Leverage your team’s CliftonStrengths to strategically align each person with the roles where they’ll thrive and contribute most effectively.

Finance Hub, a conceptual financial services company, has been struggling to effectively serve new clients. Management traced these challenges to low team engagement and unclear role alignment, which have affected both employee satisfaction and client service.

To address these challenges, Finance Hub introduced strengths-based interventions centered around the CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsFinder) assessment and development. This initiative aimed to help employees gain a deeper understanding of their unique strengths and learn how to apply them effectively in their roles. By fostering greater engagement and performance, the program ultimately sought to enhance client satisfaction.

As part of the solution, the company implemented an e-learning mini-course featuring a scenario-based learning experience, following CliftonStrengths workshops. This approach encouraged employees to think critically about how specific strengths align with different roles. The interventions were designed to help employees identify their strengths, adopt a strengths-based language, recognize colleagues’ strengths, and collaborate more effectively. By leveraging their individual talents, team members could better align tasks, boost productivity, and deliver exceptional client service. Ultimately, this initiative not only improved employee retention but also enhanced the successful delivery of client projects.

Considering the organization’s learning gap, I assessed the team’s existing knowledge of CliftonStrengths and the strengths-based approach. Based on this evaluation, I applied relevant learning theories to address their specific needs while using the ADDIE framework as my primary instructional design process.

To enhance learning, I implemented a scenario-based experience that immerses team members in realistic workplace situations. This approach provides them with options to navigate challenges more effectively, reinforcing practical application. These steps have been instrumental in bridging the learning gap and fostering a strengths-based mindset within the team.

In the action mapping step, I will collaborate with the subject matter expert (SME)—which, in this case, is myself as a certified CliftonStrengths coach (formerly StrengthsFinder)—to define the key learning goals.

The next step involves mapping out the e-learning scenario, considering employees’ progress in their strengths-based development and CliftonStrengths learning journey. At this stage, employees are already familiar with CliftonStrengths terminology, so the focus shifts to identifying relevant scenarios and critical decision-making moments they may encounter. This process also takes into account the financial planning steps that finance teams follow when working with clients. Based on these factors, carefully planned scenarios are developed to enhance learning and application.

Next, I developed a text-based storyboard, focusing on the action map to identify the key actions a team would take when selecting the right people for a project. I considered the four CliftonStrengths domains—Executing, Strategic Thinking, Influencing, and Relationship Building—within the context of a financial project. From this analysis, I highlighted the most critical learning experiences and structured a text-based storyboard that presents choices and their corresponding consequences.

In this scenario, the team member is presented with three options: one correct choice, one incorrect choice, and one partially correct but suboptimal choice. This decision-making structure encourages critical thinking and reinforces the practical application of strengths-based selection.

With the text-based storyboard complete, the next step is to create the visual storyboard and define the styling elements for the e-learning experience.

As this is a conceptual use case, the next step would be to seek approval from the SME before proceeding with the visual mockups that would translate the story into a cohesive visual style.

I then moved to Figma, a design tool that allows me to create visual mockups. In Figma, I built an extrapolation board to gather different design styles that would be both vibrant and engaging for users. I explored various vector styles and began developing the visual mockups. To ensure consistency throughout the storyboard, I used MidJourney along with a style reference to maintain visual cohesion.

The next step involves creating an interactive prototype to gather feedback on the project’s functionality. Using both the visual mockups and the text-based storyboard as a foundation, I developed the prototype in Articulate Storyline 360.

At this stage, I also collaborated with the Subject Matter Expert (SME) to continuously refine both the storyline and the program. Throughout the design process, my primary goal was to ensure that each slide effectively communicates its message to the user, enhancing clarity and engagement.

In the full development phase, I drew inspiration from the prototype, the text-based storyline, and the visual compilations I created in Figma. Using Articulate Storyline 360, I compiled and developed the complete program.

For this e-learning scenario, I incorporated triggers to allow users to easily navigate through the scenario. This not only enhanced the gamification aspect but also integrated learning theory for interactive decision-making. Immediate feedback was provided as users engaged with the content, helping them understand which strengths to apply. Feedback was delivered instantly, and branching paths were built to support learners’ success. I also prioritized creating a user-centered design to ensure that users could relate more effectively to the content and enhance their learning experience.

In the final step, the follow-up involves assessing whether the learning goal was achieved and if learners can apply the content when they encounter similar scenarios in the workplace. The key objective here is to ensure that the business goal is met—helping the client align strengths with tasks and enabling team members to not only understand their own strengths but also recognize the strengths of their colleagues as valuable contributions to the team.

In this phase, I use the ADDIE framework to evaluate the success of the learning experience. Additionally, insights gained from this process are leveraged to improve future learning experiences, ensuring continuous enhancement and alignment with the organization’s needs.