Strategic and Gap Assessment for Wyeth Pharmaceutical Collaboration, Knowledge Management and LMS
Goal
Work with a new executive vice president to develop a feasible vision and strategy for eLearning, collaboration, and knowledge management, craft a credible business plan with ROI for the new initiative, and perform technology gap assessment to enable Wyeth to select a vendor or set of vendors.
Challenges
- New executive with good internal reputation and a charter to lead Wyeth's new eLearning and knowledge management initiative
- Funding was in place to support the planning phase of the initiative, but the executive had no staff to perform the required work
- Strategic vision and business planning efforts outsourced to Cognitive Technologies.
Solution
Cognitive's approach was to:
- Conduct requirements interviews with key individuals from within the business unit to understand the types of eLearning and knowledge management that would be required to meet their business needs and goals
- Interview the Sr. VP of the business unit to understand his strategy and goals and how he envisioned eLearning and knowledge management contributing to those goals
- Perform internal assessment to document how much time employees within the business unit spent daily/weekly searching for information they can find, the kinds of information for which they search, the kinds of information they have trouble finding, and the impact of information inaccessibility on their ability to achieve work goals
- Perform internal assessment to determine the availability of appropriate learning and job aids, average wait time to get training, average cost of training, and the impact of not knowing what to do/how to do a component of their jobs
- Craft a business plan that included a ROI for eLearning and knowledge management based on Wyeth employee salaries and ineffective search time
Cognitive Value Added
Strategic business analysts and technology consultants produced the business plan and ROI calculations, which were so well received that we were asked to perform the next logical task-the technology gap assessment that was used to help Wyeth select the appropriate tool suite:
- Cognitive team served as an integral part of the VP's team
- Knowledgeable about eLearning, knowledge management, business case development and ROI for knowledge management and eLearning initiatives
- Practical technology gap analysis experience enabled us to conduct the assessment in less time than the customer expected
- Experienced at eliciting, managing, and meeting end-user expectations
- Experienced in developing strategies to manage behavioral changes needed to optimize the system
- Gave the new VP instant credibility to her boss.