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Conrad Gottfredson is founding partner and chief learning strategist for APPLY Synergies, a 5 Moments of Need Company. He has experience helping organizations optimize their complete learning ecosystems. His expertise lies in assisting companies with identifying and implementing 5 Moments of Need solutions from start to finish: from the methodology, technology, and organizational support infrastructure to the design, build, implementation, optimization, and evaluation of those solutions.Gottfredson has also worked with L&D teams to establish collaborative instructional development and maintenance processes to eliminate wasteful redundancies and focus on specialized skills and knowledge. Those collaborative development models have provided significant cost benefits in environments of constrained resources and overwhelming development requirements.

Conrad Gottfredson

The workforce is changing and so are organizational structures and hiring practices. More and more, we move from job roles to skills-based project teams allowing employees to move across the organization and work on projects that align with their ski

How Skills-Based Job Profiles Change the L&D Landscape

August 2015 - TD Magazine

Technology to the Rescue

This ATD infographic highlights key data about achieving impact via performance support.

Performance Support: An Infographic

ATD Links Archive - ATD Links

Understanding Agile Instructional Design

To create a valuable and connected learning experience, it’s important to consider the range of learning styles and roles people play in an organization throughout the learning life cycle. Identifying different types of learning moments, learners, and learning facilitators enables us to take full advantage of our assets and own the learning process.Moments of Learning NeedWe should frequently consider the resources we make available to employees during a learning experience, but the process shouldn’t end there. We need to consider the moment of need learners are encountering.The concept of “moments of learning need,” developed by Conrad Gottfredson and Bob Mosher, is a powerful learning-centric perspective that focuses on when and under what conditions a performer needs to learn something to drive a desired outcome.The moments of learning need are:Learning for the first timeLearning moreApplying and refiningAdjusting to changeReacting to failureEach of these moments has different requirements. When someone learns a concept for the first time, they build a new foundation that they can apply to get better at a pursuit. In this context, learners need the most structure and scaffolding.If adjusting to change or reacting to failure, however, they will need more performance support in real time. If they’re trying to fix or address an issue, they don’t need the same level of history and context as when learning about that subject for the first time; they just need insight on how to fix or change current performance to achieve a desired outcome.There are two emerging moments of need outside of Gottfredson and Mosher’s work that are crucial to consider.The emerging moments of learning need are:InnovatingGrowing for the next roleThese moments of need are about driving toward something new, taking original approaches, gaining insight, and expanding.As we consider these moments, we should also think about how we organize resources for different learning situations. Transposing our concept of a learner onto one of several distinct types of learning roles is useful when supporting someone throughout an entire learning experience.Expanded Learner RolesWe no longer subscribe to the traditional mindset of simply providing content that a learner consumes and then regurgitates. When we move beyond the first two learning moments—learning for the first time and learning more—to adjusting, refining, reacting, innovating, and growing, it’s critical to understand the expanded learner roles at play during different moments of learning. For instance, at different points individuals may take on these expanded learner roles:ConsumerModeratorCuratorContributorCreatorCollaboratorWhen we treat people like active participants, we expand beyond the mindset of a consumer learning experience, and instead incorporate the roles of moderator, curator, contributor, and so on.We can use an understanding of expanded learner roles and their attendant needs to apply, refine, and amplify the learning experience in innovative ways. When we identify and nurture learning moments of need and learner roles, we witness organic response to change and conflict resolution.Connected Organizational Learning RolesAnother equally important, yet often overlooked, component of a connected learning organization rests in how an organization facilitates learning and provides support throughout the learning life cycle.We can think about the following list of organizational learning roles through the lens of Robert Cross’s work on organizational network analysis, a way of thinking about how organizations become productive.We have four primary organizational learning roles:Learning connectors: People inside a business who have access to resourcesLearning bridges: Individuals who make connections across an organization or team by bringing in insights and different perspectivesCoaches and mentors: Topic specialists with an area of expertise who can help facilitate and accelerate specific projectsInformation brokers: People with access to information in a very fluid state who enable us to learn and ultimately performAll of these roles are critical for a transforming organization. It’s important that we uncover who performs these roles, identify how to nurture them, and make sure we retain them.Once we identify how the broader organizational learning ecosystem operates and contributes resources and information, learning itself will flourish without much formal intervention. This approach allows us to pull full value from our communities and make real strides toward success.

