Playbook: stop building courses and start enabling learning in the flow of work

What this playbook will help you do

This playbook will help you use L&D's transferable skills to look at everyday work through a learning lens.

You will learn how to identify moments where people need knowledge, guidance, support or practice; ask whether those needs are being met; notice where learning is supported or blocked; and help stakeholders understand what might need to change.

The goal is not to take ownership of every process, resource or workflow.

The goal is to offer a learning perspective where it can help the organisation reduce friction, support better action and make everyday learning more intentional.

Three concepts we work with

This playbook uses three concepts: learning touchpoints, learning roadblocks and behaviour roadblocks.

A learning touchpoint is a point in everyday work where a real need for knowledge, guidance, support or development is successfully met. It is accessible when people need it, helps them understand, decide or act, and is actually used by those who need it. We use them as examples of needs being met. Sometimes they can also be expanded to support even more.

A learning roadblock is something that gets in the way when people need knowledge, guidance, support, practice or an opportunity to use or grow their ability. The support may be missing, hard to find, outdated, confusing, poorly structured or written in language that does not match the user's reality.

We use them to show things that are standing in the way of learning and offer our skills to suggest possible ways of addressing them through the learning lens.

A behaviour roadblock is different. People may already know what to do, but something in the work environment makes the right behaviour difficult, inconvenient, risky or unrealistic. They may lack access, time, permission or other conditions that make the desired behaviour possible.

We only point out the behavioural roadblocks we have identified to highlight when other factors need to be addressed by the organisation.

These concepts are not meant to describe every factor that shapes learning at work. Learning is also affected by culture, leadership, workload, team norms, incentives, feedback, systems and more.

Since we are focusing on finding an easier way to start, this playbook focuses on more visible and practical entry points: resources, instructions, checklists, support channels, repeated questions, workarounds and points of need where people are actively looking for help.

Not because they are the whole answer, but because they are low-hanging fruit.

They give L&D a way to start close to the work, show value and gradually open up bigger conversations about how learning is supported in the organisation.

Finding the touchpoints and roadblocks you can start with

Don't start a big detective endeavour and try to find every learning roadblock in your organisation. Start looking where you already are, where people are telling you about things that are working really well or things that are creating friction. Look for the clues and try to figure out what is going on.

Step 1: identify your transferable skills

Goal: Find your transferable skills.

L&D already has many of the skills needed to support learning in the flow of work.

The first step is to identify them.

These are the skills you usually apply when designing courses, workshops, learning programmes or digital learning. But they can also be transferred to everyday work, where people need to understand, decide or act.

In the workshop, the participants identified these transferable skills:

• needs analysis
• coaching
• mentoring
• facilitation
• learning design
• instructional design
• stakeholder management
• project management
• strategic thinking
• change management
• communication
• active listening
• feedback
• storytelling
• information synthesis
• impact measurement
• behavioural knowledge
• AI literacy
• creating a knowledge-transfer culture

This is important.

L&D does not need to become something entirely different to support learning in everyday work. Many of the skills already exist. They simply need to be applied in other places.

For example:

• Needs analysis can help uncover the real need behind a roadblock.
• Learning design can help structure guidance, instructions and job aids.
• Facilitation can help process owners, managers and employees make sense of messy handovers or unclear responsibilities.
• Coaching skills can help L&D ask better questions before proposing solutions.
• Instructional design can help improve manuals, checklists and process support.
• Evaluation can help observe whether a change reduces friction.
• Understanding learning and behaviour can help distinguish between training needs, support needs and environmental barriers.

This is not about abandoning courses. Courses still have a place. But the course is not the only place where L&D expertise creates value.

Start by asking: how could these skills be used outside formal learning to help identify needs and solutions in the flow of work?

Make a list. This will help you find practical ways of getting started without having to first learn new skills.

Step 2: decide where to spend your energy

Goal: Choose touchpoints and roadblocks where your effort can create visible value.

Not every touchpoint needs to be improved. Not every roadblock is yours to address.

Most L&D teams still have their usual work to do. This cannot become an invitation to take responsibility for every unclear process, strategy rollout, outdated document or difficult system in the organisation.

That is why prioritisation matters.

During the workshop, participants suggested criteria for deciding when a touchpoint or roadblock is worth acting on. Their answers clustered around themes such as:

• impact on work and business outcomes
• frequency and demand
• user experience and friction
• quality, safety and risk
• strategic importance
• feasibility and effort
• learning and capability development
• number of people or teams affected

This is where L&D becomes more strategic.

Instead of asking only, 'Is there a learning need here?', we can ask:

Would better support here help people act with more clarity, confidence, quality or consistency?

Before you spend time and energy, ask:

• How many people are affected?
• How often does this happen?
• What does it cost in time, quality, risk, frustration or rework?
• Does it affect customers, employees, safety, compliance or strategic goals?
• Is there a realistic first step?
• Do we have L&D skills that could help?
• Is there an owner who might be open to the conversation?
• Do we have a good enough relationship with that owner?
• Could this become a small proof of concept?

A roadblock can be important and still not be the best place to start.

If solving it would require a large organisational redesign, major system changes or authority you do not have, it may not be your first move.

Start where the issue is meaningful, visible and manageable.

Case study: how Visma Business Solutions turned a strategy into something people owned
by Howspace

Visma Business Solutions brought more than 500 people into a five-week strategy process. 75% of them took part.

The number that matters is what happened next. Teams began putting the strategy into practice before it was even finalised, because people understood the reasoning behind it and felt they owned it.

That is the difference between being told about a change and understanding it together. Participation is a number. Ownership is the outcome.

