Learning Services

Hello and Welcome to Infosys' Learning Services blog. I am Gaurav Rastogi, Head of Infosys' Learning Services practice, and I will be blogging along with my other colleagues from Infosys. Let me tell you what you can expect from this blog - you can expect open discussions, profound insights, half-baked ideas and an inside look into the life of a startup within a big company.

Learning Services within Infosys has been around for a couple of quarters now. We're reaching out primarily to Infosys' client base to start up the service, and to bounce off ideas about what we can do for them.

So far, this has been an exhilarating journey - very clearly the industry is in a flux, and the time is right for someone like Infosys to enter.

How much do we share?
This is a big problem for any corporate blog. Should we lay it all in the open, or should we be coy and only dance around the subject of what we do, and how we're doing it! This is the same problem that all startups have with respect to how much they reveal, and who can scoop them if they publish before hitting the market. This medium (blog) is experimental to me (as a corporate blog, that is), and I guess our confidence will only grow over time.

What do we talk about?
To be frank, most corporate blogs are boring, and usually places where corporate press releases and white papers go to die. I'm not sure we want this blog to be set up that way. Also, if we want puff pieces, we can just call the PR guys, no?! Instead, we would like to share with you some success stories, some failure stories, and some questions that can only be answered by a collective crowd (i.e. all of you). (For a list of not-boring corporate blogs, check out this list).

Welcome again to this blog. I sincerely look forward to your feedback because, if you weren't going to write, I would rather write in my personal diaries and wait to be famous before selling out!

Posted by Gaurav Rastogi at 05:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Collaborative learning refers to a method in which learners at various locations work together in small groups towards a common goal. Thus learners are responsible for one another's learning as well as their own. Success of one learner helps other to be successful by sharing knowledge/learning. It is a technique in which learners engage in sharing knowledge about the common tasks which are of interest to the group. Example can be a  group of students work together in resolving a complex mathematical problem, sharing the knowledge they have gained over various collaborative mediums like wiki, blogs etc.

Computer based collaborative learning has emerged predominantly as a favorite medium amongst various communities (students, technology etc) It covers a wide spectrum of users, domains, age groups and demography. Advocates of collaborative learning claim that active exchange of learning within small groups not only increases interest among the learners but also facilitates critical thinking.

Most popular mediums of collaborative learning are:

Wiki: This is a medium where users can post their knowledge which in turn can be updated by other. This helps keeping the knowledge up to date. The wiki also provide facility to search based on text.

Blogs: Blogs are used by many as personal diaries shared with others. ‘Bloggers’ write blogs on various topics like travel, work experience and anything under the earth which they want to share with others. Other users can read/comment on the blogs posted by users.

Posted by Sanjay Godbole at 05:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The relevance of learning within an organization is recognized by most companies as being crucial to their long-term interest. Yet, even the most savvy, knowledge-based organizations do not dedicate any significant portions of their budgets and corporate energies to this critical activity. At a leading Manhattan investment bank a couple of years back, I got a blank look when I enquired as to how bankers exchanged learnings from a particular deal they had worked on.

Implementing an effective knowledge repository is the single most important investment that would allow knowledge-based organizations to navigate inevitable business cycles and staff turnover with their expertise intact long after the individuals working on a specific assignment, deal or project have moved on. It would allow people with diverse strengths and backgrounds to contribute their expertise and/or experience most effectively on issues, problems or challenges facing the organization as a whole. It would break down the barriers of divisions, groups, hierarchies and other forms of corporate structure or other factors restricting participation of employees across the organization.

To set up such repositories of knowledge and related systems for organizational learning is, therefore, not just important, but crucially urgent, for all organizations concerned about business continuity, growth and development of expertise.

Posted by Sameer Aras at 05:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We are at a very exiting phase in this journey to become the numero uno Learning Services company  in the  learning market. The learning market is estimated to be worth over $10 Billion. Being new entrants into this rapidly expanding market, the opportunity is immense. The timing is right and the momentum built by Infosys needs to be capitalized to hurl us into the big league.

The next few years will be crucial for us and will decide where we end up. Solutions will be defined & revisited, delivery capability will be built, processes and standards will be created, new ideas and innovations will be incubated and nurtured into market leading solutions/ services.

As we stand at this important juncture, we need to ask ourselves a few questions every time we do something –

•  Is there a way to do the same thing more efficiently?
•  Is there a way to do the same thing more effectively?
•  Is there a way to do the same thing faster?
•  Is there a way to componentized and reuse?