New Roles for the Connected Learning Experience

“It is not about what they know; it is about what they can do.”—Bob MosherMany years ago, learning scientist Roger Schank stated “learning is the work.” Today learning in the workflow is getting renewed interest as organizations realize the opportunities new technologies provide to make assets available at the point of need. The nature of work is changing, and therefore the need for access to learning assets is changing. The modern worker wants learning that is personalized just for their needs and available on a variety of devices. They are more adaptive, collaborative, and self-directed than earlier generations of learners. They use smartphones to search for answers at any time, and expect immediate access to information.Several years ago, Conrad Gottfredson and Bob Mosher of APPLY Synergies conducted studies on learning and authored Innovative Performance Support: Strategies and Practices for Learning in the Workflow. Their research identified five unique moments when performers are learning: learn new, learn more, apply, solve, change. The first two are associated with formal training while the last three exist in the realm of performance support. Unlike traditional approaches that encourage learner dependency and begin with a training solution framed by the deeply ingrained assumption that performance challenges are best ameliorated by new learning, the five moments of need methodology encourages independence and launches from the moment of application (when learned skills are applied to the performance of a job task). The corresponding assumption in play is that performance challenges are best addressed by providing performers access to cascading levels of support, from simple (for instance, a reminder of the basic steps required to complete a task) to comprehensive (targeted training oriented around job roles and tasks for which the result of failure is catastrophic).These moments include:1. When people are learning how to do something for the first time (learn new).Example: A first-time supervisor, promoted from within, needs to learn the progressive discipline policies of the organization.2. When people are expanding the breadth and depth of what they have learned (learn more).Example: The first-time supervisor needs to learn how to conduct a verbal counseling session under the progressive discipline policies of the organization.3. When they need to act on what they have learned, which includes planning what they will do, remembering what they may have forgotten, or adapting their performance to a unique situation (apply).Example: The first-time supervisor needs to perform the task of conducting a verbal counseling session (acting on what they have learned). This requires the supervisor to plan the encounter, remember what they may have forgotten, and possibly adapt their performance to a unique situation.4. When problems arise, or things break or don’t work the way they were intended (solve).Example: During the verbal counseling session, the employee presents the first-time supervisor with new medical documentation and notice that legal counsel has been retained.5. When people need to learn a new way of doing something, which requires them to unlearn deeply ingrained skills and relearn to adjust to new practices, requirements, and so forth (change).Example: In response to legal challenges, the organization has significantly changed its time and attendance policies and procedures. The first-time supervisor, formerly a line employee of several years, must overcome familiarity with the way it has always been and internalize the new approach.Learning new and more is the traditional stronghold for L&D professionals. It is what we have done for years and years. Learning used in apply, solve, and change moments is performance support; it is needed when it is needed—just in time, not when someone is attending a class. It is also needed in the right amount, not the amount deemed important for the length of a class.According to Gottfredson and Mosher, all learning needs to focus on application. This means addressing the entire journey performers make, from the beginning stages of learning through the full range of challenges when learners are called upon to actually perform, to use what they’ve learned to take actions. If organizations are interested in advancing employee performance, they must understand the moments when employees need access to learning.The Complete Learning Journey is depicted as three phases—training, transfer, and sustain, as illustrated in this image. Designing for this model requires pairing team members who are certified in the five moments of need methodology with practitioners who are experts in the role for which content is being designed. While in concept this approach is not so different from a traditional designer–subject matter expert collaboration, in practice it becomes more of a relationship between the designer and the larger professional community being served. Approaches differ based on the moment (for example, new is taught differently than more), and content associated with formal instruction is generally limited to those tasks that, if performed incorrectly, result in significant or catastrophic outcomes. Tasks carrying less risk are addressed through instruction or performance support in the workflow.This is a framework that various modalities can easily fit into. For example, there are ways to support the moments with e-learning, microlearning, videos, gaming, and so forth. However, this design requires a complete change of mindset about the learning portfolio and an understanding that five moments of need is not a different version of ADDIE. Some tips from experience to better navigate your “new” moment with this methodology were recently provided to ATD Forum members and include:Invest your time and professional development dollars in getting up to speed holistically on the five moments of need methodology. Allow yourself to be confused as you learn; it all makes sense eventually.Don’t waste your time trying to explain the shift to a performance-based approach. Just assume that the broad community of stakeholders won’t actually get it until you have a no-kidding demonstration product to show them that’s applicable to their work.Target an individual stakeholder in an underserved area of your business as your partner. The underserved are more likely to be willing helpers and will appreciate getting top-of-the-line, impactful learning support in return.Get started, but start small.Work under the radar.It’s much harder than you think. Stick with it anyway and trust the process. As Mae West is quoted as saying, “I never said it would be easy; I just said it would be worth it.”ATD Resources:Technology to the RescuePerformance Support Certificate ProgramScience of Learning 101: When to Build Performance Support, Part 1

Learning at the Moment of Need

Workflow Learning Has a Mistaken Identity

Nearly 100 percent of employers have said that soft skills are important. Its also been expressed many times that they are more important than hard skills.

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