Elearning - June/July 2008 - (Page 35) now mandatory training in regions such as SAP France.” McGonigal, who started as an instructional designer and then took over management of programs, notes that e-learning was chosen because of the SAP’s geographically dispersed workforce. In addition, it was important that learners could take these courses as needed and have the opportunity to practice what they learned. “Real learning takes place when it includes practice,” says McGonigal. “That makes the whole process considerably more effective and is really the only way to assess how effective the training has been.” During the needs analysis, SAP requested recommendations of exceptional virtual teams managers. These managers became the program’s subject-matter experts. They were highly involved throughout course development. MANAGING VIRTUAL TEAMS Based on the needs analysis results, the software development group, the project’s sponsor and the learning development team determined that the Managing Virtual Teams curriculum should include six one-hour modules, each addressing a different topic: planning, communication, virtual meetings, team building, team management and cultural understanding. Enspire Learning, SAP’s partner on the project, designed an interface that would appeal to software developers. The visually rich curriculum uses a “pseudo world” that takes learners from Earth to another planet: Orth has characters that are composites of a variety of earthly ethnicities and cultures and includes fictional locations that are unlike anywhere in particular on Earth. These multi-cultural elements were designed to avoid stereotypes and make all participants feel equally comfortable. “Because our teams include a wide variety of cultural differences, we felt it was essential to include this as one of the topics of the curriculum,” says McGonigal. “We wanted to ensure that this came out as a positive experience, When SAP needed to improve the effectiveness of its project teams, it developed a unique series of online courses covering all aspects of project management, and all based on an imaginary virtual world. Photo courtesy SAP and Bersin & Associates. Elearning! June/July 2008 35
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