We all will have to make a conscious effort to identify non-linear modes of doing our daily tasks/ activities. These will roll up at the macro level to non-linear growth models for the unit. Innovation is another aspect that will have to be built in bottom up into our approach. Looking at ways to automate, simplify, think and continuously improve will have to be built in to the daily routine so that innovation arises more due to the process than anything else.

Posted by Amit Phatak at 04:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There is economic slow down across the world. Large global banks today are trying to cut down on costs by outsourcing heavily to India. This has resulted into having multiple vendors doing multiple contracts within a Line of business. A typical strategy adopted by these institutes is to have few global vendors, few local vendors and keep them competing with each other. This way they get the best of both worlds, highly reliable and predictable output from the global vendors and niche technology skills from the local vendors. The challenge however begins when the majority of application knowledge which resided within the bank resides with multiple vendors in pockets. Numerous contracts with various vendors also result in different operating levels and therefore conflicting priorities.

This hinders the bank from carrying out any strategic transformational projects to optimize the overlapping processes and also makes them less agile with respect to mobilizing the knowledge workers. This is a cause of worry for the banks especially with changing regulations and frequent compliance needs to the banking norms.

A detailed documentation on each of the application can ensure that the knowledge resides within the bank and dependency on a particular vendor is reduced. The key benefit however is realized when the banks are able to reduce the overlap between processes and are able to operate efficiently. The results could bring benefits in the magnitude of millions of dollars.

Posted by Minal Joshi at 04:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Companies, who seek learning solutions to get help in either solving their business problems or meeting their growth aspirations, expect their employees to become more effective and productive by using such solutions. But, how much money are they willing to spend on learning? Usually, annual budget in any customer organization for learning and training of its employees ranges from 1,500 to 2,000 USD per employee. A global organization with its operations spread across countries and continents can have up to 18,000 to 22,000 employees. Several examples can be found from sectors like finance, insurance, etc. There may be (and in most cases, will be) a network of business partners who are involved in the

Does this mean that for a 20,000 strong organization, the annual budget for all learning and training activities goes up to 40 MUSD? I don’t think so. Sounds unrealistic. Such a big organization will always try to achieve economies of scale and reduce their learning spend per employee. Further, such organizations will in all probability have several expense avenues hiding in their hierarchical structure eating into the available budget. To add to that, there would be multiple consultants and service providers engaged with the organization trying to address their learning needs. This can potentially leave an individual learning service provider with a pie of around 4-6 MUSD!! Do the numbers look encouraging now? May be for some, may be not for others like me! J

Is it possible to provide a comprehensive learning solution in this much money and achieve measurable business impact to a 20,000 strong organization having workforce operating out of more than 80 countries and speaking, say, 30 different languages?

This could be a big question faced by the organization and a bigger challenge faced by the learning service providers! I as a service provider want to deliver most effective learning solution to the customer within budget and at the same time want to ensure my own growth by increasing my revenue productivity. How to crack this one?

Innovate!  I strongly feel so.

I can think of three facets to innovate in this scenario.

·         One, innovate to address customer’s learning needs within the available budget. Innovate on the learning technology and learning processes to give most effective learning solution. And, of course, ensure that solution provided is end to end and meets that identified learning needs which align with the business problems or growth aspirations.

·         Second, innovate to address customer’s learning needs within the available budget and still maintain revenue productivity. Innovate on the solution offering and ways of solution delivery so as to have transaction based pricing models. And, of course, ensure that solution provided is end to end and meets that identified learning needs which map to business needs.

·         Third, understand the real business pain points, pick one and innovate to provide a learning based point solution (not the end to end solution). Such a point solution needs to be quick, effective and should impact a larger user base who will be the end customers of the organization. Needless to say, this must have transaction based pricing!

I will talk more about the third facet in my next blogs.

Posted by Shashikant Kulkarni at 04:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have always been a visual learner:  I need to look at a picture, read a story, flip through power point slides, browse the blogs….that’s how I learn.  My husband, Peter, on the other hand, always has an ipod hooked up to his ear.  He learns orally:   books on tape, podcasts, radio broadcasts.  Peter says, “oral learning is a more complete learning experience because the brain has to work to fill in the spaces to create a picture in your head”.    I say, “just let me see the picture and I can take more in faster.” 

There are also kinesthetic learners.  People who learn best by doing. 

They need to draw the picture, take notes while listening to a lecture, act out the directions.   Most people find that if they have a combination of learning styles, they retain more information longer.

It is amazing how these differences affect our daily lives. 

Let’s take directions.  I have to see a map.  If I have a map, I can get anywhere.  Tell me directions and I forget them.  Take me someplace and I’ll  probably get lost trying to find my way back.  With a map, I always know where I am in relation to other places and I can find my way.  Peter likes to have verbal directions and he can find his way back to anyplace if he has been there once (except in the mall.  Somehow he ALWAYS gets lost in the mall!)

