“I want a 100% increase in learner engagement, doubled course completion rates, and I want it tomorrow! Oh… and by the way, we’re cutting the L&D budget.”
Every learning professional has heard a variation of the above at some point in their careers, and it presents what feels like an impossible challenge. We’re all brimming with great ideas, but how are we supposed to implement them without the time or budget to do them justice?
The answer is to get your stakeholders to buy into your vision. It’s not always easy, but with a bit of extra effort upfront, it should be a little easier to get them on your side and excited about your plans.
Get stakeholders involved from the get-go
Often with learning projects, your stakeholders tell you their learning challenge, give you a deadline and a budget, and L&D goes off to get it solved. However, working out of sync with your stakeholders means that you’re often not on the same page and end up wasting time and money on solutions that will never be accepted. Instead, carve out time for a kickoff meeting to brainstorm ideas and understand their expectations, so you can go forward with an action plan that everyone is happy with.
Build a contingency buffer into your budget
When your budget is already tight, the idea of setting some of your precious funds aside is probably the last thing on your mind. However, things can and inevitably will change, and it’s better to have everything under control rather than having to go back to your stakeholders asking for extra budget. That way, you can more smoothly accommodate your stakeholders’ eleventh hour request for something entirely different, and prove the value of the L&D team.
Involve other departments in your organization
Learning involves way more people than just the L&D team. Getting the support of other departments in your organization makes it much more likely that your project will be a success. For instance, the IT team can help you identify any technical restrictions and necessary workarounds for the digital components of your program, the managers will tell you what skills and information their teams need to meet your overarching learning objectives and the marketing team will help you ensure a successful launch and rollout of your learning program.
Be explicit about benefits, risks and contingency plans
It may seem odd to present your stakeholders with the risks of your project, but this is a great way to garner trust—especially if you can then demonstrate how you will mitigate these risks. Virtually all stakeholders will appreciate it if you’re up front about any issues you may encounter, and a robust backup plan or solutions to any challenges you anticipate happening will make them much more confident in the success of your plan or new software implementation.
Back it up with data
Your stakeholders may or may not have approached you with concrete goals for your learning program. If they did, that’s great—you know their expectations and you have something to work towards. If they didn’t, set your own targets and explain how you reached them. Once the learning program is live, you should then use your learning management system to gather data, which you can present to your stakeholders to show how your efforts have improved performance. To take it a step further, you could always create them a personalized dashboard that they can access at will for real-time snapshots of performance—but a customized report generated directly from the LMS should suffice.
While getting buy-in from your stakeholders for learning programs can be tricky, these steps will almost certainly make your life easier. And, what’s more, once you’ve secured their support once, you can more easily do it again in the future.
Download our guide to choosing a new learning platform for even more suggestions on making your next learning project go more smoothly.
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