Using Design Thinking and Storytelling Mindsets to Create Viral Learning

Employees everywhere face an overabundance of learning solutions, while grappling with an even higher quantity of demands on their time. How can you entice them to prioritize your important—yet not mandatory—corporate learning when they're juggling other learning options; from on-the-job training to outside-of-work YouTube playlists, podcast subscriptions, and social-media newsfeed articles? Vying for learners' attention heightens at PwC, where our staff charges clients for every minute spent working—and not any of the minutes spent learning. And as the old adage goes, "What gets measured gets done." So what would happen if we experimented with creating a learning solution using design-thinking and storytelling mindsets?

In this case-study session, you will find out how PwC applied design-thinking and storytelling mindsets both to reframe a pervasive business challenge and to create a personal, emotional learning solution that gained grassroots momentum among staff and leadership—and that resulted in immediate, on-the-job impact. One of PwC's organizations, which has 330 people across the United States, rolled out the optional learning last winter and achieved a 74% opt-in completion rate within three months. Success stories flowed about staff applying in the course of their daily work what they had learned from the training, and three months later this organization enjoyed a statistically significant, 4% increase in the related key performance indicator. You'll leave this session with strategies, techniques, and tipsheets based on the lessons learned from PwC's step-by-step journey of how our L&D team approached with curiosity, ideated an outside-of-the-box learning solution, told future-vision stories to gain buy-in from a training vendor, and rapidly iterated a scalable, cost-effective, on-demand digital learning solution.

Handout(s)

Session Video

July 9, 2020