Our learning styles also affect how we communicate.  If you have something important to communicate to another person, do you pick up the phone or write an email?  How can you be sure that you got your message across?  Often it helps to have a verbal discussion and follow up with an email.

Learning styles even affect how we relax!   My daughter is a huge fan of the author, Stephanie Meyer, a science fiction writer whose main audience is teenage girls.  Stephanie’s new release called “The Host” was her first novel for adults and Peter and I thought it would be fun if the three of us read the new book.    Since I was going to be on a long flight, my thoughtful husband put the book on my ipod  (and his).  My daughter started reading the hardcopy and loved the book!  I fell asleep every time I started listening…..I just could not get into it.   As soon as I got back from my trip I picked up the hardcopy and could not put it down!  Peter of course listened to it (he did not like it quite as much as we did—but not because it was on his ipod!)

As learning professionals it is critical that we remember that individuals have different learning styles.  We can increase learning and retention if we combine learning styles so that they reinforce each other.  As we help our clients solve business problems we can suggest that their Learning Strategy includes a variety of learning options.

Posted by Karen Burns at 04:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

All the members of organization has their ideas about how the processes/products can be improved, but they are not too careful about remembering their ideas and put forward it at right time.

This is also true about giving requirements for the products, end users can not give exact requirements when it comes to defining requirements(e.g. in software industry we find that many times requirement docs  can not describe features that users have in mind).

What we can do is set up tools/processes for employees in organization so that they can record their ideas in any direction any time, when they see other thing around. They can recall these ideas and check if any of them are useful in the problem/requirements on hand.

Though most organization talk about innovation, usually it is difficult to gather ideas from people when requested, as they do not occur in a flash. We need systematic way for people to create/consolidate their ideas over the period and then submit it.

One way for provoking the innovation could be to create a mechanism where people can record and refine their ideas.  We can set a tool in organizations for where people can store their personal ideas, keep on refining it till they feel confident to present it.  Then periodically invite people to submit the ideas, they can have a relook at recorded ideas and submit it.

This is a veiw from Achintya Bakre, Infosys Learning Services

Posted by Guest Author at 04:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Global Organizations have started realizing the importance of having a “LEARNED” working force and the impact they can have to their core business. Traditionally these organizations have been investing a significant amount of money in training infrastructures which include classroom trainings, e- learning courses and tracking the competency of their employees through integrated Performance Tracking tools. However, the effectiveness of such trainings has always been debated and of late most of the market studies have corroborated the fact that these trainings are not as effective as they are expected to be.

This post is from Sameer Gopinath Aras, Infosys' Learning Services.

Posted by Guest Author at 04:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There is plenty of scope for Virtual Worlds to manage the learning needs of organizations; however I feel that it can be leveraged to the maximum extent in the following learning areas:

• Virtual classroom for geographically dispersed mobile work force
• Simulation of new concepts and processes

Let’s start first by defining Virtual Worlds. Virtual Worlds provide a 3D environment where each user has avatar. Virtual Worlds also provide real world objects like buildings, conference rooms etc. Examples include Second Life, Active Worlds etc.

Virtual classroom for geographically dispersed mobile work force:

Global organizations have employees that are dispersed geographically. These employees often have common learning needs. E-Learning certainly is a solution for training the employees that are dispersed geographically. However E-learning doesn’t fulfill the needs when the employees need to learn something by experimenting. Moreover employees often need to interact with peers and trainers in an effective way. For instance an Oil Extraction Engineer working for Oil & Gas Company might want to learn about the oil well extraction operations by getting a live demonstration about drilling. Extraction Engineer can learn effectively by discussing the extraction procedure in a virtual well with a fellow engineer or a trainer in Virtual Worlds.

Users share a lot of things in virtual worlds using avatar. This removes all geographic barriers. Strengths, Weakness and intellectual capabilities of employees can be very easily judged by the trainer and peers using avatar based interaction in virtual worlds. This can help the trainer provide the training material matching the learning needs of an individual.

Simulation of new concepts and processes:

Organizations generally use road shows, E-learning, audios, videos and newsletters etc. to educate employees about new processes, tools and products. However a live simulation where employee can actually experience the new product or tool is required in some circumstances to remove employee inertia and convince users about the capability of a new product. As an example employees of an automobile manufacturing company might need a new component for auto manufacturing process. By simulating the component for automobile manufacturing in a Virtual World, employees can get a complete experience of using the component and understand the component completely.

