Narrator: A hospital manager named Harold walks into a training designer’s office with a 97-slide PowerPoint deck. The topic is sharps safety—how to handle needles and other sharp objects to prevent injuries. His request seems simple and reasonable: "Can you turn this into an online course for our 8,200 employees?" This is a scene that plays out in thousands of organizations every day. A problem is identified, and the assumed solution is a course, an information dump designed to "transfer knowledge." But what if this entire approach is fundamentally flawed? What if the resulting course, no matter how polished, is destined to fail, wasting thousands of hours and dollars without actually changing a single behavior?

This is the central conflict at the heart of Cathy Moore's book, Map It: The Hands-On Guide to Strategic Training Design. Moore argues that the traditional "school model" of training—tell them, then test them—is tragically ineffective in the corporate world. The book provides a powerful alternative, a visual process called Action Mapping, designed to shift the focus from what people need to know to what they need to do to solve real, measurable business problems.

Narrator: The book's core philosophy is illustrated through the tale of two designers, Tina Teachalot and Anna Action von Mapp. Both are approached by Harold with the same sharps safety project. Tina, the traditionalist, immediately agrees to create the online course. She spends her time scripting 130 slides, adding narration, and building knowledge-check questions. The final product is a lengthy, information-heavy course that everyone is required to take. The result? People pass the test, but on the job, nothing changes. The error rates remain the same because the training never addressed the real reason for the problem.

Anna, the action mapper, takes a completely different path. Instead of accepting the request for a course, she asks Harold a critical question: "What's the performance problem we're trying to solve?" Through discussion, she uncovers that sharps-related errors haven't decreased despite previous training. The real issue isn't a lack of knowledge; it's an environmental problem. The sharps disposal containers are often not in the right place, forcing clinicians to make risky choices. Anna’s solution isn't a 130-slide course. It's a combination of practical changes, like attaching sharps containers to the wall next to every bed, and a series of short, targeted practice activities that simulate real-life challenges. Anna's approach solves the problem, the hospital's error rate drops, and she becomes a valued performance consultant, not just a replaceable course producer.

Narrator: Action mapping begins not with a pile of content, but with a single, measurable business goal. Moore stresses that without this, any training effort is rudderless. She tells the story of a training manager, Bob, trying to get budget approval from a skeptical executive, Scrooge. Bob initially asks for $40,000 for training to ensure salespeople "know all the product features." Scrooge is unimpressed, asking how feature knowledge translates to business results.

Forced to rethink his approach, Bob shifts his focus. He realizes the real goal isn't knowledge; it's performance. The new, action-mapped goal becomes: "Increase sales of our mega and monster widgets by 5% by the fourth quarter." This goal is measurable, tied to a business outcome, and justifies the investment. The conversation then naturally shifts to what salespeople need to do to achieve that goal—not just list features, but ask the right questions to match a customer's needs to the right product. By starting with a business goal, Bob transforms the project from a vague "knowledge transfer" exercise into a strategic initiative that gets funded and delivers real value.

Narrator: Once a goal is set and the necessary actions are identified, the most critical step is to ask, "Why aren't people doing this already?" The answer is rarely a simple lack of knowledge. Moore uses the detailed case of Grace, a client whose staff had a 20% error rate on government forms called TPS records. Grace initially wanted a comprehensive online course.

However, an action mapping analysis revealed the true, complex reasons for the errors. For one action, entering a specific code, the problem was environmental: the lookup sheet was buried on a slow server, so staff used outdated, printed copies. The solution wasn't training; it was a simple software update to create a popup with the codes. For another action, entering Hispanic names correctly, the issue was a knowledge and skill gap, but a very specific one. A short, 10-minute practice activity was all that was needed. For a third action, flagging complex records, the problem was that the criteria were too complex to memorize. The solution was a decision-table job aid, not training. In the end, a project that could have been a 1,500-hour-long, ineffective online course was solved with a software fix, a job aid, and just ten minutes of targeted practice.

Narrator: Traditional training often presents information and then tests for recall. Action mapping flips this model by designing practice activities that simulate the real world. These activities require learners to make a decision in a realistic context and then see the consequences of that choice. The goal is to build practical skills, not just abstract knowledge.

A powerful example contrasts two ways to teach midwives in West Africa about kangaroo care for premature babies. A traditional approach might ask a simple knowledge-check question: "At what weight should kangaroo care be used?" An action mapper, however, asks why midwives aren't using it. The answer is that introducing this new method often happens in an emotional, high-stakes situation, with family members present who support traditional care methods. The real challenge isn't remembering a number; it's navigating a difficult conversation. A strong practice activity, therefore, wouldn't be a quiz question. It would be a scenario where the midwife has to choose the best way to introduce kangaroo care to a hesitant new mother and her skeptical aunt, practicing the very skill they need on the job.

Narrator: The final phase of the process is not to disappear for months to build a polished, high-production-value course. Instead, action mapping advocates for creating a simple, low-fidelity prototype of a single, representative activity. This prototype, which might be just a sketch or a simple text-based document, is then tested with the client, subject matter experts, and, most importantly, the learners themselves.

The purpose of this prototype is to test the cognitive challenge, not the visual "bling." Does the activity realistically simulate the on-the-job problem? Are the choices plausible and challenging? Does the feedback help the learner understand the consequences of their decision? By getting feedback early and often on a simple mockup, designers can refine the core learning experience before investing significant time and money in development. This iterative process ensures the final solution is effective and avoids the all-too-common fate of a beautifully designed training program that completely misses the mark.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Map It is that the role of a learning professional is not to be a course producer, but a performance consultant. Their primary function is to solve business problems, and a formal "course" is just one tool in a vast toolbox—and often, it's the wrong one. The goal is to move from being an order-taker who passively accepts requests for training to a strategic partner who actively diagnoses performance issues.

The book's most challenging idea is that to be truly effective, learning professionals must have the courage to push back, to question assumptions, and to guide clients away from their preconceived solutions. It requires a fundamental shift in mindset, from "How can I build this?" to "What problem are we really trying to solve?" The next time you're asked to create training, ask yourself: are you building a course, or are you changing what people do? The answer to that question will determine whether you're just adding to the noise or making a real, measurable difference.