Design Thinking Tools: Solutions To Better Learning Ecosystems In The Workplace

HR.com Live! Podcast with guest Mike Hruska on Building Learning Ecosystems with Design Thinking

                                                                                     
Where do you begin when it comes to polishing up or even designing your employee learning program?

In the past decade, design thinking has been successfully applied by many global organizations like Airbnb, Apple, and Google. Design Thinking allows teams to reframe problems, empathize, and shifts the focus on what is important for the people you are serving.

Why is it even timely to discuss design thinking these days? One of my goals is to ensure that our learning ecosystem remains innovative as we equip HR professionals with the tools they need to become smarter and navigate their careers. This is why it is so exciting to have had a quick talk with our guest expert Mike Hruska. He is currently the Innovation Coach and Chief Revenue Officer at Allen Interactions and an expert in research, strategy, design, and advanced learning technology.

Mike is also a former researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology so he researches, strategizes, designs, and builds advanced learning technology solutions and products making him one of the best people in the industry to talk to about Design Thinking.

Here are some of the highlights from our talk:

We’re hearing a lot about design thinking and learning, what connections did you make when you first came across design thinking?

I’ve been doing design thinking for a number of years because I like to design products and the tools for designing products that really meet people where they’re at, that are feasible and usable and desirable or amazing.

So, design thinking is a great set of tools and methodologies and most importantly it’s a frame for thinking about a problem space, identifying potential solutions, and then putting those solutions into action and bringing them into reality in the world. Design thinking is a magical tool that we use to very quickly understand the space, evaluate what could be, what’s the art of the possible, and then bring something that really brings user value to someone.

When we think about learning, we think about the new HR leader and knowing that we’re talking to HR professionals, why should this matter to them?

I think as an HR professional, we want people to be happy and knowledgeable and productive to increase the impact on our business. Using design thinking allows you to shine a flashlight where you can create the most impact and value for people. There is a range of different tools that are out there and I say the standardized sort of design thinking we have a number of tools that we’ve adapted to allow HR and L&D (Learning and Development) professionals to more easily adapt them for some of the specific problem spaces that they’re facing.

I think that’s what HR professionals need today. As we talk about the new HR leader, I think we have to stay looking at what’s out there, what has to be added to our array of technology across our learning ecosystem. How does this impact your approach and your work with organizations?

Well, what I often find is none of this stuff is that hard to do, but getting started is hard a lot of times. So that’s why we put out some tools and examples, do training, and speak at conferences and share, and create things that are open source, and creative commons so that people can use them.

One particular tool that we have is called the learning ecosystem canvas. We all think about how complex learning ecosystems are but after people have used this, I've gotten emails and calls that said, “I didn't understand how complex everything was. Now I understand my entire world on one page and know exactly where to go next!” So it really helps to reduce the chaos, constrain the complexity, and help people make themselves a little bit more sane about the challenges that are around them.

When it comes to this buzz phrase, learning ecosystems, can you just crystallize that to the simplest of definitions? What is an organization's learning ecosystem?

We always hear this new name in the space; it’s been emerging for years. It’s a place where people are aligned with business strategy through process, experiences, measurement analytics, and content.

It’s really the alignment of several dimensions of things that really matter inside organizations, people and business strategy being principled. But all of these things in terms of process and measurement analytics are supported by technology in some way.

What happens, I think, a lot of people tend to gravitate towards technology first and you know my sort of fundamental belief is that technology is a tool; it’s not the answer. It’s really important to think about people and alignment with strategy.

In a situation where it's been terribly busy and there's so much on their plates, why should an organization, or why should the HR professional, the HR leader, care about understanding and helping shape their learning ecosystem?

My view is that people are the most important part of the business and empowering them in alignment with business strategies is really important and really helpful. I have collaborated with singular persons that use this to understand, "Where am I today?" and then have that conversation with their team to say, "Where do we want to get to tomorrow?" 

The learning ecosystem is a super simple tool that has some framing questions on there that you could use with your team. You could do it by yourself if you’re new to your role and trying to understand your space. Over time, you can just put it out on the wall and tag it with post-its and really get an idea of the value that you created, how you connect to the business, who your partners and activities and resources are, and how you’re really creating value for your end-users along the way. I’ve used it to develop stem ecosystems with K-12 educators that are highly useful in just about any domain; I haven’t found one that it doesn’t work in yet.

What are three or so strategies you recommend that HR leaders consider or simply get a hold of and take some action on to propel the organization toward leveraging the most effective thinking and learning tools? What else should we be considering when it comes to strategies?

We’re all focused on what today looks like. You can find the learning ecosystem canvas by searching Allen Interactions Learning Ecosystem canvas who we collaborated on that work with or you can easily find the tools there.

In addition to understanding where you are and where you might go, there’s thinking about innovation. I think innovation is this beautiful word that is really hard to get rubber on to the road on for so many people because we’re worried about now, next, later and not really where we are guiding our organization. So we developed another tool called the innovation building blocks. This basically takes 10 elements of your learning ecosystem and allows you and your team to ideate around what the future potentials might be.

A really simple thing is to capture your learning ecosystem today, think a little bit about it tomorrow, and then look at learning ecosystem innovation building blocks. Come up with ideas, think big, think three to five years out, think about the possibility, think about potential, and then find those things that really resonate with your team and socialize that to bring those in to where your focal point is moving forward.

Now that's great! I really appreciate the fact that these tools and these resources are free and accessible. Those are some great strategies, Mike. I think that is so helpful to us as many organizations are searching for what’s now, what’s next, and how to be prepared. Most of us watching this show are self-anointed learning geeks. So what should we be reading?

I can’t tell you one; I can tell you two! There’s a book called Brave New Work. I would highly recommend it! It’s a fantastic exploration of transformation in a number of companies. It finds those little things inside the companies and gives you a great set of examples and a framework to think about things that really make a difference in the business. I think that’s fantastic!

The other book that I have been recommending is Exponential Organizations by Salim Ismail. This is a fantastic book starts to explain some of the phenomenon that emerging around these massive disruptive companies like Airbnb and Uber and some other thinking and frameworks that people are using to transform industries and flip them on their head.

Quite frankly, a lot of people are starting to dig into this work more. So if you’re at a company and you’re learning or you have to help other people learn and you read a book like Exponential Organizations or Brave New Work, that’s just a great thing to start seeding at your company. This is futuristic thinking that will make your organization more bulletproof from the change of the tidal wave of transformation that’s coming out there in the marketplace.

Dingnan, Aaron Dingnan, I think.

Ok wonderful, that’s really helpful and I love getting book recommendations and the why behind it and knowing a little bit about who’s making the recommendation and what it’s done for you.

To learn more about the importance of designing your own learning ecosystems and how open source design thinking tools can help move your organization forward, listen to the podcast here:

                                                                   

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	Dr. Heidi Scott Chief Learning Officer, HR.com
	Mike Hruska, Innovation Coach and Chief Revenue Officer, Allen Interactions and a former researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology