What’s in a Team? : A breakdown of roles and reporting structures for customer education teams
It’s time to form an education team at your company!
Maybe you’re an executive who realizes it’s time to bring on a dedicated education and training team, or maybe you’re an education lead who’s been assigned the task of building your own team. In any case, you may wonder where to start. There are a lot of different titles out there for customer and partner education roles, and no real standards for organizational structure.
While there is no “one size fits all,” there are best practices and factors to consider based on the needs of your business. Who you hire and in what order will depend on the resources you already have (your own skills included), the technical complexity of your subject matter, the audience needs, and the overall outcomes you expect the programs to achieve. In this article, we’ll define and explain some common education roles and present two organizational structures for consideration.
Roles and skills are not always distinct
It's important to know that each role we outline below is not necessarily a distinct individual. In many cases, and commonly in small teams, one professional has the skills and experience to cover multiple responsibilities. For example, an education program manager may also be the instructional designer for the first year of the program. However, expecting one person to own all or many of the aspects of building an effective, measurable education program for the long term is unrealistic. It’s important to think about how your team will scale as you develop new content, new audiences, and new goals. Remember, educational content is “living,” so every new release must be measured and maintained on an on-going basis.
Roles and responsibilities across a product or customer education team
Head of Education Team
This role could be a VP or Director and may have different titles depending on whether you refer to the team as customer education, product training, education and enablement, and so on. Regardless, this individual is responsible for the success of the entire team. In smaller teams, they may also play the role of an education program manager, defined further below.
The role:
Provides strategic direction for the team and programs within.
Sets goals and objectives aligned with business needs.
Manages a team of education professionals.
Allocates resources and budgets.
Ensures the effectiveness and impact of the programs.
Education Program/Curriculum Manager
This role oversees and coordinates the curriculum and outcomes of a specific education program. They need to have a good balance between curriculum design skills and business acumen, as they’re responsible for the overall business results from their program. A “program” in this context is a solution that enables an audience (or several) to achieve a specific goal. Examples include a certification program, customer/partner/vendor onboarding, and partner enablement. Essentially, it is centered around the business need or end goal.
The role:
Sets program goals and objectives.
Designs and develops a structured curriculum.
Creates learning objectives.
Adapts and updates curriculum based on feedback and assessment.
Collaborates with instructional designers and subject matter experts to ensure effective and comprehensive content.
Manages budgets and resources.
Ensures alignment with organizational strategy.
These next three titles are often used interchangeably, but there are nuances to the responsibilities of each.
Instructional Designer
This role typically focuses on the granular aspects of creating and delivering learning material. Once the curriculum is set, the ID creates lesson plans, develops scripts, determines delivery modalities, creates assessments, and either works directly in the technology to develop the material or aligns with resources to do so.
The role:
Analyzes learning needs and objectives.
Selects appropriate instructional methods and technologies.
Collaborates with subject matter experts and other resources to develop content.
Designs effective learning materials and experiences using ID models and theory.
·Evaluates and updates instructional materials.
Learning Experience Designer
An LXD is really an instructional designer who may have more scope and responsibility over the complete learner experience. For example, where an ID may just be responsible for developing course content, an LXD would be responsible for the learner’s journey across learning experiences, whether asynchronous or synchronous. They often work closely with the LMS admin to achieve this.
This role:
Does everything in the ID role, AND:
Focuses on creating engaging and immersive learning experiences.
Emphasizes user-centered design principles.
Enhances overall learner satisfaction.
E-learning Developer
This role is typically responsible for the technical build of a course in the e-learning software. They may or may not also be an instructional designer, but usually they are given the script and course outline to execute on. In larger teams, it’s common to have different individuals acting as ID /LXD and e-learning developer.
This role:
Transforms instructional design into digital content.
Builds e-learning modules and courses.
Codes, programs, and integrates multimedia elements.
Ensures content functions smoothly on various platforms.
Collaborates with instructional designers and graphic designers.
