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(World Vision Australia – Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development [SEED] Unit)
The context
Savings groups make up one of the best economic empowerment methodologies identified by international non-governmental organisations as capable of lifting the most vulnerable children and their families out of extreme poverty and building resilience to shocks and stresses.
To date, World Vision has established over 21,928 savings groups with approximately 394,209 members with over US$12,423,025 in savings.
The data is reported and made available on a global monitoring system called Savings Groups Information Exchange (SAVIX) which provides standardisation in measurement, monitoring, robust group tracking and comparisons.
The challenges
The SAVIX reports on Savings Groups can only be as good as the data entered. The programme decisions made by World Vision and the many other NGOs using this system depend on the quality of the data and how it is being processed.
Data doesn’t always come in clear-cut formats. MIS administrators, project administrators and data entry officers need to understand how to interpret data and how to enter it appropriately into the system.
An essential part of the training development was to cover different situations and guide trainees through the process accordingly: key questions were “If… then where would you enter this data?” and “If we enter this data incorrectly, then what would happen?”
This required extensive in-depth work with the subject matter expert. At the end of this development, our team knew the SAVIX inside-out and had an excellent awareness of the realities of data entry in the field – and this is how it’s supposed to be!
The system training development
The bulk of the 7 Articulate modules (three-and-a-half-hour training) focuses on practice – i.e. learning by doing. The package also includes a toolkit and an orientation and a number of job-aids.
The source materials consisted of a PPT presentation and additional readings. Our first conversations with the subject matter expert aimed at getting a very good grip on practitioners’ pain points as well as gathering all the information to build the 4 fictional stories about Saving for Transformation or S4T Groups, which would serve as a backbone throughout the modules. To be able to do this, the instructional designer spent many hours interviewing people involved in this process.
Once the story boards are signed off (always such a feel-good milestone!) the Articulate developers do their magic and turn the ideas into a simulated version of the system, while adding visuals and smart interactions.
Why Articulate Storyline?
For this project, we used the software Articulate Storyline to develop the modules. It is a cutting-edge e-learning authoring tool that we have used for many years on a whole range of projects to develop interactive training courses. It keeps evolving and is fully responsive – i.e. it can be viewed on any device.
Articulate Storyline is an ideal tool for systems training. We use it to visually replicate the system and utilize gaming tools to provide a simulation that feels real.
