Insight Experience is delighted to announce the acceptance of three prestigious 2021 Brandon Hall Awards. The Brandon Hall Group is a "preeminent research and analyst firm, with more than 10,000 clients globally and more than 20 years of delivering research-based solutions that empower excellence in organizations.1" Our 2021 awards are as follows:
Best Learning Program Supporting a Change Transformation Business Strategy — Silver 
Best Unique or Innovative Leadership Program — Gold
Best Results of a Learning Program — Gold 
Because teamwork and collaboration are such a vital, and valued, part of our work, we naturally turned to members of our design and development teams to ask them to share their thoughts on this awards recognition.
What do these accolades mean to you as a designer and facilitator?
I am delighted that this project won the coveted Brandon Hall Award. By the time we finish rolling out our program, it will have reached over 750 people — and significantly improved their financial acumen. In tandem with the client, we designed and developed a custom simulation with targeted teaching materials, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. We are so proud to receive this award.
It is fabulous to see our client recognized for the care and support they provide to their employees. Our team was given a fairly free hand in the design process, so I am also thrilled that my colleagues have the opportunity to see how excellent their work is.
We started work on this project just before COVID, and the timing of a virtual program proved auspicious! We needed to think outside the box in order to deliver this program online, so we experimented with all sorts of new things – an online learning platform; alternate ways to run simulations and conduct roleplays; and asynchronous delivery. We are delighted that this program won the award for Best Unique or Innovative Leadership Program. What an honor! Thanks to our client for being so open to creative thinking.
I was thrilled that our program won the Gold Award. We worked really hard to design and develop something that captured the energy and camaraderie of the in-person offering, while addressing the client’s needs for participants’ time investment and flexibility. It was very validating to see our innovations recognized with this award. I think the mix of different types of synchronous and asynchronous delivery methods is what makes this program outstanding.
What does this recognition mean to you as a member of the development team?
Our business model is such that we do our best work creating custom solutions for our clients. This requires that we simultaneously leverage what is already in our proverbial pantry and create new features and functionalities. As our pantry has grown over the years, we have more on the shelves, which improves our ability to leverage new products. It’s exciting for those of us on the development team to see that vision and model come to fruition for each and every client, and it’s terrific to be recognized by Brandon Hall for the work we’ve done. It makes our work that much more fulfilling, knowing that what we do can — and does — make a difference for our clients and participants.
We on the tech team work hard to make our simulation models transparent to our facilitators so that they can feel confident in discussing business simulation results with participants — either one-on-one or during class debriefs. This greatly enhances the experiences of the participants in our simulations and, with all three of these award-wining programs, it’s wonderful to see the positive results of such efforts. It’s especially rewarding now, since our business, like so many others, has seen radical change due to COVID and we found ourselves adapting to a new virtual environment — yet continued to deliver high-quality programs. Many of these adaptations will continue to benefit us, as we transition back to the classroom and as we adjust to programs that may need to be taught in a hybrid way.
When I get caught up in more self-contained projects, it is easy to forget that my job on the tech team exists as part of a bigger picture. But seeing these products receive such recognition reminds me of that larger perspective. Adapting our work to virtual delivery was tricky, but it was so cool to see it come to fruition.
The pandemic forced our team to think creatively about program design and delivery. We are incredibly proud of the partnership between our teams — both design and technical — and our clients. This allows us to deliver top-notch learning experiences to our participants.
We are proud to have been recognized for work that could not be accomplished without a caring, tight-knit team; a strong connection to purpose; and a drive to truly stimulate insight for our clients and all the participants who put their trust in us.
To learn how Insight Experience can help develop your leaders, click below.
1 https://www.brandonhall.com/aboutus-overview.php
Julie Danielson is an affiliate with Insight Experience, a Boston-based firm delivering contextually rich business simulations and learning experiences to accelerate and integrate leadership, business acumen, and strategy execution.
