Enabling Agile Design and Flexible Application with NovoEd | Tangram Flip Series

Written by Julie Dozier ?

Tangram flips the script with an application-focused design for learning leaders.

This week we’re spotlighting our Strategy Lab design, part of our very own Tangram Labs. We’ve designed Tangram Labs to be a community-oriented learning lab for learning professionals, a place to bring their future goals, current needs, and intriguing ideas they want to experiment with. We supply inspirational content and resources to get the wheels turning. Then our lab participants choose an area that speaks to them for their personal focus. We chose to start off with our Strategy Lab for learning leaders. In the future, we plan to have a Design Lab for learning designers as well.?

Our Approach?

To fulfill our vision for Tangram Labs, we needed a gathering place that could function as a hosting platform for learning assets, a discussion forum for conversation, and an interactive playground for whatever assignments we might dream up. We found the features and partnership we needed in NovoEd, a collaborative cohort learning platform. NovoEd is built to support the learning principles we work so hard to promote: an emphasis on social learning, chances for practice and feedback, and a safe space to connect and collaborate.?

We based our Strategy Lab around our Tangram Formula, our exclusive 6-part formula that we use to generate fresh ideas, energize our clients, and drive change. The first part of the formula is Bold Purpose, which is all about establishing a strong vision for learning at your organization and using that to guide every move you make. Our formula guides leaders to build on their bold purpose with our other 5 essentials for a holistic approach to learning.?

As we designed the pilot, we wanted to take advantage of as much of NovoEd’s functionality as possible.?

• The NovoEd platform allowed us to take an agile development approach and release new “chapters,” or sections of our program, as they were ready. We could message participants from within NovoEd with a link to the new section and a teaser about what they could expect.?
• We used the platform to design and host our self-paced content, including the videos that we made, PDF resources we designed, and external “learn more” links.?
• We were able to add discussion forums and polls throughout the journey to increase the interaction and amp up the social feeling we wanted.?
• We also scheduled one cohort meeting per month to gather and share personal reflections and application ideas on the current topic.??

Our Design Flip?

It would have been easy to make our lab more of a learning and thinking exercise for our learning leaders, but we wanted to push ourselves – and them! We also wanted to take full advantage of NovoEd’s multi-format submission feature where learners can upload their project work for the cohort, review each other’s assignments, and give feedback and input. ?

For our pilot, we decided to experiment with different application assignments related to the Tangram Formula. Each month, we would ask participants to choose a project to tackle in their workplace, give it some thought and action, and report on their progress in our scheduled meeting. We would use our scheduled monthly meeting for each person to share and give input.?

We knew we needed to support participants through this process, so we used the following learning strategies:?

• Each month, we created 3-4 assignment worksheets related to that month’s theme.?
• The worksheets outlined different relevant real-world assignments to inspire them and stretch them to make positive change. Participants also had the freedom to make up their own project.?
• After choosing their project, we let our participants decide how to approach their work that month. At a minimum, they could use our scheduled time to brainstorm as a group and get ideas for their project. Or they could show us a work in progress, or even a completed idea that they are ready to implement.?

The Results?

We were very impressed by our participants’ dedication to the project-based assignments. They took advantage of each month to choose something meaningful to test out, gather feedback from peers, and make an improvement in their organization or with their team.?

Here are a few examples of assignments our learning leaders worked on:?

• Redefining their vision for learning for their organization and sharing that with their team and stakeholders?
• Co-creating new goals for the year with their team and using them to establish specific performance targets?
• Setting new design standards for their team?

Giving participants flexibility for how much or little they did each month turned out to be key to the program’s success. There were a couple of months where they each went the minimal route of using our scheduled meeting to brainstorm and come up with ideas, but more often they went the extra mile and created a deliverable to share for feedback – a deck they were planning to present to their leadership, or a set of ideas/guidelines they had created and presented to their team. They recognized and embraced the opportunity the cohort gave them to make progress in an area of their choosing and see the impact the improvements would have on their team and their org.?

We had the best of both worlds – an off-the-shelf platform with built-in functionality that made communication easy, plus our awesome lab design that flexed with each leader's needs. And we loved that the design wasn’t constrained by the platform's limitations, which we had faced so often in the past with other platforms. Instead, it was quite the opposite: NovoEd’s thoughtful design and robust functionality motivated and pushed us to create the best experience possible for our leaders.

Our pilot ended in February, and we’re excited to apply what we learned to the next cohort! Let us know if you’re interested in getting updates about Tangram Labs, and we’ll let you know when we’re planning to run the next session.

This post originally appeared on the Tangram Learning blog.

Tangram Learning enables learning teams to deliver excellence for their organization. We are a collective of experienced learning consultants who bring innovation and creativity to every project we work on. We offer staff augmentation, design workshops to kick off your learning projects, development sessions for your team, campaigns that promote your offerings, and 1:1 consulting for leaders.