Six Steps To Develop Effective Learning Pathways

Professional development professionals in associations and businesses are frequently interested in the design, development and delivery of learning pathways. Effective learning pathways usually include a series of different types of content delivery venues. Each venue is focused on achieving a specific set of behavioral results for improved workforce performance. The types of venues through which a series of courses are delivered include: instructor-led (with or without prework); online elearning modules; blended learning events; micro-learnings; and even higher-end games or simulations for learning. Continue reading to learn about the impact of venue, and the six steps you should take to develop effective learning pathways for your organization.

Where Learning Happens Has A Significant Impact On Efficacy

In order to develop an effective learning pathway, we have to recognize any communication norms and expectations of a learner that come along with the venue. For instance, if a learner is attending a seminar, the very format of that venue helps shape the learning experience. That’s because they anticipate sitting for a longer period of time, being presented with information, and possibly having to take notes. The venue is more likely to be interactive, making it appeal more strongly to a learner with their own internal motivation who is comfortable with learning in large groups.

Conversely, a micro-learning experience, delivered digitally or in print, may appeal more strongly (and be more effective) for a learner who isn’t seeking direct interaction with other learners, and has smaller blocks of time committed to the learning process.

There are many tactics that can be employed to aid in the learning process, across all venues. They include:

Third party and/or sponsorship content
Podcasts and webinars
Journal articles

“How to” worksheets and guides
Cross-functional process workflows
eBooks and white papers

Reports
Videos

But behind the learning pathway must be a clear design strategy focused on a particular audience, such as a segment of an association’s membership, or an important employee role in a business. Ultimately, an effective learning pathway strategy delivers exceptional skills-based learning content. The content builds specific skills, which can lead to:

a designation (such as earning a certificate), or
a learner prepared to engage in a more formal, industry-based skills demonstration (like a certification or licensure exam).

When your organization invests in the design and development of a learning pathway, it is reasonable to expect consistent learning outcomes that can be quantified. Development of your learning pathway(s) should use an evidence-based methodology, be rigorously based in instructional design best practice, and deliver learners who walk away from the experience with sufficient skill to engage in their respective tasks. Your content should also provide sufficient part-task and whole-task practice, preferably within a scenario-based or case study-based context, so that learners engaged with this content demonstrate a competent result in the workplace. The six steps that follow will help you to employ that methodology effectively.

Steps to Design and Develop an Effective Learning Pathway

The steps in the design and development of a learning pathway include the following activities:

Develop a competency model with priority recommendations related to task difficulty, importance, and frequency.
Prioritize competency tasks in workflows, where tasks plus related knowledge are chunked around specific skill development, along with associated tools and documentation guidance. Each content chunk focuses on a specific set of related skills.
For each chunk of content, develop a cross-functional process workflow to understand how the process they are to learn works.
Develop a strategy that best takes advantage of the different benefits each learning delivery venue offers.
Develop a detailed design document (outline) for each pathway.
Obtain or develop the content for each learning pathway and produce your training materials.

These six steps are described below.

1. Develop a Competency Model

A competency model is the foundation for the development of employee job descriptions. You start by determining the wide domain, such as “communication” or “technology.” Then you identify narrower competencies that fall within each domain. For example, “Determines how to speak with potential customers having different needs (communication competency)” or “Enters information into enterprise technology system (technology competency).” For workforce development, we then identify tasks under each competency.

Each domain covers competencies with tasks that fall into several major parts of a job. Having a near-exhaustive list of these tasks enables you to “chunk” relevant tasks together after you have built a cross-functional process workflow. Once your initial work in building a competency model is complete, the learning pathway can begin to take shape. The competency model tasks can now easily become the macro-level learning objectives for various learning pathways.

2. Organize Prioritized Tasks

Your next step in establishing an effective learning pathway is to organize the prioritized competency tasks in alignment with the skills to be developed. This is carefully accomplished by using a Difficulty-Importance-Frequency (DIF) chart, like the one shown on the left. Begin by answering whether the skill is difficult, then determining whether the skill is very important, moderately important, or not important. After you understand those two things, you can clearly identify the highest priority tasks, and consequently define the frequency with which they should be trained.

At this point, the tasks have now become learning objectives, and do not need to remain under broader competency tasks. The tasks are primed for reorganization into learning pathways that make sense. Often we organize these learning objectives based on prioritized skills and in such design structures as a ‘day in the life’ of the individual in the job role.

3. Develop Cross-Functional Flowcharts for workflows

In order to gain a clear understanding, it’s important for you to work with one or two individuals who already know how to perform those skills. Invite them to talk through each step in the process in great detail, while you concurrently develop a detailed cross-functional flowchart for the workflow.

Make sure to identify all knowledge and tools needed for each process step. Have a key, or another easy to understand method for distinguishing between each functional area, as well as the tools involved. Be thorough, and arrange it for easy comprehension.

After the cross-functional flowcharts are built for each workflow, be sure to validate them with others who currently perform the tasks expertly. It’s a good idea to not simply use the original subject matter experts (SMEs) who you worked with closely, because you want to help avoid embedding errors in your workflows. If you have a limited learning population from which to select SMEs, validate with others who formerly performed these tasks and may have moved on to another role. Then work back and forth between your experts to obtain process assurance.

