Mariel Dueñas has been a member of ATD since 2014 from the Philippines. Here's her story in her own words.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
You can say that my love for the Association for Talent Development started seven years ago when I was tapped to form an in-house instructional design team. Our goal was to produce innovative, cutting-edge learning materials. I was a senior trainer who was passionate about training in the classroom but had never heard of Captivate or Articulate. Now, I manage learning projects on a global scale with a team of instructional designers, and I attribute our skill set from the webcasts and certification courses we've attended through ATD.
What are your professional goals?
On our team, we always say that the learner is in the center of our design. It has been a personal and a team goal from the start to truly understand our learners so we can make learning engaging and effective for them. We work hard to make sure their learning experiences stick because it works for them, so that they perform better and keep wanting to learn.
What challenges have you overcome in your career?
At the start, it was all about figuring out how to make sure we could produce online learning materials fast enough based on the demand. It took us a lot of “failing fast” moments to come up with an agile design workflow that now allows us to produce bespoke learning materials like clockwork.
What’s the most valuable thing you’ve gained or experienced during your membership with ATD?
Our standard of excellence come from the webcasts and online courses we've attended through ATD. More than having a solid foundation on instructional design, we were able to connect with our global counterparts and share best practices.
Can you share any professional tips, specific to talent development, that you have picked up along the way?
Have a deep understanding of ADDIE and combine with it agile thinking. There may be a lot of new schools of thought when it comes to learning, but I still find myself going back to my foundation— ADDIE.
Keep on learning about your learners. Observe them learn and talk to them.
What’s a common misconception you see when it comes to talent development?
That training will solve all kinds of problems. When it comes to one's talent development, it should be all about perpetual learning and everyone is involved, from a peer to senior management.
Do you have any advice for people looking to further their careers?
If there's working smart, there's also learning smart. Invest to learn only from the best, and it will be worth your time and money. Keep on learning, not just on what's new in learning technologies but on what's going to happen in the next few months with AI and automation.
What is your personal definition of talent development?
Talent development is being given the tools that will let you uncover your motivation and also change your motivation. Discover your many potentials and also let you change your course without going off-track.
How do you stay motivated?
I love solving problems even when faced with ambiguity. Realizing that there's actually a lot of that in training—from conceptualizing a storyboard, simplifying explanations, making a Captivate interaction work, and figuring out how to make information security training fun and sexy, to improving processes in training and a lot more— it all keeps me on my toes every day.
How do you find meaning in your work?
It's all about having an authentic presence while working with my colleagues on a learning project or making every interaction a memorable one when working with a client and even lifting yourself up again after a setback. It has always been about work-life integration. I'm just grateful to also be doing what I love to do.
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