ELE Group, LLC

Most L&amp;D teams are trapped in a cycle of being expected to deliver champagne results on beer budgets—a cycle that is unsustainable in the age of rapid organizational change. This hands-on AI Practical Lab provided a clear escape route, demonstrating how senior leaders and L&amp;D practitioners can immediately adopt an Agile Producer Mindset to radically reduce content development time and cost using AI tools.

The session focused relentlessly on velocity and impact, proving that high-quality training materials can be produced in a fraction of the time typically required.
<h3>Key Takeaways for Senior L&amp;D Leaders:</h3>
<ul>
 	<li>The Agility Mindset Shift: The primary learning was moving from a traditional, linear development model to an Agile Producer Mindset. This means prioritizing speed and iteration, viewing raw data (like a 60-minute Zoom call) as a raw material that AI can instantly synthesize into a polished deliverable.</li>
 	<li>The 15-Minute Playbook: Attendees witnessed a real-world, impressive demonstration of how the speakers turned raw insights into a polished, high-impact playbook in less than 15 minutes using simple AI tools. This showcase challenged leaders to redefine their team's content production benchmarks.</li>
 	<li>The Practical AI Toolkit: This was an implementation session, not a theory class. Participants were given a plug-and-play template and introduced to specific tools and prompt engineering techniques that can be used to:
<ul>
 	<li>Turn raw data into stories that build trust and connection.</li>
 	<li>Overcome resource constraints and demonstrate undeniable value through tangible, rapidly generated deliverables.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
This session armed L&amp;D leaders with the practical steps needed to break the resource cycle, making their teams a source of high-speed, high-quality content that truly supports the business strategy.

AI Practical Lab: The AI-Powered L&D Playbook | High-impact training materials on a shoestring budget

Future of Work

Digital &amp; AI

learning technology

rapid prototyping

talent development

CHIE2025

AI tools

generative AI

operational efficiency

ashanti.morgan

angelica.janina.stilling

practical insights

roberto.seif

AI practical application

L&amp;D playbook

high impact training

agile producer

learning content creation

L&amp;D budget

L&amp;D operations

Walgreens

Online retailers and shifts in spending habits are just a couple of the things plaguing traditional retailers. In the current market, there is a tremendous amount of pressure for brick and mortar to stay relevant. With close to 9000 stores nationwide, how is Walgreens differentiating themselves in this ever evolving, rapid-paced, digitally driven environment?
To reactivate our Brand through learning and performance, we are developing an agile approach to learning and performance that incorporates technology and leverages team member insights and feedback. We are focused on end to end, holistic solutions that develop our team members from every angle. We are doing this through a simple 3 step process as shown below:
<ul>
 	<li>Engage me: Tell a compelling story that explains the why. Gather thoughts and feedback through surveys, focus groups and conducting empathetic interviews. We are engaging our team members and partnering closely with them to create new, innovative, learning solutions.</li>
 	<li>Show me: Use data collected to create innovate, engaging prototypes. Put these prototypes back in the hands of the team members to test them, play around with them (we’ve had lots of demos) and gather feedback on their learning experience. Quickly integrate team member feedback and implement the solution.</li>
 	<li>Let me try: Place the solution back in the hands of the team members and let them train their peers and their customers were applicable.</li>
</ul>
Using this approach team members are not only informing and co-creating their own learning solutions, they are also empowered and can confidently educate others. This also allows us to work through obstacles, make changes and pivot when necessary.
<ul>
 	<li>Including team members in the development process has created higher levels of buy in and commitment.</li>
 	<li>Challenging ourselves to think outside the box to create the right learning experiences, even the impossible, is driving new, innovative and impactful solutions. is driving new, innovative and impactful solutions.</li>
 	<li>Rapid prototyping and agile solutions are allowing us to gather feedback and implement change quickly.</li>
 	<li>Hands on practice, in the moment coaching and feedback is increasing team member capability and confidence.</li>
</ul>

How to (RE)activate a 100+ Year-old Brand through Performance & Learning

Strategy

design thinking

corinne.rice

innovation

In the talent space, we often spend months (or years) debating a new initiative, only to launch it and find that employee adoption is lukewarm at best. What if you could compress months of deliberation into a single week of high-impact action?
This is the power of the Design Sprint. Written by veteran practitioners, this guidebook outlines a five-phase process—Understand, Diverge, Converge, Prototype, and Test—designed to move a team from a messy problem to a validated solution in record time.
For an HR or L&amp;D leader, a "Design Sprint" isn't just about pixels and code; it's about Strategic Agility. It’s a framework for cross-functional collaboration that forces stakeholders to stop talking and start building. By using these tools, you can prototype a new talent strategy or a digital learning tool, test it with real "users" (your employees), and iterate before you’ve spent a single dollar on a full-scale rollout.
This book provides the practical toolkit to stop guessing and start proving what works for your people.

Design Sprint: A Practical Guidebook for Building Great Digital Products

experiential learning

digital transformation

dirk.tussing

newton.moore

Mike.Slepikas

mike.kester

azizeh.constantinescu

missy.gonzales

katrina.williams

jenny.heitman

problem solving

cross-functional collaboration

brian.gold

HR Strategy

L&amp;D innovation

agile HR

deepa.kartha

ali.glaser

jerry.oliveira

design sprint

product mindset

user experience

team alignment

strategic decision making

Jake Knapp’s Sprint is the "OG" blueprint from Google Ventures. It’s the book that started the movement. For senior HR and L&amp;D leaders, this isn't just a book about product design—it’s a masterclass in decision-making and risk mitigation.
<h6 data-path-to-node="2">🕒 The High-Stakes Shortcut: Stop Debating, Start Solving</h6>
How much time does your leadership team spend in "analysis paralysis"? We’ve all seen it: a major talent initiative—like a new performance management system or a global culture shift—gets discussed in meeting after meeting, yet a year later, nothing has changed.
Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days offers a radical escape from this cycle. Jake Knapp and his co-authors provide a battle-tested, minute-by-minute recipe for moving from a high-stakes problem to a proven solution in exactly one business week.
For the forward-thinking HR leader, the "Sprint" is the ultimate tool for Agile Talent Management. Instead of launching a massive, untested program and hoping for the best, you learn to build a "facade" of your idea and test it with real people immediately. It’s about shifting your culture from one of "permission and perfection" to one of "experimentation and evidence."
If you are facing a problem where the stakes are high, the clock is ticking, and the solution isn't obvious, this is your playbook.

Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

future of work

Performance Improvement

business impact

decision making

HR transformation

sprint methodology

strategic agility

experiment design

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.

The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.

Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs—in companies of all sizes—a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt, and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in an age when companies need to innovate more than ever.

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