Enabling
product
innovation
At a glance
Kahua, a project management platform provider, streamlines collaboration on major construction projects. We helped Kahua create an on-demand product training program to enable the implementation, configuration, and adoption of its platform. Now, Kahua offers on-demand training to its customers, partners, and employees to efficiently scale its business.
What we did
System implementation
Instructional design
Video production
Train-the-trainer
Change management
Framework development
Enabling a complex network
The construction industry has a reputation for lagging in technology adoption. According to construction leaders, the most common barrier is the lack of digital skills in their workforces.
Construction often involves dozens of interdependent groups undertaking multi-year projects to create one-of-a-kind results. Many technologies that work well in other industries fail in construction due to the complexity of the stakeholder environment.
Kahua, a project management information system (PMIS) provider, created a platform to streamline collaboration on major construction projects. Yet, its leaders understand that there can’t be a one-size-fits-all solution. Their customers require unique datasets, workflows, and reporting that are specific to their ways of working.
Kahua is engaged with a vast network of construction industry partners that help deliver implementation, configuration, and training to its customers.
Kahua wanted to create a training program to enable its partners to effectively configure its platform for customers. To ensure alignment, Kahua wanted to leverage the same program to directly train its customers and also to train its own employees.
We needed a modern learning system to support our rapid growth. It needed to deliver highly effective training with minimal human intervention and allow us to quickly make updates as we roll out new features."
“
Joe Guzman
VP of Partner Development at Kahua
Prior to working with Elevos, Kahua had designed a curriculum, created materials, and delivered a pilot program. However, Kahua was utilizing an instructor-led delivery model that demanded a substantial workload from its employees. It was unable to keep up with the demand for training from customers and partners, leading to a swelling backlog that was limiting its ability to serve new users.
Kahua recruited Elevos to assist in streamlining training. The team’s shared objective was to reduce the effort and timeline to deliver training in order to efficiently enable Kahua’s customers and partners.
Keeping pace with innovation
The project team was aware that Kahua’s rate of innovation in continuously improving its product suite would pose challenges for training. Every time Kahua refined its products, it wanted to rapidly reflect the changes in the related training. So, the team designed its digital strategy around the assumption of change.
Kahua adopted TalentLMS, a cloud-based learning management system (LMS) known for its accessible user experience. TalentLMS enabled Kahua to make real-time changes to training with minimal effort. Additionally, TalentLMS allowed Kahua to offer on-demand training in lieu of instructor-led training, which substantially increased Kahua’s efficiency. Learners could watch videos and complete exercises at their own pace, receiving feedback from Kahua instructors on their submissions throughout the process.
Kahua was concerned with how it would maintain its library of videos, which demonstrate how to configure its platform. It had over 120 videos, averaging five minutes in duration, which contained introductory slides, screen recordings, summary slides, and voiceovers. Creating slides and recording screen demonstrations was easy. However, recording voiceovers and syncing them to videos was more difficult. Kahua did not have the in-house production studio, voice actors, or video editors necessary to reliably produce high-quality training videos.
Elevos advised Kahua to adopt Synthesia, an AI-powered video generation tool that converts written scripts into production-quality videos with on-screen acting in seconds. Synthesia would allow Kahua to routinely create high-quality videos with minimal time and cost. Additionally, Kahua would be able to adopt Synthesia for creating customized marketing and sales videos, creating a seamless experience for customers.
Adopting modern technologies
Elevos consultants took charge of helping Kahua adopt Synthesia. They established production processes for utilizing the system, incorporating quality assurance measures that prevented errors and secured buy-in from key stakeholders before publishing videos.
Elevos imported Kahua’s 120 existing product training videos, which had inconsistent voiceover quality, into Synthesia. Elevos re-produced the voiceovers using Synthesia’s AI-driven format. Throughout the process, Elevos took the opportunity to improve the scripts by updating outdated information and standardizing terminologies. After receiving final approval for videos, Elevos incorporated them into the Kahua training program in TalentLMS. Upon completion, Kahua had a mature training program full of consistent, high-quality videos.
After finishing the videos, Elevos compiled its production processes into a manual. The manual set guidelines for using consistent style, developing storyboards and scripts, selecting AI actors and voices, and ensuring correct pronunciations of key terms. The manual also contained detailed procedures for creating training videos using Synthesia.
Finally, Elevos hosted a train-the-trainer workshop with Kahua’s employees to prepare them to take over the new technologies. During the session, Elevos consultants demonstrated the full lifecycle of training development, including identifying objectives, writing storyboards, refining scripts, recording videos, adding voiceovers and actors in Synthesia, and uploading files to TalentLMS.
Scaling an efficient system
Kahua’s revitalized training program set the stage for the explosive growth of its partner program. Its prior version had required heavy input from Kahua employees. The new program reduced the total workload by 80%, including the work for participants to complete it and the work for Kahua’s in-demand experts to deliver it. Participants are now able to complete the program on demand and at their own pace, rather than being bound to a set timeline.
Beyond certifying new implementation partners through the program, Kahua is now able to leverage the same program to train its own employees. All its new professional services and customer success employees complete the program as part of their onboarding process, aligning their understanding of the tool with that of the external partners and customers.
As Kahua innovates and releases new product offerings, it plans to use the training approach that Elevos helped establish to create additional training programs. Using this new approach, the company expects to develop additional training programs with much lower budgets and faster timelines.
Kahua's optimized enablement process is now ready to support growth at scale. Our partners and customers are getting higher quality training with far less burden on our resources."
“
Joe Guzman
VP of Partner Development at Kahua