Engineering L&D w/Ashley Chang
Episode Overview
Welcome back to another episode of Making Better! I'm your host, Matt Gjertsen, and today we have a special guest joining us. Please welcome Ashley Chang, an engineering professional with a passion for learning and development. Ashley started their career in aerospace engineering, but little did they know that their engineering skills would lead them on a unique and fulfilling journey in the world of learning. In this episode, Ashley shares their experiences and insights on how engineering and learning intersect, the challenges of working with stakeholders, and the transformative power of framing learning for lasting impact. So grab your headphones and join us for this fascinating conversation on engineering L&D with Ashley Chang on Making Better.
About Ashley Chang
Ashley Chang is a Learning Operations Manager at Pinterest. I knew Ashley when she was the Learning & Technology Manager at Virgin Orbit, a role she took on after being a Stress Engineer at Boeing. Not sure what a Stress Engineer is? Truthfully, I am not sure either, which is exactly why I wanted to have this discussion. Today, she is going to share some of the engineering lessons she was able to apply to the L&D world and hopefully help make it a little easier for you to work with your technical subject matter experts
Full Transcript
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Ashley Chang [00:00:00]:
I come from stress engineering, so all of my examples have to do with that. But it's like, why are we seeing high stresses in this area? Well, you have to understand where is it coming from? If we make a change in one area, does it affect something else? Learning for me was very similar to this, which was like people were approaching our department with problems that they wanted training to help them solve. And then from my background and from what I learned as a good learning professional, you scope it, you see if that problem they're trying to solve could be solved effectively with learning.
Matt Gjertsen [00:00:38]:
Welcome to Making Better, a podcast from Better Everyday studios devoted to helping small learning teams have a big impact. Today I'm talking to Ashley Chang, learning operations manager at Pinterest. I knew Ashley when she was the learning and technology manager at Virgin Orbit, a role she took on after being a stress engineer at Boeing. Not sure what a stress engineer is. Truthfully, I'm not sure I am either, which is exactly why I wanted to have this discussion today. She is going to share some of the engineering lessons she was able to apply to the L D world and hopefully make it a little bit easier for you to work with your technical subject matter experts. Let's dive in. Ashley. Welcome to the making. Better podcast. How are you doing today?
Ashley Chang [00:01:19]:
Good, and yourself?
Matt Gjertsen [00:01:21]:
I'm doing awesome. Thank you so much for being willing to come on. You know, we have known each other for a little while now. I think we first got introduced maybe probably a little over a year ago and then started working together maybe six months ago. We worked on a couple of projects together. So I'm really excited that you chose to jump in. I think we're going to have a really good conversation today.
Ashley Chang [00:01:43]:
Yeah, I feel so fortunate that I've got to meet you a year ago with both of our backgrounds. Being from aerospace and learning, it's really a unique and fun space to be in. So I'm excited we get to chat.
Matt Gjertsen [00:01:56]:
Yeah, absolutely. And the specific reason I wanted to chat was because, like, a lot of people who I think listen is that learning isn't where they started. Right. We always talk about how people, they just kind of fall into these roles and come from different backgrounds. And you specifically, you came from a very technical background, which I think is maybe a little bit unique. So I'd love to start with just a little bit of your background and the story of kind of how you wound up in learning.
Ashley Chang [00:02:25]:
Yeah, so you're right. I started my career in aerospace engineering, and that's where I got my degree in. I very much thought I was going to be on the aerospace path for the rest of my career as an engineer. So early on in one of my first jobs, I was really fortunate to be part of a team that supported employee development in the technical training space, but also in things like orientation mentorship. And I found myself really enjoying building a lot of those programs from the ground up to help engineers specifically find joy out of their professional development, but also to get the tools that they really needed. So I was in that team to start off with, and then I really delved deep into the technical aspect of my career as an engineer. But I found myself continuously going back into that development space. At the time, I didn't realize that it was learning. That what I was doing. I was just like, I just really enjoy doing this on the side. What is it exactly that I'm doing?
Matt Gjertsen [00:03:29]:
Yeah. None of us do realize it. It's so funny. Yeah, I think you're 100% right.
