Skills Development Activities – B12 Help Center

Knowledge reinforcement is a key element in supporting learning and the application of skills. Quizzes and practical exercises reactivate memory and help make acquired knowledge sustainable. However, to go beyond knowledge and encourage the sustainable adoption of new behaviors, a different approach is needed.

Adopting a behavior or creating a habit doesn't happen effortlessly. It requires specific triggers to remind you of the action to be taken, structured repetition to anchor the new habit, and rigorous follow-up to measure progress and adjust as necessary. Inspired by the principles of James Clear's book Atomic Habits and the work of Will Thalheimer, among others, this approach focuses on simple, concrete and precise actions, defined in direct relation to specific situations. In doing so, B12 gradually transforms targeted behaviors into lasting, effective habits..

How it works - Learner Experience

1. Initial Self-Reflection

Learners answer a questionnaire to assess their current skills.
Skills are broken down into measurable behaviours.
For each behaviour, they must indicate how regularly and consistently they put it into practice.
At the end of the self-reflection, a skills summary is presented. Each gauge represents the average scores of the behaviours targeted by that skill.

2. Defining a Behavioural Challenge

Each learner chooses a behaviour to work on, based on their self-reflection results.
They define a triggered situation and a concrete action to accomplish.

3. Monitoring and Reinforcement

Regular Check-ins: Regular reminders to assess progress and identify obstacles (frequency to be defined according to your context).
Contextual Feedback: Suggestions or resources (videos, additional training) to support the learner.

4. Final Reflection and Continuous Loop

At the end of the challenge, the learner evaluates their improvement and documents their experience.
The loop can be repeated with a new challenge for continuous development.

Key Benefits

Sustainable Reinforcement of Behaviours: Repetition and monitoring encourage the adoption of new habits.
Personalization: Each learner can choose behaviours and actions that correspond to their specific professional context.
Data-Based Monitoring:
- Dashboards to visualize progress.
- Data available for managers and trainers.
- Individual learning portfolio for discussions about progression in their role.

Steps to Integrate this Feature into a B12 Program

Create a Skills Library

1. Identify the key skills (e.g., "Giving and Receiving Feedback").
2. Define the behaviours associated with each skill.
3. To help learners choose their challenge, associate each behaviour with ideas for concrete actions and situations to practice. These elements are optional.
4. You can add personalized recommendations for each behaviour targeted as a challenge. This element is optional.

🚩 The skills library is defined and managed from the Educational Library, so it is common and shareable from one program to another, and from one designer to another. You can create skills as needed in projects, or build a more complete repository that can then be integrated into programs according to targeted skills. For more information see The Educational Library in B12 Studio

Steps to Design a Skill in B12's Studio:

1. In the Studio, click on Educational Library.

2. Then click Create, and select Skill.

3. Fill in the form fields:

Skill Title. Add and click Confirm.
Tag - optional. See here for more details on tags: Tags
Description - mandatory. Add a definition of the skill here.
Behaviours: Add at least one related behaviour. 💡Write the behaviour in the "I" form to make self-assessment clearer, observable, and measurable.
- Note: the behaviour evaluation criteria are defined in the program. They can therefore be adjusted from one program to another. (See below for details).
To facilitate the challenge choice, you can propose actions. The learner can then choose one of these actions as a challenge or create their own.
The learner will have to specify in which situation(s) they intend to take on this challenge. You can suggest situations in the 2nd tab linked to the behaviour. The learner can choose one of these situations or create their own.
Finally, for each behaviour targeted by a challenge, you can give recommendations to the learner via the 3rd tab. This page will be visible depending on the learner’s choice of challenge/behaviour (branching). It is a "text and media" type page where you can insert a wide variety of content: text, hyperlink (e.g., to LinkedIn Learning, Workday,...), video, downloadable support document, etc.
Don’t forget to save by clicking the blue button at the bottom of the page.

Add Skills Development Activities to a Program

To deploy these activities, you must include them in a program. The program can be existing and even already deployed.

In the Studio, understand that adding skills development activities will add a series of sequences and activities that are determined by default. That is why you do not simply add one activity at a time, to preserve the integrity of the data of the series of activities described above.

To add these activities to your program:

1. Click on the Skills tab in the top bar of the Studio.

2. Click on Add an indicator. A side panel will open.

3. Select the skills to include in your program. You must have already created your skills in the Pedagogical Library before you can add these activities to a program.

4. Configure the following elements:

The learner can make a selection. If this option is enabled, it means that in the list of skills, the learner will be able to choose which one(s) they will complete their self-assessment on. If enabled, you can specify a minimum and maximum number that the learner can select. Example: among 10 skills, they must choose at least 3 and at most 5 to self-assess.
Program duration: note, this is only the duration of the skills development activities. Depending on the duration of the challenge, this number indicates how many times the activity loop will be repeated (self-assessment, challenge, follow-ups, and challenge evaluation).
- Example: the program will last 12 weeks, and each challenge 6 weeks, so the cycle will be repeated 2 times in the program.
Challenge duration: the challenge starts with self-assessment and challenge choice, and ends with a final reflection on progress in the challenge. Meanwhile, follow-ups (check-ins) are sent.
The check-in is presented X times per period X: check-ins are short questionnaires to measure progress in achieving the challenges.
Advanced configuration: you can customize the evaluation scale (criteria) of key behaviours.

5. By clicking Create, the sequences will be automatically added to your program, containing the default activities.

6. Note: The sequences will automatically be placed in the calendar starting on Day 1, following the cadence defined in your configuration (e.g., challenge frequency, check-in frequency).

If your program does not begin with these activities, you will need to move the sequences in the calendar to the correct start date.

You can adjust the spacing between activities at any time, but you cannot change their order. If you want to reduce the number of check-ins, you will need to update the configuration settings.

🚩 If you adjust the configuration settings, the sequences and activities must be regenerated. If you had made adjustments (see below), these will be lost. The data from learners that may have already completed these activities will also be lost.

7. Once the sequences and activities are created, here are the adjustments and additions you can make:

Add an introduction and/or a conclusion in the sequences (by default there are none). Also see Create and Configure a Sequence
In the "Self-Reflection and Challenge" sequence, an introduction activity with a generic video is added by default. You can remove or modify this activity as you wish.
You can add other activities in the sequence, there is no limitation on the types of activities added. They can be added before or after the default activity. For example, in the check-in/follow-up, you can add activities to offer advice for challenges, knowledge reinforcement questions, additional surveys, motivational videos, etc.

💡"Advanced" tip
By clicking on a "Self-Reflection and Challenge" activity in a sequence, you can select which skills will be included in the reflection. This allows restricting self-reflections from one time to another. For example, you can target only a few skills at a time in the activities, while combining all the data in the same program.