The 5A Model

Does Your Company Use Customized IT?

There may be a number of business objectives that drove your company to adopt or maintain a custom-fit technology solution. You may have:

Identified specific business goals that could not be achieved with a standard commercial solution
Made a significant IT investment and must continue to capitalize on the selected software and/or hardware
Elected to avoid the risks of aligning with a commercial technology solution with uncertain longevity and support
Developed an application, package or program that is required for your organization’s operations but may also become a commercial product

The training programs developed for your application must reflect these business objectives.

Our Model Streamlines Custom Training

Generally, developing custom IT training for a proprietary system requires more effort than for a commercial or third-party product. The designers must take time to understand the application’s functionality, and often there is no single source for documentation. In some cases, the application may still be evolving.

Deploying a proprietary training design methodology with clearly defined steps is critical. At Intulogy, our instructional designers gather information to learn about your application while we concurrently develop a training strategy. Our 5A Instructional Design methodology identifies five stages in which we:

analyze information
ask questions
access the application
articulate our understanding
act to develop and deploy the training program.

This specialized instructional design model efficiently produces custom IT training advantages. Intulogy's methodology:

Saves You Time: We learn the application and business process rapidly and minimize the assistance required from your team.
Saves You Money: We begin the training design process in conjunction with the application and procedure research—shortening the training development cycle.

1. Analyze the Information

First we examine all system and business process documents available in order to accomplish as much independent research as possible. These can include:

Information Resource	Value to Design Process
Business Requirements	Validates learning goals and objectives
Technical Specifications	Reviews system requirements and capabilities
Screen Captures and Flow Diagrams	Establishes informational foundation Provides roadmap for moving through live application
Training Materials and Users Guides (Existing and Legacy Systems)	Provides step-by-step system procedure information that can support our independent research
Market Materials	Presents high-level overview of functions and capabilities

Once we have absorbed all available information, our consultants are in a better position to ask intelligent questions.

2. Ask Questions

Based on our research in the analysis phase, we will schedule interviews with subject matter experts (SMEs). Since we will have already accomplished our preliminary research, we will minimize the time spent asking questions.

For a proprietary application still in development, the interviews may include the design lead, the development lead, the business lead and the overall project manager. Each will have a unique perspective regarding the objectives, functionality and orientation of the proprietary application.

For an existing system, the interviews may also include end users who are particularly experienced with the application as well as those employees who have been functioning in a training or mentoring capacity.

3. Access the Application

Accessing the application, if developed, allows us to solidify our understanding of the system. Our consultants are comfortable in a variety of computing environments: UNIX and PC, client/server or terminal or web-based.

Participating in activities that are already built into your development cycle reduces the learning curve for our consultants, reducing the time required to ask questions of SMEs.

Consultant Participation in	Benefit to Design Process
Management Demonstrations	Gain high-level system overview and introduction Understand executive-level priorities
User Acceptance Testing	Complete specified tests and record results
Usability Testing	Provide feedback on system Gain in-depth navigation knowledge
Audit User Training (Legacy System or Alpha Version)	Receive user-level understanding Evaluate effectiveness of current program

4. Articulate Our Understanding

As we move through these phases of the 5A instructional design model, we are already formulating a training strategy. We will provide our understanding of the application to you to validate our mastery of the proprietary system. In a presentation of findings, we describe our understanding of the application, your goals and objectives for training, and a proposed training plan that offers:

Buy-in from the Employee Audience: structured communication programs to bring key members together for discussion as a precursor to training

Change Management Expertise: ensuring that employee training incorporates the message of positive change and user benefits

Neutral Perspective: on both current practices and visions for the future

Savings of Time, Money, and Resources: We give full-time dedication to your training project, while you and your employees remain focused on core-business.

5. Act to Develop

Upon acceptance of the training plan we will begin designing the training program and developing the courseware. The work accomplished during the prior phases allows us to rapidly develop your custom IT training solution.