Post by Melissa Milloway

Tools don't solve problems. People with the right skills do, regardless of the tools they have access to. I glanced over at Brandon Lynn's whiteboard one day while we were working together at Amazon and immediately thought of the Pepe Silvia scene from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, where Charlie is standing in front of a wall covered in papers and red strings passionately explaining what he's convinced is a workplace conspiracy. Brandon was solving a complex problem for HR colleagues who handled employee exits. Exit processes in the US vary by state, and within each state there are requirements on top of requirements depending on the situation. HR colleagues needed to get to the right information fast, in the middle of doing the work, not after sitting through a course trying to memorize every variation. Before he ever opened any tool, Brandon asked, "How do I get someone to the right answer as quickly as possible so they can keep doing their job?" What he built was a performance support tool. Our team had a name for this type of tool, we called it a Wayfinder. A short series of questions that branched to get people the answer they needed, embedded right in the flow of their work. What Brandon did was something that has to come before any tool enters the picture. And it came down to a minimum of three skills working together. ➡️ He started with the problem and worked backwards. Before he thought about what to build, he mapped out every variable the user would face and what it would take to get them to the right answer. ➡️ He already had the technical skills to work across many tools, not expertise in one tool, but transferable skills that he could apply based on the problem. ➡️ He combined both of those skills to create something that solved the problem effectively. You need all three of those skills working together. When you have the problem solving skills and the technical skills at the same time, you can see what's possible within the constraints you have and what might be possible beyond them. Brandon didn't have unlimited time, budget, or tools. He had a complex problem and the skills to work through it. You could hand Brandon a pen and paper and I would still bet on his solution over someone using every AI tool available who doesn't have that foundation. Brandon is one of the contributors to my book, Getting Unstuck in Learning Design. I chose him for the chapter, Work with what you have, because what I watched him do at that whiteboard and 100x over when I got to lead our learning design team. The work he has done show clear examples of how the right skills are what allow you to work within constraints and still get to something that helps people do their jobs. Over the next few months I'll be highlighting more of the people who contributed to my book and why I chose them. What's the toughest constraint you've ever had to work within to get to the right solution? #eLearning #InstructionalDesign #AIinLearning