Match Intake and Culture: Three Considerations for Your Process

Intake will be most successful if it matches your company culture and maturity level.

Just to clear up any confusion right away. This isn't an article about an intake form. Intake isn't a form, it's the process of receiving initial inquiries and/or requests for a learning solution. Upon completion, this process should provide the learning team with the information needed to take their next steps.

Like any process, intake will be most successful when it matches your company culture and maturity level. It needs to make sense for those providing the information, your stakeholders.

In some companies, this means an email is as sophisticated as they will get. Others need something a little more technical, trackable, and streamlined. But any intake process isn’t worth the time if it’s too difficult for stakeholders to engage.

There are three key questions I like to ask when designing or revamping an intake process. They will help you to get at which intake process might best match with your organizational culture.

Intake Process Design Question 1:
What is the minimal amount of information you need to determine whether to act on this request?

To start designing/revamping intake, we need to determine what information we really need to determine whether we will dive deeper. That's why I start by thinking about how resources are allocated across the learning team and potentially the company overall, as well as how your team determines whether training will solve the problem.

In most instances, resources are allocated according to strategic initiatives, revenue, and impact. If you are aligning your learning activities to the bigger picture, then finding out if this request relates to the bigger picture is imperative. Is there a way to ask about this in your intake process?

This could include questions like, "Which of the current organizational objectives does this request support?", Who is the executive sponsor for this request?", or "How many people would be impacted by this project?"

The answers signal whether the request is tied to a larger initiative and will impact a large number of people. If a stakeholder is unable to answer these, it is much easier to deny or point them in a different direction.

With this idea of resource allocation and impact as a driver for our intake process, let's revisit the idea of asking for the minimal amount of information you need. This means thinking about not only what information you do need, but what information you don’t need at the onset.

For example, do you really need to know the learning outcomes as part of the request? Doing so assumes that training is the solution. It signals that you are already diving into course creation. It also assumes that stakeholders understand learning outcomes. A better question might be, “What performance problem are you hoping this project will solve?” or “What performance problem led you to come to us with this request?”

Your intake process should be the starting point to gather information that allows you to determine whether to dive deeper. It should start the conversation around whether training will solve the problem and if it is worth the resources.

Intake Process Design Question 2:
What processes are commonly and successfully used in your company for teams to gather information from each other internally?

If you can align and/or mimic current processes, your intake has a better chance of success.

As you know, the learning curve to build on something that already exists is much easier than the one that requires you to learn something completely new and different. There’s a better chance of success if the process is in some way familiar for your stakeholders.

There are probably some stakeholders across your company who are regularly requesting learning or training solutions from your team, but it’s also likely that there are many who put in a request once or twice a year. Asking people to learn an entirely new process unique to your intake will take much longer than tacking onto something that already works.

Where do people go right now to request information from each other? Is there a specific software that is used? A ticketing system? Is there a way you can utilize that same system or process as the start of your intake?

Intake Process Design Question 3:
What is your stakeholders’ general “tolerance” and/or preference for providing information?

Think about your audience combined with your company culture and maturity level. Are people used to filling out long forms with in-depth information or will they likely see the questions, click out of the form, and send you an email anyway?

You will have the most success with your intake process, if the way you ask matches the general “tolerance” and/or preference for providing information within your organization.

For example, if you know that the culture of your company is more conversational and less form driven, then don’t put all your stock in a form. The goal is to get the information you need to determine next steps. You don’t want to make your stakeholders jump through tasks that feel like unnecessary or difficult hoops.

This doesn’t need to stop you from creating a form or a list of questions. But perhaps it’s the learning team who completes the form or asks the predefined questions in a conversation instead of asking stakeholders to fill it out.

Whatever process you decide to use for your intake, ensure that it matches your organization’s culture and maturity level. Remember that the goal of intake is to determine your next steps. Aim to gather the minimal amount of information needed to make that determination and do it in a way that is as easy for your stakeholders as possible.