Designing Internship Programs
Designed Lexipol's intern program with interactive learning tools to foster professional growth
Employer: Lexipol
When: Spring 2022 (8 week internship)
* Some information changed to comply with NDA
As the first intern in the product department, I was tasked not only with conducting market research for their law enforcement learning management system but also designed how future interns would carry out this same process. To do this I needed:
A STRUCTURED FRAMEWORK
A framework/methodology to guide market research and add to an intern's understanding of project management
INTERACTIVE LEARNING TOOLS
Tools to help guide the intern as they start their internship and clearly store their progress for the intern after them to see
The Framework
The Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) framework was selected over other methodologies because it expands market research beyond typical demographics and ensures solutions are truly customer centric.
“People do not want a quarter inch drill; they want a quarter inch hole.”
JTBD: A lens to observe markets, customers, needs, competitors, and customer segments differently, and by doing so, make innovation far more predictable and profitable.
JTBD is progress towards a goal:
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beyond Demographics
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free of Solutions
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easily connecting Causality
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that identifies why people “hire”
Interactive Learning Tools
Utilized Mural to create an interactive template that follows the framework while leaving opportunities for personalization.
The framework also provides a unique asset to interns' resumes not taught at most facilities.
The template came to life as I conducted market research following the JTBD framework. After conducting research, user interviews and creating process maps, I chose to split the Mural page into four distinct sections.
SECTION 1: Preplanning & Understanding Concept
The project goal for future interns will be the same as mine: Identify how various company departments can best serve their E-learning communities and transform the online law enforcement training software; therefore, the very first section of the Mural will not need to be edited unless the customer segment is changed.
Instructions to recreate the process should the customer group ever change.
Core Functional Job: The underlying process that the training manager is trying to complete in a given situation.
Different jobs the customer may be trying to complete by using our product
Demonstrates how the found statements were combined to create one core job statement for further research.
Since this section comes first, it also features research sources and interview notes that interns can easily access at any time.
Future interns will be able to use this section as an applied learning opportunity when they first start with the company and are attempting to understand the company's wants and needs, their customers, and what their role is to both.
SECTION 2: Prioritization
*Left blank to protect company information
For this particular project, the job executor is the training manager, the one who typically signs up officers for our learning management program.
In this section, the intern will be able to understand the hierarchy of police departments and identify to whom the training manager reports.
SECTION 3: Stage Planning & Maps
The JTBD framework is comprised of eight sections. This section allows ideation of what interns believe will come out of each stage, begin to prepare interview guides to confirm these expectations, and a location to map out the answers once acquired.
Interview Questions for user interviews regarding the define phase
Stage & definition
Expected outcome statements from stage related activities
Area to map out what components of the stage are purely functional, social, or emotional
Actual process map
SECTION 4: User Interview Insights
All user interviews were prepared for with a pre-made interview guides, but still allowed to flow organically so we could discover new and important insights. This section of the Mural page includes insights from each interview to allow them to easily be compared.