At CDPS we deliver 3 remote courses.
‘Digital and Agile: the foundations’ which introduces individuals to what ‘digital’ means, introduces Agile principles and what it means to be Agile.
‘Agile fundamentals for teams’, is aimed at teams who want to learn about practical tools and steps they can use in their team or organisation when working in an Agile environment.
‘Agile for leaders’ is course aimed at heads of department or services who can influence how teams work and deliver products or services.
Currently we run 3 courses a week and are fully booked until April 2024.
Being a small training team and providing training throughout the week has meant we are unable to fully focus on providing a greater range of training opportunities to upskill and meet user needs. As a team we have used the Agile principles we teach and applied user research to gain insights into what could be improved.
Challenges
Based on course feedback and observational data, some challenges and changes have been highlighted.
User research has shown that some of the basic content could be best accessed in a self-led manner and that the face-to-face time is best used for asking questions and discussing how to apply knowledge.
Observational data has shown that participants often find it hard to commit to 2 days out of the office or even half a day, which leads to people dipping in and out of the course.
Currently we are unable to offer mixed cohorts, and this can mean our course is less accessible to smaller organisations and leaders.
Participants have fed back that they would like support to implement some of the approaches learnt, which is not possible in a face-to-face context.
The face-to-face format is limiting due to cohort size, timing constraints and number of trainers. At best, we can train 24 people a week.
Moving to self-led learning
In answer to some of these challenges, we are currently working on building fully digitised, self-led courses on Agile working using an online classroom. There are several benefits we believe this will bring, such as, allowing us to provide more training by expanding our reach and making the course more flexible to fit people’s schedules. Before we make the leap, we need to carry out user research to ensure we deliver what is necessary and desirable to achieve the Agile learning outcomes. We do not know how long this change will take and we will continue to deliver remote training using Microsoft Teams in the meantime.
We are currently undertaking user research to decide how to deliver our new digitised courses. Digitised courses will be delivered using an online classroom. We will select the service which provides the best accessibility options based on our discussions with users. The training will consist of videos, readings, creative activities, reflective activities, and collaborative forums. We are also considering taking a ‘blended’ approach, including some elements of live remote training. Once we launch our digital training, we will be sure to practice what we preach, by working in an agile manner and iterate new versions of our training based on the feedback we receive.
What’s next
Digital can solve problems and empower services and this case is no different. We have no strict timeframes as we want to ensure what we deliver meets user needs, and we plan to iterate the course based on user testing both internally and externally.
Just like we communicate in our training, it is not about just copying and pasting our training onto a digital solution it is using a digital solution that can help to deliver a better learning experience to meet our user needs.