Overview

Note: Link to the course is unavailable and images are blurred to comply with Allen Communication's client confidentiality agreement.

I designed and built two compliance trainings for Morgan Stanley to educate their learners on the laws and company regulations they needed to be aware of and to follow to be compliant in their business practice.

Define

What is the business need?

Morgan Stanley needed a compliance training to make sure their legacy E*TRADE colleagues remain compliant according to company and law requirements.

Who are the learners?

The learners are E*TRADE specialists who need to remain compliant to stay in business with Morgan Stanley. These financial advisors fall under two categories:

• E*TRADE Specialists
• Specialist Supervisors

What are the learning gaps?

To determine the learning gaps, Morgan Stanley conducted informational interviews with their Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and their learners. From the data gathered, I developed two versions of the course so I could tailor the knowledge gaps to each of the learner groups.

How will we evaluate success?

I determined the success of these courses by the client’s reaction to my work and what percentage of the learners completed the course.

Design

Design Challenge

The design of the course had to balance between delivering highly technical information—that would be difficult to not be a wall of text—in a way that was interesting and engaging to the learners.

Design Thinking Behind the Deliverables

Theories and models I found helpful in designing these courses:

• SAM
  • To keep this project on track, it’s crucial to manage the timeline well. I often reference the SAM model to help expedite the course production process.
• ADDIE
  • I don’t typically think of ADDIE as a model, but more of a dictionary that’s good to reference to make sure I didn’t miss anything important.
• Kirkpatrick’s Levels
  • I’ve always found this model useful for setting up evaluation.
• Gagne's 9 Events
  • While I don’t think all nine events apply for every learning experience, I find this a useful framework for mapping out activity types and how to sequence them.
• Micro-Learning
  • I find this concept especially important in the online space, since learners face a great deal more opportunity for distraction.

Develop

Deliverables

• Web-Based Courses
  • Since the learners live across the US, and factoring in the budget, timeline, scope, and intention of this course, using a web-based format was the best option. The course includes the following elements:
  • Video: I edit interview-style videos with Financial Advisors from Morgan Stanley that help explain more technical concepts to do with their industry.
  • Knowledge Checks and Certification Exams: I script questions and answers for the certification exams as well as quick knowledge checks throughout the courses.
  • Interactive Activities: To keep the learning experience fun and engaging, I used a variety of activity templates in my organization’s proprietary tool which makes the content more interesting and easier to understand.
• Job Aids
  • Downloadable PDFs that include links to resources the learners need to be familiar with in order to remain compliant.

Tools Used

• DesignLab: Proprietary tool used to create the web-based trainings
• Photoshop: To create images and graphics for activities in course
• Illustrator: To create graphics for courses
• Camtasia: To edit the interview videos
• SoundForge: To edit audio
• Word: To create downloadable job aids

Deliver

Business Impact

Morgan Stanley is very slow to update technologically. This course, along with the ACM course that’s also included in this portfolio, helped give Morgan Stanley a much-needed update. Where previously, Morgan Stanley courses would look like glorified PowerPoint presentations, E*TRADE looks professional, up to date, and engaging. It also allows the learners to go through the course at their own pace and they are allowed to go through the material in whichever order they please. The course has successfully solidified a new standard for the quality of Morgan Stanley’s eLearning courses.