Ashley Chang [00:03:34]:
Yeah. And so I was really kind of starting to look elsewhere to see, like, how do I scratch this? Itch virgin orbit. That's where we were introduced from. Moved into the Long Beach space, and I saw that they were hiring for a role where they wanted a professional training person or learning and development person to help lead up technical training. I read that job description, and I was like, I can do this. I don't have a formal background in learning, but I can do this. And that's where I actually got my first dip into the actual L D space. Then from, uh I think you know Jesse Harris. So he was my leader at the time, and he really trained me up in the foundational aspects of learning, what the theories behind it was. And I used that to really kick my start off in the L D space.
Matt Gjertsen [00:04:28]:
Yeah. Awesome. I don't think I realized that that was your transition into Virgin. That was the transition both to the new company and into the training role. That's interesting. Before you made that transition, can you think back? You kind of mentioned it, but what were some of those things that drew you to you said you kept coming back to that kind of learning stuff. What were some of the things that drew you to that?
Ashley Chang [00:04:56]:
That's a great question. I think for me, I'm naturally a bit of a problem solver. And I think learning gives you a really good space to be able to do that. And it's kind of about helping people achieve their goal or solve that challenge they're facing. And it can look anything from how do you onboard 200 engineers coming from a totally different state into how things work, where we are in California or whatever space you might be or it could be how do you teach a bunch of stress analysts how to use this new software that we're inputting into our system? Always, I love talking to people. I love connecting people to resources. I love thinking about how do we get the outcome we're looking for, and learning seemed like a really great medium to get us there. And so I was previously at Boeing, and so a lot of the work that I was doing there was doing that back end stuff that people don't really think about. It's a little bit knowledge management, it's a little bit learning. It's a lot of connecting people to the right resources. And that's how I really found myself excelling in that area, but also being more drawn back into that. So it was joining a lot of extra projects. That wasn't just the engineering projects I was on, and that got my brain ticking on making this a full time career.
Matt Gjertsen [00:06:28]:
Awesome. Yeah, I think that shows kind of that you must have been in some pretty good environments. Props to Jesse for making a good environment since we both know him. When you got to Virgin too, because I think you hit it on the head of we talk in L and D about a lot of specific niche things. Think about talking about instructional design almost like it's an Elearning developer sometimes or we talk a lot about the tools, but there is so much of that just like really a good learning ecosystem. Is that background stuff of a little bit of knowledge management, a little bit of learning, a little bit of just connecting people? Because that's really what you're doing is just trying to make sure information is flowing to people when they need it.
Ashley Chang [00:07:14]:
Yeah, that's actually really key. Flowing to people when they need it is like a great call out because so many times I've seen people be like, hey, we need this training right now, but they're not going to apply this for another year or another six to eight months. And that becomes its own issue.
Matt Gjertsen [00:07:32]:
Yeah, that's always you love the companies. And I get it. I get it from just a logistical point of view for our safety training, we're just going to bring everybody in a conference room once a year, do it. And I understand the logistics of it, but none of us are fooling ourselves that that's the ideal way to do it. Awesome. So you transitioned into version. You transitioned to this new role. What were some of the biggest, I don't know, early surprises or learnings that you had when you when you moved into learning?
Ashley Chang [00:08:03]:
Yeah, for me, I think it was twofold. I think the first surprise was that I had transferable skills, is one way of putting it. I think it was like a lot of the things I was doing in engineering every day transferred so well into learning and was actually like a basis of learning, which was we call it like design thinking and a root cause analysis. So as an engineer, every day, I was really thinking about you have to understand the problem you're presented with. You kind of scope out what are the parameters, what's really the problem you're trying to solve for, and you tackle it one part at a time and get the right people on it. And then when you start doing the design thinking portion as an engineer, it's just ideating how you can address the problem. Are you making the right assumptions about your parameters? For instance, I come from stress engineering, so all of my examples have to do with that. But it's like, why are we seeing high stresses in this area? Well, you have to understand where is it coming from? If we make a change in one area, does it affect something else? Learning for me was very similar to this, which was like, people were approaching our department with problems that they wanted training to help them solve. And then from my background and from what I learned as a good learning professional, you scope it, you see if that problem they're trying to solve could be solved effectively. With learning, you're kind of asking them, hey, what's sparking this conversation? What's the outcome you're looking for? And then you're throwing things up on a board and trying to ideate and iterate to find the best solution.
