Empower Your Team with Generative AI Skills: A Model Learning Program
This blog series is the collaborative work of the Udemy Learning team, which includes Melissa Daimler, Chief Learning Officer; Justin Mass, Sr. Director Enterprise Learning; Joshua Ehrenreich, Senior Learning Program Manager; John O’Neill, Senior Learning Partner; Lauren Hauser, Learning Program Manager; and Vicki Lang, Learning Designer.
Generative AI is not the next big thing, it is the big thing. Getting teams comfortable and familiar with this technology so they begin using it regularly in the flow of work is a business imperative. Generative AI tools, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Microsoft’s Bing, bring the power of AI to everyone, not just those within the technology industry — provided that they have the space, time, and support to learn how to use those tools.
As is the case with any new skill set, employees who have access to a progressive learning experience founded in positive reinforcement learn more effectively. This is all the more true with a disruptive and revolutionary technology like generative AI. Whether you’ve already gone to market with a generative AI-powered offering or just learned what ChatGPT is, accessing the right content for learning is essential. Don’t overlook the importance of identifying a partner with the breadth and level of content required for your organization.
Udemy is uniquely positioned to support customers through this change due to our already extensive course catalog in generative AI and related topics. Our content generation and curation process moves at the speed of innovation, backed up by the partnership our customer success team provides to our enterprise customers to help them achieve their organizational learning goals.
Design learning for progressive skills acquisition
Learning a new skill set, particularly one anchored in a revolutionary new technology, can feel intimidating to employees. They may need help with how to approach the subject and apply it to their day-to-day work.
The best approach to overcome this hesitation is to structure the learning experience. Plan a series of meetings or lessons for the team that progressively introduce the new technology and build on the capabilities reviewed in previous sessions. Create an environment of experimentation where employees can try new ways of working and thinking without directly affecting work outcomes. This removes the pressure and anxiety associated with performance and allows employees to gain confidence in their newly learned skills. Then, take steps to integrate the new tool and skills into work processes.
As a strategy for helping your team acquire these skills, consider setting aside time on a regular basis — such as repurposing a portion of every other team meeting — to focus on learning. Then, pair topics covered with asynchronous learning assignments. You might follow a learning program adapted to your team’s needs like the following.
Sample learning program
- Prework: Enroll all team members in a structured learning course to help them acquire the basics of using Generative AI. This will enable them to attend the first meeting with the foundational knowledge required to participate. These Udemy courses might be helpful:
- Meeting 1: Provide an introduction and overview of the tool, even if it’s a review of the prework. After a demonstration, include hands-on exploration for all participants, including some concrete prompts to guide their initial experimentation.
- Assignment 1 (following Meeting 1): Participants choose one day before the second meeting to use the Generative AI tool as much as possible at home and/or at work. Ask them to note how they tried to use it and the outcomes of those experiments.
- Meeting 2: Review as a team how this experimentation went, including what worked and what didn’t work well. Based on those experiments, brainstorm possible areas where team members can leverage Generative AI in their work.
- Assignment 2: Following the second meeting, encourage team members to dive deeper into practicing the specific applications they outlined in the previous meeting. Ask them to call out what was effective and what wasn’t, and what they had to modify to make the AI more effective.
- Meeting 3: Review what team members learned during the week. Then, as a team, discuss norms, guiding principles, or rules governing the usage of Generative AI. Solicit input on where people want more guidance or how they have already found ways to self-govern. Based on those individual inputs, lead the team through a process of generating and documenting group norms.
- Assignment 3: As a follow-up to the synchronous discussion above, ask the team to asynchronously collaborate on three to five guiding principles for using Generative AI. Encourage them to seek out others in the company who are leveraging this technology, discover what they are uncovering about usage, and then incorporate that information into these principles.
As you plan the best approach for team learning, it’s important to consider organizational guidelines and rules for Generative AI usage while putting it into practice. AI tools pose unique risks to confidential and sensitive information and should be used responsibly. Whether you are enabling a team or a company, we suggest you consult with your legal advisor for guidance on properly protecting your company’s information.
Through a progressive approach to learning Generative AI skills, your team will be well on their way to effectively incorporating these skills into the flow of their work. They may see benefits like improved productivity, the ability to focus on more strategic work, and new insights.
In our next post in the series, we will explore how to facilitate the skills-learning process through effective change management to drive better learning outcomes.
Read all the articles in this series:
- Empower Your Team with Generative AI Skills: Manage Change For Better Learning
- Empower Your Team with Generative AI Skills: A Use Case from the Udemy Learning Team
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