The Challenge

Dovenest deliver high quality leadership and management programmes for large companies around the UK. A traditional company, they have always prided themselves on excellent delivery. With the Government’s apprenticeship levy changes, a lot of their clients were keen to adopt programmes within this scheme. Dovenest created level 3 and 5 programmes with ILM qualifications to meet this need. Under the revised apprenticeship framework, providers were asked to register with the ESFA and then subject to OFSTED inspections and delivery reviews. It was for this reason, Dovenest decided they needed to be able evidence their delivery.

Our Approach

Having looked at existing solutions on the market, Dovenest found they were either overly complex for their needs or did not tick all the boxes they needed. We worked with their delivery teams to understand how programmes are currently delivered. The aim from the outset was to make the whole apprenticeship journey as engaging and “joined up” for all parties involved (learner, trainer and employer). We produced a tool which allowed learners to login and interact with their programme – from reviewing upcoming content, submitting portfolio entries, engaging with trainers and fellow learners and monitoring progress.

Defined by Need, Executed Simply

We took time to profile and understand each of the target users of the tool: learners, trainers, programme managers, assessors, employers. It was clear that the success of the tool was going to be driven by engagement from learners. Progression can only be monitored and evidenced if this engagement is achieved. Creating a simple, responsive, usable, branded experience for each learner was a vital part of the work we did. As a new apprentice, the user is likely to be faced with a wealth of new systems to adopt, so ensuring our tool was simple and pleasurable to use was a key aim. From there, we focused on making the process of building programmes, monitoring learner progress and reporting on cohort achievement as usable and beneficial as possible.

The Outcome

With a focus on gathering feedback and evidence around a wider set of objectives and skills through the apprenticeship, we believe the tool we built offers trainers and employers a better view of progression. And by creating a clever, engaging user experience for apprentices, we’ve provided a software platform that benefits all involved with an apprenticeship.

With the success of the tool within Dovenest we are actively looking for other training or employer providers to adopt it. You can read more about it here: https://latentpath.com/