Matt Gjertsen [00:09:51]:
Yeah, I love that. It actually just sparked a memory in my brain. I remember at one point, way back when I was at SpaceX, we were doing a lot of kind of big picture, like, thinking of, like, what should because I had taken over this team and we were kind of rebuilding it and thinking, like, what should we be called? What should we be doing? And I remember trying to suggest Learning Engineer as a title on the team because it felt so right, because it's different. But I did my undergrad in physics, and so it's a little bit like, of that technical background. And so it just seems so right because it's exactly what you're saying. It's that big picture, problem solving and really trying to figure it out. But I guess Elon had a thing of like, engineer means you're good at math kind of view of titles. So I couldn't pull that one off. But I totally see what you're saying of seeing those similarities between the engineering role, like you said, root cause analysis, all that kind of stuff, and design thinking, for sure into the learning. When you were making that transition of bringing those kind of tools to bear, any particular changes in how you used them that pop into your mind or was it fairly straightforward?
Ashley Chang [00:11:10]:
For me, it felt fairly straightforward, but I think I always leaned towards problem solving as a strength for me.
Matt Gjertsen [00:11:18]:
Got it.
Ashley Chang [00:11:19]:
So it felt fun to just kind of put things up on a board and figure out what makes sense for this moment. Yeah, for me, it wasn't that hard to make that transition. I want to go back to your point of Learning Engineer. I love that title, and I'm probably going to steal it if not for an official title, at least like for a LinkedIn disclaimer or something like that.
Matt Gjertsen [00:11:42]:
Totally. And I think it's becoming more of a role I might be remembering incorrectly. There's another podcast called Instructional Designers in Offices Drinking Coffee. Have you ever heard of that podcast?
Ashley Chang [00:11:55]:
No, but it makes me want me to listen to it.
Matt Gjertsen [00:11:58]:
Totally. Yeah. It's a very casual conversation. It's really good. And I remember maybe three or four months ago, they had an episode where there's a new book out with a person they were talking about. I think the idea and it's kind of an extension of in our industry, we're just really bad at job titles. Right. Any job title can mean a million different things. And it was kind of an extension of this discussion of, like, should we call ourselves, like, Instructional Designers or Learning Experience Designers? And I think there was, like, this other role, and I think it was Learning Engineer. It was either learning engineer or learning architect. They had a very good definition for it because they had a whole book about it. But yeah, you might want to might want to check that out because they had some pretty rigorous discussion and analysis of what that kind of means as a potential role within the industry. So it was neat.
Ashley Chang [00:12:45]:
That's great. Yeah. I love actually, Architect for me, lands even stronger than engineering because you're trying to create not just, like, the foundational experience, but a great experience. I think back to my early days at Boeing when I first started as an engineer. Now, knowing what I know as a learning professional, I can look back to what separated the great learning experiences from what seemed like, just get this done. We needed to check a box.
Matt Gjertsen [00:13:15]:
Yes.
Ashley Chang [00:13:15]:
And actually, I will go back to that surprise question, which is, for me, I don't know if this considers a surprise, but for me, I think it was framing learning as, like, what is the enduring understanding of the learning that you're presenting to your audience? Was like a transformational concept for me. Yes, because I don't know physics for sure. I don't know if you remember those lectures in college, those days, you're just watching the professor do different derivatives on a board, equation after equation, and they're just telling you, this is what you need to know. Apply it, and these are the facts. And you go through whole chapters of books in one lesson plan, and everything is important. That's so different from, I think, corporate learning and learning for things to do on the job. How do you frame big ideas and then give importance to those facts and then let your people run away knowing the importance of those and knowing that they can always check up those small details themselves later? You just need to know them. Like, have them know, this is the behavior, I need a model, this is the outcome you need to output. And this framework will help you get there.
