What is Action Mapping?
What is action mapping? How can you use this powerful approach to achieve business results?
Action mapping is a methodology developed by Cathy Moore to improve business performance. It goes far beyond traditional instructional design models like ADDIE or SAM because it’s focused on what people need to DO instead of what they need to KNOW.
In this video, I’ll demonstrate the power of action mapping and show how it can benefit you. You’ll discover how to ask the right questions, how to solve performance problems, and how to create training that’s engaging and effective.
WATCH VIDEO HERE:
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FREE Action Mapping Interactive Video
This interactive video will give you an overview of the Action Mapping process. Your decisions determine how the story turns out!
Use Action Mapping in a Variety of Settings
My examples come from the world of interactive video and eLearning scenarios. But action mapping can be used in a variety of settings - including live sessions, blended learning environments, or microlearning solutions.
Watch this video to learn how to use action mapping on the job, and to see how it plays out in an eLearning scenario. This demo is based on concepts from Cathy Moore’s book, Map it.
If you haven’t read Map It yet, you’ll definitely want to check it out HERE:
Action mapping is used at nearly every Fortune 500 company because it helps businesses get results. So whether you’re a business leader looking for a training solution, an instructional designer, or an eLearning developer, you’ve come to the right place.
In this video, I’ll demonstrate the power of action mapping and show how it can benefit you. You’ll discover how to ask the right questions, how to solve performance problems, and how to create training that’s engaging and effective.
My examples come from the world of interactive video and eLearning scenarios. But keep in mind that action mapping can also be used in a variety of settings - including live sessions, blended learning environments, or microlearning solutions.
What is Action Mapping?
Action mapping is a methodology developed by Cathy Moore that helps improve business performance. It goes far beyond traditional instructional design models like ADDIE or SAM because it’s focused on what people need to DO instead of what they need to KNOW.
When I read Cathy Moore’s book, Map It, it completely transformed the way I work with my clients. If you haven’t read this book yet, you should definitely check it out. I’ll include a link in the description below.
In her book, Cathy Moore gives an example of how action mapping works. I used this example as a starting point for this story about Michelle:
Action Mapping (Project Example)
Michelle is an instructional designer who works for a large hospital. There are plenty of requests for course development, but she’s frustrated by the low levels of audience engagement. As she’s searching for better solutions, she comes across Action Mapping by Cathy Moore, a streamlined approach to business training.
Michelle watches a few videos about it and reads Cathy Moore’s book, Map It.
Just then she receives an email from Dr. Roberts with a 200 slide PowerPoint deck attached. He wants the deck converted into an eLearning course as soon as possible. Michelle knows this might turn out to be another low engagement course that doesn’t change behavior on the job.
So she takes a deep breath and decides to try the action mapping approach. Michelle responds to his email by arranging a project kickoff meeting with herself, Dr. Roberts, and Stephanie, the head nurse.
We need a training course on sharps safety. Too many nurses are injuring themselves because they’re making mistakes when handling needles. I sent you the PowerPoint deck we used in our live training sessions. How long will it take to turn this into an online course?
Thanks for the deck. It sounds like you want the number of errors to go down. Do you have a target goal in mind?”
This is the kickoff meeting, which is the first step in the action mapping process. Michelle has invited some key stakeholders, including the doctor who’s requested the training, and the head nurse, who’s familiar with operations on the floor.
Although the doctor clearly expects her to create a training course, notice that Michelle didn’t say she would create one. In fact, she makes it a point NOT to use the word “course” at all because a traditional eLearning course might not be the right solution for this organization.
From her very first interaction with the stakeholders, Michelle is taking on the role of a performance consultant. She’s focused on uncovering the real business problem behind this request for training. So she’s specifically asked a question to identify a measurable target goal.
Hmmm… It would be great if we could beat the hospital with the best record when the annual safety report comes out a year from now. To get that, we’d need to decrease our number of errors by 8%.
Michelle: Maybe that could be the goal for this project. Errors with sharps will decrease by 8% within a year as all the staff correctly handle sharps. What do you think?
Sure, that sounds good.
Michelle works with the stakeholders to Define a Business Goal and writes that in the center of the action map. Cathy Moore suggests using a metric that’s already being measured, that will increase or decrease by a specific date as people in a specific group do something.
This is an internal goal that will help keep everyone focused on solving the real performance problem. Everything they add to the action map after this should be related to achieving that goal.
