Project: Foundational Skills Engine

FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS ENGINE

LEARNING SOLUTION:
A modular, scalable approach for accelerating new-to-role performance while reducing SME training burden - w/ business results!

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE

Visuals on this page are not actuals but are for sample purposes only.

Interactivity: Using hotspots on an image to reveal information when selected is a great way to chunk content.

BACKGROUND

The organization was expanding rapidly—hiring more talent, promoting high performers, and shifting people between roles and regions. But fundamentals training was inconsistent and depended heavily on SMEs conducting one-off sessions for single employees.

This created several business challenges:

SME productivity loss: Experts were pulled away from core revenue-driving work to teach basics.
No scalability: Every new hire or promotion required bespoke training.
Inconsistent experiences: Regional differences, project assignment, and mentor availability meant varied onboarding quality.
Slow ramp-up: Employees often had skills in some areas but not others, making it inefficient to force full-length training paths.

The Foundational Skills Academy was built to solve all of this.

MY ROLE

As the sole instructional designer, I owned the full lifecycle—analysis, design, development, stakeholder alignment, and program architecture.

Leadership provided high-level objectives; I built the infrastructure, workflows, systems, and content strategy that enabled the entire initiative.

MY APPROACH

I conducted a comprehensive analysis across business units:

1:1 SME interviews
New-to-role employee interviews
Role-based skills gap analysis
Action mapping to isolate what truly required training
AI-assisted transcript analysis to surface themes and learning needs
Topic-ranking exercises with SMEs + new-to-role learners
Skills matrix mapping to ensure alignment with organizational expectations

This created a validated, prioritized list of core skills for each foundational program.

With authoring tools and my own dev framework, I built ~25 modules in 9 months while still creating the entire instructional infrastructure

Formats included:

eLearning modules
Short video explainers
Software walkthroughs
Interactive simulations
Digital job aids and toolkits
Scenario-driven practice
Multi-use facilitation-ready content

Modules were built for reuse in multiple settings, reducing duplicate content creation across the organization.

I developed a standardized curriculum system structured around 5–6 thematic foundations per program.

Each program was built modular and non-linear by design:

Employees are hired into different project phases (early, mid, late).
Regions vary in pace, workload, and access to mentors.
Some new hires have experience with certain skills but not others.
Engineer regional/role-specific learning tracks was not compatible/necessary.

So I built a system where:

Courses are in a recommended order but not required to be taken sequentially.
Learners can jump directly to the module they need based on current on-the-job challenges.
SMEs and managers can assign specific modules case-by-case.
The LMS team avoids unnecessary force-enrollments or complex role-based automated rules.
Training adapts to the learner’s current project context, not the other way around.

Each module included:

Scenario-based assessments simulating a realistic work environments
Coaching-style feedback written with a beginner-friendly tone
Reflection prompts: SME model answers
Step-by-step job tasks
“In the flow of work” external quick-access links (for quickly revisiting content)
Downloadable PowerPoint versions for meetings, lunch-and-learns, conferences, and manager 1:1s

Working as a team of one, I used secure AI agents (within the organization’s Microsoft ecosystem) to increase efficiency and reduce SME burden:

AI was used to:

Build interview guides
Analyze transcripts to identify themes
Generate detailed outlines
Produce first draft storyboards
Accelerate module development using my 3-day build framework

This automation:

Eliminated the need to hire a temporary course developer
Saved an estimated 2–3 days per module
Increased my overall capacity without burnout

One foundational program’s validated impact projection:

~2,400 SME hours reclaimed per year
~$120K in SME time savings annually
~160 hrs/year faster ramp-up efficiency
$10K–$15K annual reuse value
$100K internal labor cost avoidance (due to systematic development + AI augmentation)
Total estimated value: ~$238K/year (per program/per year)

Early learner and SME feedback highlights:

High engagement with scenario-based practice
Content immediately relevant to real-world tasks
Appreciated flexibility of modular/non-linear design
Consistency across regions and project types
“Fills a long-standing gap that we’ve never addressed before”

RESULTS (first 9 months)

4 foundational programs (cross-functional)
~25 fully developed modules
Consistent system + framework for all future fundamentals programs
Drastically reduced SME training load
Faster, more consistent new-to-role onboarding
System now serves as the template for future talent-scaling initiatives
Total estimated value: ~$238K/year (per program/per year)
What started as four programs became an enterprise-level capability: a system that accelerates new-to-role performance while freeing SMEs to focus on high-value work.

Portfolio

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