The above two learning areas clearly demonstrate a learning need of organizations that can only be fulfilled by Virtual Worlds.

This is a view by Abhijit Sontakey, Infosys' Learning Services.

Posted by Guest Author at 04:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

People have dynamic and fluid minds. Their past experiences shape the way their mind is and their learning habits. These habits are displayed is varying degrees depending on the learning environment they are exposed to and the objectives of their learning. The combination of these learning habits and learning environments form the key factors that would define appropriate learning styles for these people.

Usually learning styles can be broadly categorized as Just In time, experiential learning like peeling the orange and getting to the core, adaptive learning and constructive learning.

Each style can use a multitude of learning mechanisms that would best suit the learning environment. Some popular learning mechanisms are e-learning, ILT, online synchronized learning, Hands-on, virtual labs and classrooms, podcasts, videos, simulation libraries, helpdesks, tagging informal learning etc.
For each of the learning solutions these learning styles can be appropriately designed based on the discovery we do. The outcome of this discovery would not only include business process related analysis but also about how people learn but also a brief peek into their broad level experiences.

Very often evaluation is also a function of experience. This means that our evaluation mechanisms also need to be tailored the same way we would tailor the learning mechanisms. While learning mechanisms are more relevant to enterprise learning and knowledge transfer, the evaluation mechanism is relevant to the learning perspective of change management.

For knowledge transfer, the business process map, knowledge gap map and technology map are actually 3 faces of the same cube -the common element being the business axis. I think that there would be a point at which the other 3 curves would intersect and may be that would be a point where the best suite of learning mechanisms are deployed in the optimal environment. May be such a combo would also be naturally stable.

Now the point is how do I locate where and when these 3 curves would intersect. It’s easy to find the instances where 2 curves would intersect ….but there must be a rule that tells me how to locate the intersection point. May be there could be some more parameters that I need to look at, in order to get me to rule itself.

This view is from Tanvi Kelkar , Infosys' Learning Services

Posted by Guest Author at 04:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Starting any new service in Infosys is like  setting up a start up except for the fact that you don’t have to look around for investment! But it comes with many other challenges in terms of the pre-set norms that you need to abide by within Infosys. 

To start with, how do you get things done in a system which is tuned only to the standard ADM services that we have been offering for the past 25+ years? How do you work around  the system to manage new financial models, new roles that you need and  the quality systems that take care of only defects delivered per lines of code? We don’t get the support that we need since we are not even 100 people and we are not generating revenue- but we need all the support to start generating revenue!

Then there are challenges that the team has to grapple with- new domain, new team and new customers.  With so many different skills that we need, how do we structure our team? Who takes responsibility for what? You also have significant issues in terms of prioritization- Infosys sets targets for us. To meet the targets, we need to do prospecting, pre-sales and recruitment in addition to on-boarding, capability building, project management and also be innovative to differentiate. What do we do first?

Let us closely look at what we have been doing in the past one year and see how we want to move forward.

Posted by Manjula M K at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There is much talk about how globalization and new tools are changing the world of learning. There isn't much clarity about how much the world has changed, and whether things that worked in the past would still continue to work. For example, "Training" used to be the main way learning was "delivered" in the past...will it continue to be the dominant way people learn in the future?

In this note, I would like to cover my thoughts on WHY things are changing. In a later posts I will visit the impact of these changes.

"What has changed?", I guess, is the first question to ask ourselves. Many things have changed- the office, the corporate culture, individual work habits, and the tools and technologies that are available  everywhere cheaply.

Attention spans...shorter and shrtr. People are getting used to "twitter" speeds- talking in TXT message length statements. In this environment, it is harder to hold on to the traditional asumption that multi-tasking adults will be able to endure week-long trainings. All learning will have to be in short bursts, and preferably as close to the time of need as possible.

Globalization and the virtual workforce. Fortune 2000 companies have a third of their workforce outside the US now, and most companies are dealing with the "virtualization" of the workforce. People work from home, airports, Starbucks and pretty much anywhere but office. Companies now have to respond to a worldwide (anytime, anywhere, any device) demand for learning, and the traditional one-location-corporate-university is falling out of favor. Now corporate universities have to reach people where they work, both in terms of geography as well as location (laptop, not conference center).

Democratization of Expertise. Things have become so complex that, for most corporate learning needs, it is very difficult to find a single swiss-army-knife type of expert- one who is an authority on a wide variety of subjects. Instead, expertise now resides within "teams" instead of individuals. This, too, is a problem for traditional training models as locating "instructors" becomes statistically impossible. Instead, new-fangled web2.0 communities are the only way to access this pool of expertise.

