I am normally a goofy writer and my blog posts usually contain some witty, silly wordplays or jokes, but in this piece I wanted to keep it serious and give you more insight into our past year.
Challenges
The year 2019 went by in the blink of an eye, so it seems. This was the year that will go into The Learning Hub’s history books as one of the most intense years so far. Intense because we definitely met some challenges:
- We have never ever combined so many different projects as we did in the year 2019. We really mastered our agile and scrum way of working, which allowed us to be so constructive and productive as we were in 2019.
- Never before have so many existing clients returned spontaneously.
- We got to welcome so many new clients and their own way of working, their culture and their vision.
- We got familiar with creating innovative content, training and MOOCs such as our very own MOOC on Learning Analytics for Maastricht University.
- We have definitely broadened our LMS knowledge by engaging in a partnership with LMS365, CSOD, implementation of IMC and knowledge of eFront and TalentLMS.
- We almost tripled the amount of How To Choose Your LMS (HTCYL) workshops compared to 2018.
Our expertise
We are still going strong in all 3 of our expertise fields:
- 50,24% of our projects are related to LMS (HTCYL, implementations, licenses and hosting),
- 35,33% are linked to content creation (e-learning, blended learning, microlearning, simulations, teaser videos,…),
- and 14,43% are related to training design (conceptual thinking, service design, L&D guidance,…).
Lessons learned
One of our lessons learned from the previous year was gathering warm and cold feedback at the end of each project. This gave us insights regarding what clients appreciated in 2019 about The Learning Hub and where we can be of added value. Our clients talk about our:
- Cooperative way of working
It is striking how many of our clients talk about the partnership we are able to build with them. Some of our clients literally stated that it felt as if The Learning Hub was actually part of their own company since we really got aligned during the project. - High flexibility
Working in sprints offers us structure, but also a form of flexibility. We are able to shift gears quickly. Another element is our flexibility in our service offering. Every project is different. For some clients we guide and develop every step in the process, while for others we only support during the analysis or technical development. - Utmost quality delivery
Within our team there are certain team members who function as Quality Guards. During the project they frequently put themselves in the client’s shoes and critically revise the products we develop. - Platform and tool independency
We purposefully choose not to create our own authoring tool or platform. We find it more useful to follow the trends in the field and to use the tools that are available to everyone. This offers a form of independence to our clients. Clients can buy the tools and platforms and we can teach them how they work. Minor (and even major) adjustments can be done by the client himself without having to depend on our resources. We do advise clients in making the appropriate decisions and have partnerships with some vendors, which might be financially interesting. Our tool and platform independency doesn’t imply that we can’t offer long term support or build a long term partnership with our clients. - High added value when it comes to the didactical approach and effectiveness of the solution
The starting point in our collaboration is looking for the added value for the end-user and the organization. The tooling and technical elements are subordinate. We always keep an open mind and based on several theories and methods (such as ‘the 5 Moments of Need’ model) we define the best suitable solution.
Our resolution
But – in all fairness- 2019 was not all sunshine and puppies, you know. The immense increase in workload made it sometimes hard to work efficiently. We had to learn (or maybe relearn) how to give and receive feedback. We sometimes struggled with ensuring a shared ownership in our projects (which is one of our key ideas in the scrum and agile way of working). We were challenged with setting priorities and optimizing our communication skills.
This brings me to the conclusion that 2019 was a truly excellent, awesome and insightful year, which results in this New Year resolution:
We must now – maybe more than ever – invest in our own team.
That is why we are hiring (as you may have noticed on our website), allowing our current employees to regain breathing room and spend more time on in-depth training. Because in 2020, we still want to be the ‘The Learning Hub’ you are familiar with or want to get acquainted with. Let’s make 2020 count!