ideas on a small scale to see what works. This way, you reduce risks and set yourself up for success when expanding.
3. Treat L&D Like a Product: Keep improving the employee experience by using feedback and data. Think like a product manager to ensure you’re adding real value.
4. Embrace Multi-Skilled Teams: Build teams with a mix of different skills. Working together across various areas leads to better solutions.

Interesting Insights

Natal shared her journey into Agile methods and how they’ve changed her view on HR and L&D. She talked about her experience with an agile organization, saying, “I learned the power of applying agile methods to co-create change… It allows me to build change with people and not implement it onto people.”

Natal also highlighted the importance of design principles in agility. These principles not only help create solutions but also transform teams. 

“If you are embarking on an agile journey, these design principles will help you. Not just in how you create solutions, but ultimately how you transform your team.”

These design principles boil down to five key pillars. Keep reading to find out what they are and how they can change your approach.

Five Principles for Agile Learning and Development

1. Product-Led Approach

Natal started by explaining the importance of a product-led approach in Agile L&D. Simply put, this means treating the employee experience as a product that solves problems and adds value. 

Natal put it nicely, “There are a couple of reasons why we want to see it as a product. But the most important is that it’s all about understanding values. So products deliver value by solving problems for people.”

By viewing the employee experience as a product, organizations can identify areas for improvement and measure the real impact of their L&D efforts, moving beyond just tracking course completion rates.

2. Human-Centered Design

A human-centred approach is about deeply understanding the day-to-day experiences of employees to create effective solutions. 

Natal explained, “This is the sort of philosophy that underpins design thinking. And I personally cannot separate design thinking from agility. I feel like it goes hand in hand, particularly for L&D and OD (organizational development) topics. This is how you find out the problems to solve.”

By focusing on the actual needs and challenges faced by employees, L&D initiatives can be much more impactful and relevant.

3. Experimentation

Experimentation might sound risky, but it’s all about smart risk management. 

Natal highlighted, “Experimentation really is about risk management. It’s about reframing it because it’s the only way to know you’re going in the right direction.”

Small, safe experiments allow organizations to test their ideas and gather data before fully rolling out new initiatives. This iterative process helps ensure that solutions are effective and reduces the risk of large-scale failures.

4. T-Shaped People and Teams

Natal emphasized the need for collaboration across different functions to tackle complex problems. “There’s a danger when we look at a business problem if we just look at it from certain silos.”

Building T-shaped teams, where team members have deep expertise in one area and broad skills across other areas, enables better collaboration and more comprehensive solutions.

5. Deliver with Impact

“So, it really comes back to what’s the problem to solve and what’s the value and how do you measure it.”

Finally, Natal talked about delivering with impact. She stressed the importance of focusing on outcomes rather than just activities. “To understand the impact you need to know the problem you’re solving…It needs to equal an outcome. And once we start focusing on that outcome, we can measure it. And we can actually design solutions to, you know, to change that outcome.”

This principle encourages L&D teams to create real value and continuously measure their effectiveness, ensuring that they are always aligned with the organization’s goals.

Conclusion

The webinar provided a deep dive into how Agile principles can reshape Learning and Development. By adopting a product-led approach, focusing on human-centred design, embracing experimentation, fostering T-shaped teams, and delivering with impact, organizations can develop more effective and valuable L&D initiatives.

For those eager to learn more, Natal’s book Agile L&D is a fantastic read. 

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