4. Develop a Delivery Venue Strategy

Once your cross-functional flowcharts are validated and approved, the next step is to determining which delivery venues are best for each chunk of content. As discussed above, earlier in this article, there are particular considerations for each venue and tactic(s) that you employ so that obstacles to learning or reduced learner motivation can be avoided. Examples of some of those training delivery venues within your learning pathway are listed and described in more depth below, along with potential constraints, or challenges, to consider:

Third-party and/or sponsorship content. In many cases, there are a variety of different content providers. Some providers are very effective in their development of content for learning purposes, but some are not. So if you consider using third-party or sponsorship content, instead of content that you develop yourself, perform a thorough review. Employ an effective process for determining if the content has been designed and developed based on instructional design best practice. Confirm collaboration with relevant SMEs during your content review, and vet the contribution. That way you have some confidence the content is modular enough to be effective in your learning pathway. Otherwise, it could be misaligned to the performance objectives and negatively impact the learning experience.

Podcasts and webinars. Using media sources such as podcasts and webinars may be an economical way for experts outside your organization to not only provide overview information, but also to deliver ‘how to’ guidance and expert perspectives. Similarly to third-party and/or sponsorship content, you still need to vet the material, come up with an effective game-plan for integration, and test to confirm effectiveness. Partnerships like these can be very valuable, when done correctly.
Journal articles. A peer-reviewed or well-established industry publication is a useful vehicle for delivering an overview of the skill topics and how they weave together.
“How to” worksheets and guides. Practical tools like forms, documents, guides, handbooks, or worksheets provide the learner with easy-to-understand structure, within the learning pathway. Best of all, this practice framework can be utilized later as job aids, to support skill development and reinforcement in the future. One relevant example is developing coaching and mentoring guides like these.
Cross-functional process workflows, which can also be used as a job aid for complex learning pathways to support learners in developing capability to perform complex skills.
eBooks and white papers, both of which can build depth in terms of context and knowledge.
Reports, which can discuss through case study how the skills have been applied in different situations.
Videos, which can provide expert commentary and how-to actions that demonstrate the skill set.

5. Design Content

Now that you have clarified the learning pathway content strategy, the next step is to actually design all of your content. It’s best practice to use a Detailed Design Document (DDD) to organize and sequence all your content, including:

An outline of each small chunk of content
The time required to teach or discuss the content chunk
A semi-detailed description of each activity used to practice skill
The title of the screen or slide, to distinguish from each other

This step should be done for each set of content, no matter which delivery venue is used. As you are doing this, consider building a Project Management Plan (PMP) for this effort to ensure that all your pieces of content will be completed on schedule, and in the best order. You certainly want to avoid any possibility of your project going off the rails, like exceeding its scope or the delivery time-frame. So establishing an agreed-upon deadline, fulfilled in deliverable phases through a PMP, will greatly help manage expectations (and avoid catastrophe).

Another important note: during the design step, as the skill set becomes clearer and the layout of different content brings understanding more in focus, it is possible that strategy might shift a bit. That shift is normal, but you want to keep a clear head about how strategy shift affects work already completed, and work still scheduled for the future. Otherwise, when your solution is completed, you may face an immediate need to rejigger portions to maintain alignment.

6. Develop Content

After key stakeholders come to agreement regarding the content design and sign-off, it is time to develop your learning materials. Beyond transforming scripted content into its final form within your learning pathway, you will also be aligning your approach with the organization’s brand, messaging, and non-learning initiatives. Styling and formatting will require adept execution, depending on the type of content delivery venue, to avoid compromising learning efficacy in favor of aesthetic preference. Ensure you are applying graphic design for learning best practices to maintain the quality expected for your organization’s investment.

The Value of This Methodological Approach

Although your organization may prefer to employ a variation of these six steps to achieve effective learning pathways, the most important thing is that nothing is left out. Similar to the development of a certification or licensure exam, effective learning pathways need to be intentionally aligned to specific criteria related to the needs of the organization. Otherwise, you will face potential performance improvement false flags and process deviation that taken together, undermine quality, safety, brand equity, profitability, and long-term organizational viability.

One example of this is employing subject matter experts as trainers, or training developers. Remember that SMEs have developed highly effective skills so they are very good at their own work. They may be good individual contributors, and even good managers of others. But they are not necessarily knowledgeable about:

the learning process and how the brain works to develop skill
motivating different types of learners
addressing deceptively homogeneous audiences

harnessing various modes of communication for learning
technical or logistical requirements of learning venues
content development protocols or best practice

It’s important that you recognize the great disparity in utilizing someone untrained in designing effective learning experiences. After all, your organization is investing in strategic performance improvement, so you will need a proven instructional designer or design team, whose training is in instructional design best practice leading this initiative. You have a choice between creating content chunks that provide useful information, but fail to develop the learning outcomes you need. Or employing a learning pathway that is effective in building skill. Remember that it’s always less expensive to do it right the first time, then to remediate after the fact.

Assessments and Certificates

If you have developed your learning pathway(s) using evidence-based practice, with the right amount and formats of learner practice with corrective feedback, then it’s useful to reward your learners for their completion of all required coursework. Consider offering digital certificates to those employees who have successfully completed their assigned coursework. This closes the loop, helping provide a scalable assurance element for your learning pathway design. Beyond providing learners who value recognition with a tangible symbol of achievement, you are delivering a sufficiently rigorous assessment (test) which enables your learners to fully demonstrate – or not – their acquired capabilities. This gatekeeper helps to ensure they have not only acquired, but also retained the necessary skills and knowledge, using provided tools.

Written by Sue Ebbers, Ph.D. and published in 2024

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