STA Helps Advance a Global Professional Association’s Programming November 27, 2012, by STA Staff in Internal Communications, Case Stories - Tech
The Client: The client organization is the “world’s largest professional association dedicated to the training and development fields” and offers a relevant certification for members that increases professional competency and leads to advancement opportunities.
The Challenge: The competency model supporting the certification program had been updated, resulting in the need to redesign the program “products” based on the competency model, including a robust set of resources preparing learners for the program. In addition, the client also planned to provide the resources digitally for the first time, in the form of a website featuring a responsive design to accommodate learners on variety of digital devices (desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones). The design also needed to anticipate other steps in the technological evolution of the organization, such as learning management systems and private social networks.
How STA Got Involved: Springboard International, a growing organizational effectiveness firm with expertise in performance and learning, was poised to win the project award but needed a partner with strong marketing/communications and technology expertise to round out its team. STA was identified by Springboard International as an important partner and we contributed to the RFP response. Partly as a result of STA’s expertise and experience, the client awarded the project to the Springboard team.
STA’s Solution: We immediately integrated into Springboard’s team and got to work on this intense project featuring demanding requirements and rapid-fire deadlines. STA informed the team (including client stakeholders, Springboard’s internal team of strategists and instructional designers, independent learning/training industry experts, the web development contractor, and software vendors) with strategic insight and best practices for technology use for the learning resources design, development, and web production. We provided project leadership and kept communication about important technology issues open, positive, and straightforward—taking great care to make sure that all participants were on the same page.
The Results: STA’s partnership with Springboard resulted in a comprehensive and detail-oriented learning resources design that won approval and praise from the client. In addition to addressing the immediate need of redesigning the resources to correspond to the updated competency model, our recommendations anticipated a variety of future growth opportunities that will allow the client and the certification program to flourish long-term.
Springboard said: “STA’s technical expertise, customer focus, anticipation of project risks, education of the team, professional deliverables, and simply wonderful Project Lead abilities definitely contributed to the success of this project. STA has been an outstanding asset to our team!”