ProManage Sales eLearning Module

Audience: Sales makers at Dell Technologies working with customers interested in the company’s Managed Workplace Services.
Responsibilities: Project Management, Instructional Design, eLearning Development, Visual Design, Voiceovers, Video Editing
Tools Used: Articulate Storyline 360, Adobe Premiere Pro, Camtasia, Audacity

Overview

Stakeholders within the marketing and product management teams at Dell Technologies contacted me as they were looking to create sales training to pair with the launch of their new modular ProManage offer within the Managed Workplace Services portfolio.

The ProManage offer contained five modular pieces that clients could customize to their liking. As to be expected, sales makers at Dell had different levels of knowledge and proficiency in their selling skills between the five modules. This wide spectrum of pre-existing knowledge created an opportunity for asynchronous microlearning for this training.

I proposed a four-part, eLearning experience that would allow Dell employees to pick and choose what information and practice they needed the most. This ensured that employees would be more engaged and intentional with their education, as they had the freedom to take the pieces of training covering the subjects that they felt were most important to them.

Process

I began this project by thinking about the critical questions I had regarding the ProManage offer to better understand the portfolio itself. I then set up a kick-off call with the primary stakeholders and SMEs involved in this service. During this time, I asked questions regarding the audience, modality, length, and description to better understand the scope of the project.

After discussing and identifying objectives, a tentative timeline was established for when supporting content, scripts, and design reviews would occur between the project team members.

I would then go on to design the story and potential scenarios/interactions needed, establish the flow and structure of the eLearning, and create scripts based on the supporting content provided.

Feedback calls would occur with the project team and also sales members that would partake in the eLearning itself. Revisions would be completed if any stakeholders had comments on the storyboard, objectives, critical questions, and answers.

Once approvals were obtained, the content would be developed within Articulate Storyline and then content reviews would occur through review links in Articulate 360.

Following both internal and external design reviews and revisions, the eLearning would then be published onto our LMS and files would be uploaded onto my team’s file repository. The project team would be notified that the training has been published and would be asked to conduct User Acceptance Training (UAT) to mark the initial completion of the project.

An example of what a typical kick-off deck would look like.

Storyboard

Even though learners would have the freedom to pick and choose which eLearning best served them, I framed the training covering the Managed Workplace portfolio from end to end.

In doing so, I split the training into four parts: an intro covering the importance of managed services and setting the stage for the ProManage portfolio, a section dedicated to the offer details of the ProManage portfolio and its five modules, a scenario-based section that gave a breakdown on how to best communicate with potential customers along with qualifying details, and a final resources section that contained important contacts and links to further assist our sales makers.

Depending on where the learners would evaluate themselves, they could start with any of the four sections and go back and forth as needed. The second section containing the offer details took the bulk of the work, as each module within the ProManage portfolio had its key features, benefits, and requirements covered before a scenario with a potential customer would be introduced.

Prototype

Once the text-based storyboard was revised and approved, I began to create the prototype within Articulate Storyline. Adobe XD and PowerPoint were used to create visual mockups/storyboards, but being at Dell made the visual process easier due to pre-existing brand design guidelines.

The prototype consisted of the title screens, section introduction, and the basic framework of what the scenes would look like based on the prior mockups and storyboards. Some animations and transitions were incorporated into the scenes to gather more buy-in from skeptical SMEs and stakeholders.

After completing the interactive prototype, I scheduled time with the project team along with sales members to review objectives and situations, as well as receive scenario suggestions.

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Full Development

The full development process would occur after preliminary revisions were completed following the meeting with SMEs and sales. A first draft would be created in Storyline with no voice-overs, as scripts were still being written to match the scenes of the storyboard.

After a scene for one of the five modules was completed, the rest were easier to complete as there was a solid model to follow.

What was interesting about the development process for this eLearning was the thought process and implementation involved with the ProManage portfolio details and its five separate modules. There were a good number of triggers necessary to have each button jump to a specific scene, along with setting the state of the button itself to “visited” to mark the module being completed.

I had to make sure that each module was independent of each other, and that the learner did not need to complete every module before proceeding to the customer scenario for the offer details section.

Results and Takeaways

This project gave me great insight and experience in the microlearning approach that I believe to be a trend we’ll see more of in the future.

The eLearning could’ve been housed in one, long Storyline file, but I imagined that learners would lose interest over time, causing engagement with the training to be poor.

There was great feedback from both SMEs and sales makers with the microlearning approach that this eLearning took. I had a better understanding of triggers and the flow of training through this project.

And with every corporate ID project I’ve been a part of, my communication skills were improved through the various meetings I initiated with SMEs and stakeholders.