Matt Gjertsen [00:14:27]:
Yeah. And you really hit the nail on the head there. And especially for anybody that's new in the profession or you're new in an organization. I think that is the root of why our role can be difficult or us dealing with stakeholders or working with an organization can be difficult is because if you boil it back to the lowest common denominator of what is the most likely experience that someone has had with learning it's school. And so they assume if it looks like school, then it must be learning or it must be training or it must be good. And nothing could be farther from the truth. And not to knock school, I mean, I could have a discussion about that. I'm sure we could have a discussion about that. But it's just the context. It's just a different situation that we find ourselves in where we care about things differently in the corporate world than they do in informal education. And so it's a really important, I think, empathy point of understanding where other people are. The non learning people in the organization are probably at understanding where they're at so that you can approach them appropriately, I think.
Ashley Chang [00:15:33]:
Yeah, that's such a great call out and how that affects stakeholder management. Tons of stakeholders will come and be like, everything is important. They need to know all of it. Especially when it comes to things like compliance, when there's that fear of also being hit with like a monetary disciplinary action for your employees not knowing XYZ things, but it's being able to kind of frame like, hey, the important action that you needed them to do was this. And we have all of the documents and procedures for them to refer back to. And that's helped a lot in stakeholder management for myself when working with those folks.
Matt Gjertsen [00:16:14]:
Yeah, kind of on that note, then, to go a little bit farther down, it is how are you approaching those conversations when somebody came to you with the more training is school mindset and you wanted to kind of push them back? I know Jesse, I've heard him joke before of just like, it's funny, I moved into learning and I spend all my time convincing people that they don't need learning, they need something else. But how did you approach those conversations?
Ashley Chang [00:16:47]:
Yeah, I think I like to kind of let the stakeholder know it's like, hey, we want the same thing. We are after the same outcome. I want to help you solve your problem and you might have to come on a journey with me to discover maybe a different solution or to reframe the problem that you're trying to solve for. There's one really great example manufacturing the production floor. We have clean room required and we have so much signage posted all over our clean rooms about how it needs to be very pristine. And we have actually a lot of experienced folks working in those clean rooms who know that they should be clean. And the leadership was seeing a lot of incidents there. They came over, they're like, we need a training. They need to know just how important this is and how critical it is. And I was like, yes, I want the same outcome, which is a clean, clean room. But let's think about this. You have really experienced folks in here. Like, is this the only issue that is training really the barrier that's stopping them from keeping this space pristine?
Matt Gjertsen [00:17:55]:
Is it that they don't know this is supposed to be clean? That they don't know this is important?
Ashley Chang [00:18:00]:
Exactly. Because I was like, because that's the importance of the training that we will create for this. If you're trying to tell them that it's really important is going to have the same effect as all the signage and all of their experience that they come with from, let's say, SpaceX Northrop, Boeing, all these other aerospace companies. We took a lap around that clean room and I noticed there was no shelving, no trash cans, nothing to help people keep that space organized. And we ended up doing a bit of both worlds, which was a reminder of the importance of what could happen if this room wasn't clean. What are the effects? Right. But also, let's put some structure in place to help people behave in those ways that makes sense, that isn't only just training.
Matt Gjertsen [00:18:46]:
Yeah, that's a perfect example of finding a different way. I'd be curious, do you think just in those kind of situations that your technical background gave you more credibility or ability to push back? Or did they even know, or was it just there was a good environment and you were able to build a good relationship? Or maybe probably both.
Ashley Chang [00:19:10]:
Oh, I hate to have to say that I would definitely trot out my engineering credentials.
Matt Gjertsen [00:19:16]:
Yes.
Ashley Chang [00:19:18]:
And I think it's just one of those things where I think being able to speak using the same jargon or the same language they were accustomed to hearing and engineering sure probably made them very open to what I was saying. I don't think a different learning professional would have come with the same or sorry, would have maybe concluded a different instance. Jesse probably would have had the same idea that I had. And then I think just me being able to frame it in language and terms that they were very comfortable and familiar with made them a little bit more open and receptive to the idea.
