Name: Amber Rennie
Position: Senior Manager Knowledge Innovation
Company Name: Norton Rose Group
Industry: Legal
Company background
Norton Rose Group a leading international legal practice offering a full business law service from offices across Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Recently received: The Law Firm of the Year Award
What sort of topics do you use Mohive for?
We have a wide variety of courses that we use Mohive for, including;
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Various induction programs We have so many offices all over the world, and we are still growing (it has just been announced that Deasons Australia will join the Norton Rose Group) which means 500 new lawyers are joining us from 5 offices, and an immediate need to share with them the information they require to get up to speed.
Induction includes: General HR, Library, Knowledge Innovation, Professional Conduct and the use of various systems within Norton Rose Group.
This is a very important function for us, for two key reasons; firstly, using Mohive ensures that everyone gets a consistent message and receives the same knowledge.
Secondly, some offices are smaller than others so they do not have dedicated personnel for training. So we are able to provide this knowledge to them using Mohive and thus they do not miss out.
Using Mohive ensures that everyone gets a consistent message and receives the same knowledge
- Soft skill and skills development We are also using Mohive to deliver these types of courses as people need to regularly update their skills because sometimes people forget what they actually already know – so refreshing that knowledge is very helpful as well as introducing new knowledge to them.
For example, we have legal courses for our new trainees, as well as having other refresher courses for our more senior people, and courses for our clients. So we actually use Mohive to address quite diverse audiences needs.
- Blended Learning In addition to using Mohive for stand-alone courses, we also use it as part of our blended learning. For example, we have courses on presenting, and ask participants to complete the Mohive courses prior to the practical workshop.
How does the development process work in your organisation?
A course idea can develop in numerous ways, it can come from within our team or it can come from one of the other departments.
If the idea or course theme comes in from another area such as training, then usually they have had the idea percolating for a while. Sometimes they will have already put pen to paper and have it formulated quite clearly. Then they will engage with us and share their thoughts. Our teams are used to working together with Mohive, which means we can bring this to life very quickly.
When we are working with other people in the firm that have not produced this type of training before, they usually approach us after they have seen what someone else has produced in Mohive. This sparks their thinking, and they come to us.
We then meet with them and discuss what their learning objectives are and the proposed content and how this learning medium is different from other approaches to learning such as a presentation or writing a handbook/guide, etc.
Once we looked at the content we discovered we could bring the case study to life in Mohive using images. Making the training much shorter and more engaging for the learner, made it easier for them to process the information they were being presented with
Usually the content for the course will already exist in a variety of forms, so we review these elements such as presentations, handouts, etc and, depending on how creative the SME is, they will either write the course directly in the Mohive solution or we will coach them by providing examples of other courses, etc so they then feel confident enough to use Mohive.
One example was a practice area that had a long case study that they wanted to include in their Mohive training course. The case study was originally half a page of reading, however, once we looked at the content we discovered we could bring the case study to life in Mohive using images. Making the training much shorter and more engaging for the learner, made it easier for them to process the information they were being presented with.
How long are the courses?
We believe the ideal length is 30 minutes or less to complete. It keeps the learner engaged, so we tend to do many short courses, rather than a small number of long courses.
In addition, we also have a variety of other course topics for personal that are shorter than 30 minutes.
As courses can be created quickly and Mohive ensures that everyone gets the same message.
How long does it take to create a course?
Some courses are created in two weeks; others can take as long as a year. It really depends on the type of course and what it has been designed to achieve.
Also, it depends on the availability of people to work on the course, and most importantly, the availability of the people that will need to sign off on the course.
At the moment, there is a lot of regulatory change is happening, and although we are not yet using Mohive to communicate these changes we hope to begin to use it shortly. As courses can be created quickly and Mohive ensures that everyone gets the same message.
Planning to publishing - how long do each of those stages take?
Planning does take time as it is where most of the preparation for writing in Mohive happens. But, we are currently looking at how to use the planning feature built into Mohive to accelerate this process, and the latest improvements to the planning features will assist us greatly.
Authoring is quite quick so it doesn’t take us more than a week or two to complete a first draft of the course. After the initial draft is complete we then circulate it within the team for review prior to sending it out internally.
The time taken to complete the quality assurance stage is determined by the availability of the reviewers; however I have found that by letting these stakeholders know when they will be required to give feedback on the course, does help to minimise time spent awaiting their feedback. Proactive management of this stage really helps to keep things moving. And the features built into Mohive really help to keep track of this feedback when it comes in.
Once the course is approved and finalised it is then ready to be shared with those that have been selected to take the training.
What aspect of the Mohive solution do you find most helpful?
Prior to using Mohive, it would take me all morning to review a course and structure the feedback so that it was actionable for the author.
With Mohive´s built-in feedback features, I can now review three courses in a morning, allowing me to achieve more in a limited time frame, thus delivering greater efficiencies to the business.
The third related point to note is that because the workflow in Mohive enables you to track the course development process closely, it makes it very easy to move projects around the team. And if someone goes on leave, another member of the team can pick that course up and keep it moving quickly and easily.
Which of the Mohive templates do you consider particularly effective for the type of courses you create?
The most popular template is the “flexi” as it allows the author the most control over the design and the elements they want to include.
However, another very popular type of template is the multiple-choice template series.
What tip have you discovered that you would like to share with other Mohive users?
There are a couple of tips that I would like to share:
Project managing: Being proactive in lining up the various people that will need to be involved in the creation of a course greatly speeds up the creation process - especially in regard to the quality assurance stage because reviewers are often very time poor.
We have a greater number of people included in course creation; however this additional involvement has not slowed the course creation timeline.
Target audience: It is really important to remember who your learners are, as this will ensure that the information in the course remains focused and the learning outcomes are delivered.
Is there any other feedback that you would like to share with the Mohive community?
There are a couple of observations that I would like to share which we have noted since we started using Mohive.
These include:
- The courses are much more professional than our previous solution, so they have been better received by learners and other stakeholders.
- Various internal areas are more attracted to using Mohive for their training needs (as the product looks so professional), so we are beginning to engage with more areas of the business.
- There is a growing expectation to include Mohive as part of team communications, and we hope to use Mohive content as part of the communication / "bring on board" strategy when we merge with Deacons Australia on 1 January 2010.
- We have a greater number of people included in course creation; however this additional involvement has not slowed the course creation timeline.