Four lessons from moving Planful Academy to a virtual learning environment

When the pandemic first hit, we saw a massive spike in traffic to Planful Academy. That was great, because we knew it was helping our customers quickly transition FP&A to the remote style of work that everyone was thrown into. The faster they could expand their team’s Planful expertise, the faster they could get to work rebounding from the pandemic’s impact on their business.

We quickly realized, just as with every other face-to-face activity, that our on-site, three-day boot camps had to go virtual. And as students across the world now know all too well, online learning isn’t great if you just move everything to Zoom without thinking it through. We needed to make sure our Structured Planning and Reporting and Dynamic Planning boot camps would continue to deliver real value to customers in a virtual format.

Since we already had experience creating online training courses for Planful Academy, we had a successful model to follow. But it still wasn’t a seamless transition and we learned quite a bit along the way. Here are four things that helped us move our in-person courses to an all-virtual learning environment.

1. Reimagine everything, not just the delivery model

From the start, we knew the biggest hurdle would be translating the in-person learning experience to an online format. Some techniques that work well in a live classroom simply don’t translate to the virtual world, like exercises that require students to work together or lengthy activities worked through as a group. Those are tough to replicate over a video call.

We knew we couldn’t just copy and paste the in-person experience to a virtual platform. We had to start from scratch.

Within the learning design world there is a strategy called ADDIE, which stands for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. We follow that strategy at Planful when we create any new learning course. Transitioning from in-person classes forced us to go back to square one: Analysis. In this phase, we defined the instructional design problem and our goals and objectives for the new courses. We already knew our audience, but we needed to identify potential learning constraints, sort through content delivery options, and set tight deadlines. We wanted limited downtime between the in-person boot camps and the new virtual courses.

2. Adjust for the lack of face-to-face guidance

Moving into the Design phase, we prioritized the courses with the most customer interest and the least amount of new content to create. That approach sped up the transition and got customers back in class faster.

The in-person boot camps were structured around a typical workday with lecture, exercises, and group discussions. Virtual courses couldn’t rely on a captive, focused audience. Students would be easily distracted, so the program had to be broken into manageable lessons. We built checklists, quick reference guides, and self-study classes with guided exercises. We then added virtual instructor-led classes with accompanying guides, workbooks, lectures, and exercises. Some content from the boot camps was repurposed, but a great deal was created from scratch.

In the Development phase, instead of three all-day in-person classes, the new virtual courses would consist of four to five parts. Each course begins with a Getting Started class to introduce students to the fundamentals, then progresses through a series of lessons delivered in a mix of formats. It starts with self-study so students can work at their own pace, and ends with a live virtual instructor-led class to wrap everything up and answer questions.

Because we spent so much time thinking through the learning experience upfront, the Implementation phase was straightforward.

3. Continuously evaluate and improve

The final Evaluation phase of ADDIE is both summative and formative, and it never really stops. The launch of a course is merely the starting point for future improvements. Getting feedback from every student on every aspect of the course is critical to understanding whether your training goals are being met.

We gather insights from post-course feedback surveys, but those are just one piece of our overall evaluation. We want to understand where students easily grasp concepts and where they struggle, which exercises resonate and which don’t. We look at questions that come up during office hours, how students respond to the final exam, and how all of that maps back to what the course is teaching. As we gather more insights, we iterate in a continuous process to improve the courses over time.

It’s a never-ending process, but it’s one that helps us constantly increase the value our customers get from their training investment.

4. Get in front of virtual distractions

Staying focused amid the constant noise of email, Slack, texts, and other notifications is a challenge for everyone. The most valuable resource in any classroom is the attention of the student. In a virtual environment, that challenge is significantly amplified.

The solution was to incorporate more checkpoints throughout each lesson. Instructors can’t read the room in a virtual classroom, so it’s hard to tell if students are absorbing the content, confused, or simply distracted. Adding checkpoints like polls, quizzes, and open-ended questions helped us assess whether content was landing and maintain student attention throughout. Most video meeting software also includes interactive features like emojis, checkmarks, and thumbs up or down responses that make lessons more engaging and give instructors a real-time read on the room.

More value, more opportunities

The move to a fully virtual Planful Academy wasn’t planned. But it has opened the benefits of Planful training to more people in more companies than ever before. Being Planful certified is a meaningful professional accomplishment, and now it’s easier than ever to earn that certification from anywhere at a pace that fits your schedule.

If you haven’t explored the available certifications or are interested in signing up, log in to the Planful application and visit Planful Academy today. It’s a great way to expand your skills, grow professionally, and get more out of the Planful platform.