Matt Gjertsen [00:20:03]:
That totally makes sense. And for anybody listening who doesn't have that kind of background that they can lean on, I totally know what you're thinking because I can't imagine the I can't even tell you the number of conversations. I'd be like, you know, I was a pilot kind of stuff. But really it's less about that and I think more about the language like you mentioned. And so when you're new to an organization or in an organization, whether you're technical or not, if you're serving a technical audience or whatever audience you're serving, you need to speak the language of your audience. And so that's, I think, a big part that we talk about in the industry. A lot of getting closer to the business, whether it's learning or HR, we can have a tendency of kind of like being off in that side room, off to the side, and it can really help a lot to get your hands dirty, go out there. Maybe there's chances to volunteer for operations or whether it's like a cleanup day out on the factory floor or whatever, I think taking advantage of those opportunities and learning the business, I think can be really effective at making it easier to have those conversations for sure. So I think that's a great point.
Ashley Chang [00:21:20]:
Yeah, that's also great advice for me. Even I had no background in propulsion when I started and I made sure I was talking to those folks every day and learning like, hey, what are you doing? And building those relationships so that they knew that I was interested in their work and their goals. And also kind of going back to what I was saying earlier is like, let me help you achieve what you want to achieve. I think that's what learning is all about is being able to enable people to reach those goals using learning as a medium.
Matt Gjertsen [00:21:57]:
So you transitioned to learning into the technical training and then you kind of took over the whole training function within version. How beyond just like the side of the core learning and learning design and working with stakeholders, were there any learnings or challenges around kind of like the learning management piece of it and framing learning in relation to the company and that kind of stuff?
Ashley Chang [00:22:25]:
Yeah, I think something that was really exciting, but also like a big challenge was positioning learning as true partners to the business and then being able to provide them with sort of like a learning governance. What does learning mean to Virgin? How are we holding people accountable to it and what does that involve? Is it involving knowledge management? The more we grew as a company, the more the department also had our hands in lots of different aspects of learning. Everything from leadership to values and performance, team effectiveness. Then you had all your technical trainings. So what does that whole journey look like altogether? And how do you kind of make sure that everything has that consistent feel? And that was something that we are really leaning into in the last couple months at Virgin was trying to build out like, hey, when an employee comes, their learning isn't just about the technical training parts of their role. Learning is going to have to influence the culture at this company. How they approach problems, how they work with one another, how we expect leaders to behave. It touches literally every aspect of your journey as an employee and then learning gives people the common language to do that.
Matt Gjertsen [00:24:00]:
Yeah, I think that's when it's done well, it can be super transformative because like you say, it touches every single piece of it. Since you just mentioned, I was just thinking because you're kind of talking about both sides of the training where there's like, quote unquote, soft skills or the bigger picture skills and then the technical things. I'd be interested if you have any specific advice for people who maybe they came from the other side, they're more like they used to be in HR or they're used to the trainings to that side of the house. I'm thinking of some people that I'm talking to right now in my mind about this. So they're used to that side of the house and now they're trying to get involved or help out or being asked to help out with the technical side. I'm kind of putting you on the spot on this. Any kind of advice for somebody in that kind of place?
Ashley Chang [00:24:55]:
Yeah, I would say actually trust your gut and don't be afraid to ask questions. Something for me that I used to even like early in my career, I was always afraid that I was going to ask a dumb question about the content in front of me or be like, oh, everybody knows this already. I'm the dumb one who doesn't know what this is. So I'm not going to ask and just carry on and let the stakeholder or subject matter expert go with their expertise. Like no, the stakeholder that you're working with might be the expert in their subject. They're not the expert in the learning portion. You're the expert in the learning portion. So feel free to ask as many questions and to get them to really explain the importance of the content they're putting out there. Because sometimes, again, kind of going back to what we are seeing from a school environment, a lot of times people will think everything I have in this technical space is important for people to know. And as a learning professional, it's sort of like our job to come in and be like, anne, let's boil this down into something that provides an achievable outcome or a framework or a structure. And having that outside view I think is even almost more beneficial because you can put yourself in that audience's shoes really well, especially if it is an audience who might not be super familiar with the content or not an expert level, so to speak.
Matt Gjertsen [00:26:19]:
Yeah, I think that's a great call out. If you want to be effective as a learning professional, you have to ask the dumb questions because we're coming into situations from outside. Right. And often I think there's a lot of people in the team, whether it's new hires or whatever, that they don't understand it either, but because they're being graded or rated or whatever it is, they feel pressured to not ask the question because it might impact how their team feels about them. But that's why we can be so helpful, because we can just come in there. It doesn't matter what you think of me. You can think I'm an idiot, and that's fine. Ask every acronym, every term what they are. Yeah, I think that's a great call out.