Facilitator or Trainer
Many education programs offer a live learning component, whether online or in-person. “Facilitator” is a more modern title for the role that delivers this content, as it implies more of a collaborative and self-directed learning experience. Both titles generally have the same responsibilities.
They:
Lead and guide group learning sessions.
Transfer knowledge and skills to participants.
Encourage participant engagement and discussion.
Manage group dynamics and promotes collaboration.
Adapt content delivery to meet participant needs.
Ensure a positive learning environment.
Assess learning outcomes.
Provide feedback and reinforcement.
Technical Writer
When the content involves technical topics, it’s common to employ a technical writer to own how-to articles and other knowledge base material.
This role:
Collaborates with subject matter experts.
Writes manuals, guides, and procedures.
Creates clear and user-friendly documentation.
Explains technical concepts in a comprehensible way.
Ensures consistency and accuracy in documentation.
LMS Administrator
Even smaller education programs benefit from a learning management system, as it’s the one-stop location to create, deliver, and measure your learning. Sometimes the system is maintained by the LMS provider, but it’s also common to have this resource in-house.
This role:
Manages the LMS.
Collaborates with program managers and LXDs to ensure a good learning experience.
Maintains course content, user accounts, and access.
Troubleshoots technical issues.
Generates reports and tracks learner progress.
Ensures system functionality and security.
Data Analyst
Not all education teams have a full-time data analyst, but access to this resource is essential to both delivery and measurement of success. A learning data analyst specializes in learning analytics and can connect data between the LMS and the business in a meaningful way.
This role:
Analyzes data related to learning and performance.
Extracts insights and trends.
Provides recommendations for program improvement.
Utilizes data to measure learning outcomes.
Supports evidence-based decision-making.
Time for structure
Okay, we’ve now covered the more common roles found on an education team, but how do you structure this team as it grows? The answer, of course, is it depends on a few factors. We’ll cover two methods, but you’ll need to consider the culture and structure of your organization, the nuances of the subject matter, and whether there are other teams involved in providing educational or instructional content to the same audience.
Method #1: By program or initiative
Using this method, there is a distinct program manager owning each education program. IDs or LXDs may be assigned to work on certain programs at certain times, but they are otherwise program agnostic. This is best when your audiences likely engage in multiple programs and the ID/LXD can keep a broader view on their full learning experience. For example, a customer may first complete an onboarding program and may later complete a certification program. You’ll have two PMs in charge of the success of each of those programs and IDs working on the learning experiences across both. This prevents redundant content while ensuring consistency in instruction and messaging.
Method #2: By product
Many teams use a pod structure where they align resources by product. In this scenario, you’ll have a PM in charge of learning programs for that product and IDs/LXDs and facilitators working only on that product. This allows the pod to become deep subject matter experts and really own the narrative for that product training. However, this structure only works best if the audiences rarely or never use more than one product together in the same workflow. For example, if your customers use either product X or Y, but never X and Y, then this structure could work well. If customers do at times use X and Y together to achieve their goals, then this structure does a disservice to the customer experience. You would risk missing the opportunity to provide education around the customers’ outcomes, which involve the strategic use of more than one product together.
What about subject matter experts?
You’ll notice we haven’t included SMEs in our example team. While some education teams do employ SMEs as distinct, full-time roles, it’s quite common to find other employees across the company to serve as SMEs. Generally, very few individuals know absolutely everything about one product or topic, so a skilled ID or LXD knows how to locate and collaborate with the necessary SMEs to create the content. This is also why we, at Echtus, would encourage method 1 over method 2 above, as it allows for a more holistic and learner-centric approach to the education experience.
Think about tomorrow
It’s always a good idea to think about how you want your team to scale. What does the company strategy entail? Will there be more products? More audiences? Do you foresee future programs like a certification? Thinking through the 3-year plan for your team will empower you to prioritize the right hires in the right order, and set your team up for long-term success.
Ready to get your team started? Let us help!