On-Line Coach for Team Leaders

Customization

While the OLC works perfectly well as an off-the-shelf, "plug and play" intranet module, nothing brings the material to life better than organization-specific customization. By including mini case studies and "war stories" drawn from within your organization, users of the site will relate even more directly with the concepts being presented.

The Process

To customize the OLC, McVinney & Company interviews people within your organization to gather miniature case studies which reflect the use of OLC concepts and tools. These will be included on the site as audio clips, increasing the interactivity, interest level, and immediacy of the site. Each case study or war story will include:

• a very brief biography of the presenter
• scene-setting - what challenge was to be met?
• what was done and what happened
• lessons learned; pitfalls, tips, and tricks

For example, in the section that deals with "Establishing Communication Strategies," you might end up with links like:

• "A private email list kept us all in touch"
• "Different team members were responsible for different portions of the final briefing, and we reviewed each other's work"
• "Different team members gave different versions of what we were doing" (a pitfall)

The Benefits

The exact stories and scenarios will vary depending on your company's circumstances - which is the whole idea! As users listen to stories told by their colleagues, they will identify with the material and get their own ideas of how to implement team strategies. In this way, the OLC becomes a living document - an evolving knowledge repoistory for you organization. Some of the many benefits of this customization include:

• provides material that is relevant to actual work settings that learners encounter
• ensures cogent examples by involving personnel in developing case studies
• fosters a sense of shared corporate culture - a sense of community and purpose
• becomes a widely-accessible knowledge base of experience that might otherwise be lost
• is much better remembered
• is better integrated with existing knowledge and skills
• is easier to apply in actual work settings