Building a learning strategy: What is the ideal?

Remi closes her investigation file and opens a new one. Now that she has a better picture of where the financial literacy program stands, she needs to answer an essential question: what does the ideal program look like?

This is the part that people often skip. They go straight from "here is what we have" to "here is what we will build." But without a clear picture of the ideal state, decisions get made on assumption and habit, and the program ends up in the same place it started.

So, she takes time to consider the ideal state of the financial literacy program. What outcomes has the organization committed to? How does the program support the broader mission? What communities are a priority?

And even more important, what do we know about the people within the community? Not "people who need financial literacy support." That is too broad to build anything from. She needs to get specific, and the people around her can help her do that.

She starts with her director. What does success of this financial literacy program look like from where you sit? More reach? Reduced travel? Better access for remote communities? Funder commitments? And just as importantly: who does leadership see as the priority audience? What do they know about who the program is actually reaching, and who it is not?

She talks to Dale too, but differently this time. Not what do you deliver, but what do participants still not know how to do when they leave? What could this program accomplish that it currently does not? Who is actually showing up to his sessions? Who is not showing up and why? What does he know about their lives, their language, their comfort level with technology, what they are dealing with outside the training room?

What emerges is a specific picture of her audience. Their age range, the languages they speak, their literacy level, whether they are newcomers, single parents, or people working two jobs. And then the detail that stops her cold: many do not have a computer at home.

Leadership just asked her to move everything to an online platform, and a significant portion of the people the program serves access everything on their phone. Not a laptop.

Not a desktop. A phone.

This is not a dead end. It is a design requirement. Mobile first, short sessions, no assumptions about bandwidth or quiet dedicated study time, plain language, accessible by default and not as an afterthought.

Now she has a destination. A specific one, built from real conversations and real information about real people. The gap between where things are and where they need to be? That is where her learning strategy lives.

Do you have a clear, detailed picture of who your learning audience is and any challenges they may face accessing your program?