Macmillan Cancer Support was undertaking a programme of work to re-energise its relationship with the cancer workforce.

A central element of these plans is the adoption of digital tools to engage in new ways and enhance the current relationship. Learning and development was a foundation of this effort.

I was engaged to support the Macmillan L&D, Technology and Workforce Engagement teams to review their existing digital learning strategy and recommend changes, to guide the requirements for vendor selection and to participate in the vendor selection process.

Analysis began with a series of stakeholder interviews to understand the current status, the main priorities and a view of the most important challenges.

In parallel, I conducted a phase of industry research to analyse trends and signals of direction of the digital learning landscape. This formed the basis of a workshop session with the Macmillan team to discuss the research themes and explore a possible new direction.

The Macmillan team quickly realised the potential of a new way forward and the value in new approaches such as: social and collaborative learning experiences, short form and microlearning content, learner focused design, the ability to capitalise on the deep expertise within a distributed workforce and the potential new capabilities needed to capitalise on a new digital approach.

This, in turn, lead to the inclusion of a range of fresh requirements to broaden the horizon of the following procurement exercise and the evaluation of a number of less traditional vendors.