Ashley Chang [00:27:09]:
And then something that I think learning professionals have great skill in is like, storyboarding or pattern recognition. I think storytelling in learning is so critical because you're taking the learner on a journey, and that actually really lends well when you're looking at patterns in content or what's going to make the most sense structurally in the content. And that's something that I think is more difficult for someone who's already super experienced and doesn't need to think about, like, hey, what should be foundational? What needs to come next? How does this make sense altogether? I would say trust your gut. And as a learning professional, you can take all of this content and put it into an experience that is enjoyable and makes a lot of sense. More so than if it were just to be 100 PowerPoint slides drunk together?
Matt Gjertsen [00:28:10]:
No, that is yeah.
Ashley Chang [00:28:12]:
There's a really fun story. Have you heard of I think there's a blog post called The PowerPoint Deck That Killed. Death by PowerPoint.
Matt Gjertsen [00:28:25]:
Yes.
Ashley Chang [00:28:26]:
Death by organizational structure.
Matt Gjertsen [00:28:30]:
Yeah. I think every quality person at an aerospace industry or an aerospace company has probably read this blog post. Hopefully.
Ashley Chang [00:28:38]:
But tell the no, it's so it was the Columbia Shuttle, I think, right?
Matt Gjertsen [00:28:44]:
Yeah, I think so.
Ashley Chang [00:28:44]:
Where Boeing engineers and NASA engineers were working really closely, and the Boeing engineers had a slide deck. And in their slide deck, they thought they communicated very clearly that the foam striking these tiles on the shuttle were going to be a problem, and that they thought that they flagged it very clearly in this PowerPoint.
Matt Gjertsen [00:29:06]:
Yeah. This being so when the space shuttle takes off, the external fuel tank, the big orange thing that's sitting next to the space shuttle, it's orange because it's covered in foam insulation foam, and pieces of that foam fall off. And when they fall off, there's the potential for it to hit the shuttle. That's what they had thought they had communicated.
Ashley Chang [00:29:31]:
Yes. But when you looked at the slide structure, the title was a little bit misleading. And then the really critical information, which was like, this is not within bounds or not within the safety factor, was like the last smallest bullet point on the PowerPoint. And so when the Nas engineers were looking through it, they just overlooked it. Right. And it becomes one of those things where I think learning professionals have great communication skills. Normally, you're communicating frameworks content out in something that has to make sense to people. And I think putting them in front of how do you structure this. Content, how do you make sure the most salient points stand out to your audience is really cool so you can save lives as a learning professional? The moral of that story?
Matt Gjertsen [00:30:32]:
No, absolutely. I think you can. And I'll link in the show notes to that blog post because I think it's really good. And yeah, I think it can come back to simple stuff like course titles instead of calling it Safety 101 five Things That Will Save Your Life, just like, make it a little clear about what we're talking about here, assuming that's what's in the course. If the course doesn't tell you five Ways to Save Your life, then don't call it that. But anyway, well, awesome. So anything else? Any other thoughts you have on kind of your transition into learning and things that might help other people who are in a similar situation?
Ashley Chang [00:31:14]:
Yeah, I'll just say getting also a strong foundation in learning theories and backgrounds was super helpful for me. Being able to talk about, for instance, injuring understandings or learning about Kirkpatrick's model of levels of evaluation. Those are all really great for me to build a foundation on and to also give me the mental structure and a map for when I was going out talking to stakeholders about what was going to be the most effective path for them. So I think for people who are trying to transition into this space, it's a whole lot of fun. I love what I do every day and don't be afraid to just dive in.
Matt Gjertsen [00:31:59]:
Yeah, just dive in. Awesome. Well, I'm glad you dove in. I'm glad we got to dive in together and work together a couple times. Hopefully we'll get to do it at some point again in the future. But for now, this was a great way to work together. So thank you so much for being on Ashley, and I look forward to the next time we get to talk.
Ashley Chang [00:32:18]:
Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Matt.
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