Notice this is a real business goal that’s meaningful to the stakeholders. It’s not a training goal, like 90% of staff will complete the sharps safety training course.
Great! So let’s talk about what it will take to achieve that goal. What are the nurses supposed to do and what are they doing instead?
They’re supposed to follow our standard operating procedures and read the signs on the walls. The signs say what you’re supposed to do if you accidentally stick yourself with a contaminated needle. But it seems like no one reads the SOPs or pays attention to those signs anymore.
I think most of the injuries are happening when the nurses recap needles.
Why do they do that?
Sometimes they do that when the sharps disposal container isn’t handy. The container’s supposed to be near the patient’s bed, but it can end up almost anywhere.
Wow, I didn’t realize that was happening. I could arrange to have the containers attached to the wall near each patient’s bed. That should decrease the number of errors.
The next step is to identify what actions people need to do and ask Why to drill down further. Michelle asks the question “Why” several times during this phase, to discover the underlying issues.
She’s already discovered two ACTIONS the nurses are supposed to do. Follow the Standard Operating Procedures and Pay Attention to the signs on the wall. She writes these Actions on the action map.
In this case, she’s also uncovered an ENVIRONMENTAL problem - the location of the sharps disposal container. She notes this problem on the action map too.
If Michelle hadn’t asked these probing questions, they might never have realized this problem existed. Environmental problems usually cannot be solved by training. Instead, the doctor or someone in the organization will need to fix the environmental problem related to sharps containers.
Michelle knew that the doctor who requested the training might not be that familiar with the day-to-day challenges faced by the nurses. That’s why she also invited other people to the kickoff meeting. The head nurse is much closer to the day-to-day operations, so she was able to identify the sharps container problem right away.
Michelle continues asking the stakeholders about what people need to do. After they’ve brainstormed a number of actions, they’re ready to take the next step.
We’ve made a lot of progress! The next step is to prioritize these actions. Which ones contribute most to our target goal? And which ones are most often performed incorrectly or have terrible consequences if they’re skipped?
One of the biggest problems happens when a nurse doesn’t follow the correct procedures after they’ve been injured by a sharp. If the needle is contaminated, they can become infected too. I’d put that action toward the top of the list.
OK, so it looks like these 7 actions will have the most impact on decreasing the number of injuries.
Let’s look at each high priority action and identify the barriers that keep people from performing those actions. We’ll categorize each barrier as one of four types: Environment, Skill gaps, Knowledge gaps, or Motivation.
What do you mean by that?
For instance, the location of the sharps disposal container is an Environmental barrier. That’s when something in the work environment or organizational culture keeps people from performing this action well.
Environmental barriers can be missing or poor tools, lack of support from management, incentive problems, or a physically or emotionally challenging work environment. Usually these problems can’t be solved by training, so someone in the organization will need to fix them instead. We’ll label those barriers with an E.
That makes sense. What’s the difference between a skills gap and knowledge gap?
A skill is an ability to do a task. It’s something that gets better with practice. We can design practice activities to help people improve their skills. We’ll label those with an S.
But a knowledge gap is when someone genuinely doesn’t know how to do a task. Maybe they never learned the steps, or don’t know where to find the information. Knowledge gaps can sometimes be solved by providing the right job aid, like a lookup table. We’ll label those with a K.
What about motivation barriers?
Motivation problems are usually a side effect of environment, skill or knowledge gap problems. Or it could be that you’ve got the wrong person in that job, which is a type of environmental problem.
Michelle and the Stakeholders identify the barriers for each high priority action. Then they categorize the barriers as Environmental, Skill Gaps, Knowledge Gaps or Motivation. When they’re done the Action Map looks like this.
After that, they brainstorm ways to address the barriers, starting with environmental problems. By now, Dr. Roberts and Stephanie have realized there are many environmental problems contributing to sharps injuries, and they commit to fixing them as soon as possible.
For Knowledge Gaps, Michelle asks if the information needs to be memorized or if nurses can use a job aid instead. It turns out there are already several job aids in the workplace, like the sign on the wall with instructions on what a nurse should do if they’ve been injured by a sharp.
Dr. Roberts points out that most nurses have stopped paying attention to the signs. Michelle adds that to her list of possible training activities.
The Skills Gaps are also good candidates for training activities, and Michelle notes those on her list too.
Dr. Roberts and Stephanie agree that there aren’t any Motivation problems here. Their nurses are all highly motivated professionals, who genuinely want to do a good job.