See how Howspace supports learning and change at scale

Step 3: where are your friends and allies?

Goal: Look for openings that can help you get started by using existing relationships in the organisation.

This work is easier when there is already trust, relevance or invitation. You are not trying to map every learning touchpoint and roadblock in the organisation. You are looking for one realistic place to start.

That place might be:

• a process owner you have a good relationship with
• a subject matter expert who values your input
• a training request someone has already brought to you
• an existing course or resource that needs updating

We are looking for ways to turn your existing conversations into doorways, to give L&D a legitimate reason to look at the wider conditions around learning, support and performance.

Be mindful of how you approach the subject. There is a big difference between saying:

'Nobody uses your manual because it is impossible to find.'

and saying:

'I understood that people are not using these resources in the way you hoped, and that this may be creating extra strain in the work. I have noticed a few things that might help support people at the point where they need guidance. Would you be open to looking at that together?'

The second version opens the same conversation, but in a way that respects your different roles. Think of it as an exercise in corporate diplomacy.

L&D should not take over ownership. But we can offer a learning lens.

A useful conversation structure is:

• Start with the shared goal: What outcome, quality, experience or risk does the owner care about?
• Describe what you have noticed in factual terms: Avoid broad judgements. Use observable examples.
• Ask questions before proposing solutions: Show that you want to understand their context.
• Offer a small next step: Suggest a review, walkthrough, short conversation or small test.
• Respect ownership explicitly: Make it clear that they still own the process, system or resource.

Step 4: expand slowly and sustainably

Goal: Create a sustainable way to keep sneaking forward.

Once you have found one place to start, keep the work small enough to continue without needing new mandates or resources. Choose based on what has the biggest potential for transformation in relation to what you can sustainably do. The intersection between them is the golden spot.

Use this chance not only to solve problems but to create a greater understanding of learning and the role the organisation plays in it. Make them care about it from their point of view.

You are building a small portfolio of proof: proof that L&D can help the organisation see learning that was previously invisible, reduce friction at the point of need and shape what people learn from the support they actually use.

This is still only a first step on a bigger journey.

But it is a practical way to sneak out of the current box and begin showing that when learning affects work, L&D has something valuable to offer.

Get started

We asked the participants to plan for a first step by answering these questions:

• Where will you start? Choose a strategy rollout, change initiative, process, support issue, resource, team or recurring friction point.
• Who will you approach? Identify the owner.
• Why would that person care? Connect your observation to something that matters to them.
• What is your first move? Keep it small and concrete.
• When will you do it? Make it real.

Pro tips

• Use existing conversations as a doorway: When discussing an issue, it is a small step to ask about where the points of need are and what support is there today.

• Look for friction, not perfection: Repeated questions, workarounds and unused resources are useful clues. They tell you where learning may be unsupported.

• Speak to the owner's concern: Do not lead with learning theory. Lead with the problem they care about: quality, time, risk, frustration, handovers, customer experience or inconsistent work.

• Show one small example: A small rewrite, prototype or observation can make the learning lens visible without taking over the whole resource.

Pitfalls to avoid

1. Making learning in the flow of work sound like it is only about resources.
• This playbook focuses on resources because they are a practical way in. But learning in the flow of work is also shaped by leadership, culture, psychological safety, feedback, workload, systems, incentives, opportunities to practise and more. Resources can be the entry point, not the whole picture.
2. Becoming the team that fixes everyone's resources.
• It can be tempting to rewrite, redesign and polish everything. But the value of L&D is not that we can make everyone's documents prettier. The value is that we can help the organisation understand what people need at the point of work, where support creates friction and how it could better meet the need.
3. Diagnosing too quickly.
• Treat what you see as clues and then keep searching for the original need.
4. Taking over knowledge management by accident.
• Just because you pointed out that there are duplicated resources, outdated documents, unclear ownership or multiple versions of the same instruction does not make it your responsibility to continue looking for them. Show them why it matters and leave the responsibility where it belongs.
5. Trying to do too much too soon.
• Avoid a crash-and-burn situation by keeping it small, manageable and expanding slowly.

Implementation checklist

Use this checklist to begin:

• Identify your transferable L&D skills.
• Choose one relationship, request or problem where the door is already open.
• Ask where people need to understand, decide or act.
• Look at what support already exists.
• Ask whether people use it or what they use instead.
• Identify possible learning touchpoints for reference and inspiration.
• Identify possible learning roadblocks worth addressing.
• Notice behaviour roadblocks, but do not assume they are yours to solve.
• Speak to the owner's problem, not only from L&D's perspective.
• Offer advice, a small example or a next conversation without taking over.
• Capture what changes.
• Use small proof points to expand slowly and sustainably.

Final thought

Learning in the flow of work is not new.

What we need now is not another reminder that it exists.

We need practical ways to begin.

This playbook offers one starting point: find the needs in the flow of work and show the difference between them being supported and them not being supported. Help the organisation see that we can help it learn the right things. Do this in small steps, opening more and more eyes to how a learning lens can help us improve daily learning.

You already have enough skills to get started. You just need to shift what you are looking at and stop seeing courses as a default solution.

Linnéa Sjögren is a learning strategist, producer and facilitator at LinnéaLearning. She is also the leader of Utbildningsnätverket Stockholm and Utbildningsnätverket distans, two professional networks for L&D practitioners in Sweden. She works with organisations to connect learning strategy to business goals, and to make everyday learning visible, intentional and effective.

Linnéa is known for her practical, no-nonsense approach to L&D challenges and for asking the questions that most organisations haven't thought to ask yet.