You know the drill. A stakeholder has a training request and wants to include every fact they’ve ever learned and every bullet point they’ve ever written. You're buried in content, and because of the deadline, you end up writing objectives like "learners will be able to list, define, and describe..."

You make a 47-slide course. Did anything change? <Crickets>

This workshop is for instructional designers who know something isn't working—and who are tired of pretending otherwise. The answer almost always starts in the same place: smart design starts before you even touch a storyboard.

Day one of this two-day certificate is about the front-end thinking that makes or breaks a course. You'll learn to spot the real business goal hiding behind the training request, write objectives people actually care about (spoiler: no one cares if learners can list, define, and describe things), and apply a four-part planning process to every objective:

• What learners truly need to know
• What motivation challenges might get in the way
• How they'll practice the skill
• What real-world obstacles could block performance on the job

You'll also explore how AI can sharpen your process as a thought partner.

Day two, you'll roll up your sleeves. Working with a case study as well as your own project, you'll practice transforming ho-hum data-dumps into something engaging—writing storyboards grounded in examples and scenarios, designing practice that reinforces real skills (not trivia), and tackling the obstacles that keep new skills from sticking once people get back to work.

You'll leave with a repeatable framework, a transformed case study, and an approach you can apply to your very next project.

As a result of this program, you’ll be able to:

• Identify the true business goal behind a training request
• Write objectives that stakeholders and learners actually care about
• Write engaging storyboards that provide useful context for your learners through examples and scenarios
• Design realistic practice activities that reinforce skills rather than simply test superficial facts
• Use AI as a thought partner during design planning