Reframing Issues and Projects

As an instructional designer, I am often called in by clients because they have a "training" requirement. As we talk to them and they explain the problem/challenge that has led to this need, it becomes clear that much more than a training intervention is needed. For example, at one travel company they were getting a lot of telephone orders bounced for technical reasons and many of their best customers were complaining about the call center service. As we did research, it was clear that the incentives program, based on the number of calls handled in a day, encouraged call center people to hang up on good customers, who often had complicated orders that would take a long time to handle. There was a kind of top-down disrespect for the call-center agents, no recognition for good work, no attention paid to their opinions. And, yes, there was a training issue on product and system knowledge.

To work with this company, we had to reframe the issues in a larger context of culture change and empowerment. The disrespect had to go; the supervisory employees had to be empowered to help form the correct kind of training; and the incentive program had to be changed. Here's another example of reframing:

The Process of Defining the Problem 09.06.2006 by LukeW

Following the Defining the Problem series on Functioning Form, several designers asked how they should go about reframing problems with clients. How could they shift the conversation from an analysis of specific solutions to a broader discussion that better defined the problem they were trying to solve? Perhaps the best way to illustrate such a process is with an example. More....http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?394