Demography. Much has already been said about the ageing of the first world workforce, and the coming of age of the developing economy workforces. This demographic change will impact the learning style, the technological comfort, and the prevailing skill/experience levels of the workforce. This means, automatically, that programs designed for a certain type of workforce (say, the boomer generation) will not be as effective for the new workforce (say, the Millennial youth of modern India).

Pace of Change. Finally, the amount of learning one needs to acquire has gone up exponentially too while simultaneously the amount of time available to internalize this material has gone down. Within companies, you now need to learning about the impact of changing corporate strategy, sales strategy, product mix, business processes, application uses, compliance and safety, and a whole of of constantly shifting priorities. This means that there is high pressure to quicken the pace at which information percolates through the enterprise. Traditional- or even new wave - communication tools are not enough on their own. Most companies would need to use a wide selection of tools to ensure that people understand and internalize these new messages quickly.

To sum up, there are many reasons why corporate learning is going to change dramatically over the next few years. Most of these reasons are large-scale external variables that individual companies cannot avoid - they can only devise new techniques to cope with these changes. These changes are: shortening attention spans, globalization, virtualization of the workforce, democratization of expertise, global demographic changes, and the faster pace of change.

Posted by Gaurav Rastogi at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As Learning Services at Infosys gathers momentum, we expect our team to ask for new business from clients where we're already engaged in project work. "Repeat business" is the core of any professional services company- the relationships we have with our clients are extremely important, both sides have invested into the relationship, and the business model is most efficient if we do more business with the same client. Everyone in the team is agreed on this principle. '

There is only one problem- when should we ask our clients for additional business?

At one end is the "Salesy" approach. Some companies are from the "Always Be Closing" school of thought for their sales process. This approach works when the clients are slow to make decisions, and the project outcomes are already known in advance. This would, therefore, be something that a product company might find acceptable. Services companies, on the other hand, are engaged in a multi-year relationship with the client, and the outcomes aren't known at the time the sale is being made. This "used-car-salesman" approach is rarely useful for services companies, and usually ends up antagonizing the clients. Forget additional business- you're likely to put the existing business at risk with this approach.

At the other end is the "Shy" approach. The shy aproach basically means that the vendor will be coy about asking for new business, and will wait until (a) the client asks them to propose for some additional work, or (b) after everything is delivered and the client is filled with the joys of an exceptional delivery. This approach, too, is fraught with challenges. Firstly, clients may not know of the vendor's capabilities beyond the current project scops (since no one told the client about them). Secondly, it's too late to ask for additional work. Once the project is over, at the end of the final review meeting, the vendor is going to pull their team out of the client office

The J curve of customer delight. If you consider a typical project timeline, the client starts off with a warm, fuzzy feeling about the vendor (Why? see below). This goodwill starts dropping after the initial project hiccup or two, when the "project realities" hit home. After that, both parties are locked in a tense project-management situation where things are less than perfect, and both sides are laser-focused on execution. By the end, at least for the client-focused vendors, the situation is salvanged, the prohect delivered, and the client feels the rush of euphoria again. "Phew! That was a close call".

The Goldilocks client. Like Goldilocks, the client is "just right" (no too hot, not too cold) at only two parts of the cycle- once (briefly) at the beginning, and once (a little longer) at the end. These are the periods when the client is most receptive to sales pitches. Like I said, however, the end of the project is too late to initiate a new sales pitch (once the vendor's team is out of the client's office, the pursuit will be just as if this were a nbew client).

Neither Salesy, Nor Shy: Ask in the initial happy phase... At project start, the client has already made a positive assessment of the vendor's capabilities and is more willing to find out more about the vendor's capabilities. Additionally, other people in the client's organization are curious about the new vendor, and have not yet heard anything adverse about the vendor from the internal grapevine. These people, too, are open to being pitched.

...but don't hard-sell. What the vendor should do at this stage is fan out and engage as many people as possible in a conversation about how they can help the client, and how they are eager to win the client's trust and additional bsiness. Some of these coversations will die a natural death, but many will lead to deeper pitches. The beauty of pitching early is that the vendor's delivery team is walking the halls all through this period for the initial project. These people can anchor multiple conversations  and "bump" into client executives while going about their normal work.

Caveat: This only works when everyone understands their role. Amongst technical people, there is a natural tendency to assume that "sales" people were born on another planet (where they are fed mashed sales books as kids, and who go about their business playing golf and shooting the breeze), and that their role is to just focus on their delivery and move on. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The hard-sell approach doesn't work in services, and asking for new business is everybody's responsibility.

Posted by Gaurav Rastogi at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)