Designing Predicaments – the full series

Designing Predicaments eBook frontI’ve written about all the steps in the Designing Predicaments job aid in detail now, with a video talk about each.

I just want to remind you of how I recommend using Designing Predicaments. It works best, I think, in a small group or pair – maybe a designer and an SME – who’ve already made the decision to build a scenario, have a fairly clear idea of the learning point and the situation it’ll be based around.

It’s supposed to be a working document on which you scribble ideas as you go through each step. The steps don’t translate directly into elearning screens – they’re not supposed to. They help you build up the story in a way that adds drama and interest and at the same time holds true to the learning points.  I’ve watched it used that way at the Good Things Foundation (formerly Tinder Foundation) and it really worked.

The scenarios job aid let us get really creative with the storyline of each scenario, while helping us to keep our learning points on track. It was really useful to get our ideas written down in a structured way and the prompts were great – much easier than sitting down with a blank sheet of paper! – Hannah O’Brien, Learning Designer
The notebook helped us work in small groups on our own scenarios. With each step on a separate page we didn’t get distracted by what was coming up next; we could focus on the learning points of the story as it developed. It was a simple but very effective job aid.’ – Michael Skeldon, Learning Designer

Here’s the entire series:

Designing Predicaments, a job aid for scenarios

Step 1: the outline

Step 2: the characters

Step 3: the situation in detail

Step 4: pile on the stress!

Step 5: the right choice

Step 6: the right reason

Step 7: the good outcome

Steps 8 – 11: the distractors

Steps 12 & 14: sense-check and the call to action

Step 13: job aids

I’m now considering ‘what next?’ – two suggestions have been to add more to it about complex scenario paths and to write specifically about Storyline scenarios. What’s your experience of using the tool and how could I improve it?

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