At the end of the kickoff meeting, the stakeholders agree to fix environmental problems like the sharps container location. And Michelle has a list of skill and knowledge gaps that potentially could be addressed with training.
After the meeting, Michelle looks over her list. She selects one high priority problem - the fact that nurses aren’t following the right procedures after they’ve been injured by a sharp - as the topic for her prototype.
She doesn’t use her eLearning authoring tool yet. Instead, she creates a rough sketch of the prototype activity as a document, using simple text and graphics. Since the nurses aren’t paying attention to the sign on the wall, Michelle adds a photo of that job aid to her practice activity.
Then she meets with Stephanie to refine the prototype.
OK, here’s the draft prototype. This is based on our action map where a nurse needs to make a decision immediately after they injure themselves with a sharp. You mentioned there are three mistakes nurses frequently make in this situation, as well as one correct action. First, the person will see this decision screen.
If they choose an incorrect answer like Pour Betadine on the wound, they won’t see default feedback like “Correct” or “Incorrect”. Instead, they’ll see a realistic consequence that looks something like this.
Hmmm. They should read the Standard Operating Procedures too. During live training, we took them through the SOPs, then gave them a quiz at the end.
With action mapping, we plunge people right into the decision first, without showing them a lot of information up front.
But on this screen, if they need a hint, they have the option to click on this sign. Would you like me to include a short excerpt from the Standard Operating Procedures here too?
Yes, that works. I like this prototype. I think this will really help us reduce injuries from sharps.
After the stakeholders approve the prototype, Michelle starts building real working activities with her eLearning authoring tool. In this case, she uses Storyline 360, but she could use any tool that can handle multiple choice questions and allows her to customize consequences.
What would be the best way to distribute these activities to the nurses? We’ve got several options. We could send the activities to the nurses at spaced intervals through an email campaign.
Alternatively, we can assign the activities to the nurses through the LMS, then schedule a zoom call so they can reflect on their learning as a group.
Or we could string the activities together in a story or interactive video about a nurse who is working at this hospital.
What do you think will give the nurses the best learning experience?
I heard about interactive videos when I was attending a recent conference. Apparently, when you embed training inside a story, people remember it at a deeper emotional level. Let’s try that approach.
So Michelle crafts an interactive video about a fictional nurse who works at their hospital.
She embeds the activities at key points in the story, so people can help the hero make decisions. There are no long-winded explanations and no information dump slides.
Just a stream of decisions with meaningful consequences that reflect the real work environment. A story where people can learn from their mistakes then try again. An interactive video that helps people make better decisions in real life.
The action mapping activities have been a resounding success. Michelle and the stakeholders watch the error rate drop as environmental problems get fixed, and nurses practice the activities. And they’re not the only ones who notice the change.
Today the big safety report was published and Michelle and the stakeholders are celebrating. They’re excited to see they’ve surpassed their goal and the hospital has been recognized for their improved safety record.
In just a moment I’ll share a bonus tip that will make your action mapping solutions even stronger. But first, it would mean the world to me if you’d hit the like button so YouTube will share this video with even more people.
Alright, now for that bonus tip. Encourage people to PULL information (in other words, Don’t PUSH)
In traditional online training, we often PUSH information at people. You know this is happening if you see a lot of content heavy screens, click and reveal slides, and click-next eLearning.
But with action mapping, we plunge people right into the decision first. Then if they need a hint, they can choose to PULL information at their moment of need.
It’s important to only provide the MINIMUM amount of information that people need to make the right decision. That’s why Michelle suggested including only a short excerpt from the Standard Operating Procedures, instead of simply attaching the full document.
Another way to let people PULL information is on the consequence screen. If they make a poor choice and experience a bad consequence, they might wonder why that happened.
You can give them that option by adding a Why Did this Happen? button to the screen here.
Cathy Moore - Action Mapping
Cathy Moore provides a lot of additional tips in her book, like how to organize a kickoff meeting, how to design your prototype, how to work with SMEs, and how to handle client objections. I’ve barely scratched the surface of action mapping in this video, so if you’re interested in learning more, you’ll definitely want to check out her book, Map It.
I’ll add more videos to this instructional design tips series in the future, so be sure to subscribe so you won’t miss any of them. And click the screen now to watch the next video, coming right up.
Your Turn
Are you using action mapping at your work? How did your clients or SMEs respond? What were the results? How has it changed your approach to L&D?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.