In this interview, Christopher Parsons and an expert (Speaker A) explore how architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms can accelerate the development of novice professionals through a layered performance ecosystem. They first differentiate formal learning (structured courses) from informal learning (self‑directed problem solving and innovation) and argue that both are needed at different career stages. The conversation introduces performance support—quick, on‑the‑job aids such as repair videos, checklists, decision trees, and process guides—that allow workers to complete tasks without memorizing every detail. They stress that no single tool can meet all needs; instead, firms should assemble a suite of solutions (portal, LMS, communication platforms) that together address learning, performance support, and community building. Using a hypothetical healthcare‑focused architecture firm, they illustrate how to design the ecosystem for a new graduate entering a complex domain. The expert suggests establishing a foundational knowledge base about healthcare stakeholders and requirements, then providing domain‑specific checklists (e.g., power points, equipment clearance, backup generators). Apprenticeship and mentoring are layered on top, with a gradual shift from direct corrective feedback to prompting the novice to self‑diagnose gaps. Over time, the novice joins a community of practice where peers share work, give feedback, and collectively self‑correct. The discussion highlights cultural prerequisites—psychological safety, inclusive attitudes, and active facilitation—to sustain a vibrant community, noting that low engagement on social platforms can signal cultural issues. Overall, the interview maps a progression from courses to job aids, mentorship, and community, emphasizing the need for multiple, well‑chosen tools and a supportive culture to speed expertise acquisition in AEC firms.
Chapters
Now, there's two senses of informal learning in what you're saying. So one is I need to learn. There may be somebody out there with the answer and I want to go find it and get that feedback. And then there's the other situation where there isn't anybody with the answer. So I talk about innovation and I talk about effective skills like brainstorming to address this. We just, as informal learning, we don't know the answer when we start. But there isn't anybody who's gonna provide feedback for us. The world will have to do it or we'll have to test it. Some of that requires the same learning skills, but it requires finding ways to get the feedback from the world because we can't get it from somebody else who knows more. And so that to me is what distinguishes some of the formal learning from the informal learning. And both have their role. When you're starting in a new field, you don't know what you need to know. You don't know what's important. So you need some. I'm not one of these people who says don't have courses. I say do have courses that are effective, not bad courses, but you need courses. But then you need different things as you start developing. As you move from novice to practitioner, you know what you need to know and you know what's important. You just need it. So you start needing performance support to do those things you don't do frequently and it's not worth trying to put in your head. So let's put it in the world.
What's an example of performance support?
The video I watched to repair my dryer.
Mm-hmm.
My dryer stopped working and I couldn't figure out why. And I looked online and I found this video and it talked about diagnosing and replacing this particular piece. I don't even, I remember vaguely where it was on the dryer. I don't even remember what it was I did. And that's fine because I got the dryer fixed. It was performance support that allowed me to do that. And yet I didn't have to learn anything.
Or if I'm reviewing an NDA and I haven't done it in 6 months, but we have like a checklist for clauses to look for, that's something that helps me in that flow of work.
Checklist, decision trees, process guides. There are lots of tools we use to, to make sure that we don't have to put it in our head. We put it in the world so we can. But there's also times we do want to advance our understanding and then we need resources. And, but the value of the, that's formal in a sense that somebody's created it as well. And the performance sport, both of those have been created, but get there for further down the learning journey. But also we start needing community, we start needing experts for mentoring and coaching, and we start needing just interacting with our colleagues to see how they did it and to share what— how we're doing it and see what feedback they have for us. And so that's that ecosystem part of the performance. The performance is making sure we can do it, and as novices we need courses, and then we want to start just getting Job aids for when it doesn't have to be in the head and we want to start advancing what's in our head. But to do that, thinking that one tool is going to be able to do all that is naive and probably not just wrong on practical basis that no one tool should be. You should— Swiss Army knives are great when you're camping, but in the kitchen, you really want all the right different tools. The same thing when you're in an organization, unless you're a really small organization, you're going to want the right tool for the job. And that means having a good portal solution, a good course solution, a good communication solution. And that's where we start talking an ecosystem of support so that all our different needs for learning are met.
Can we, let's, can maybe we can use a hypothetical to explore this performance ecosystem a little bit. So in our industry, architecture, engineering, construction, I'll just pick an example. Let's say that we have an architecture firm that focuses heavily on healthcare, which is a complicated discipline. There's all this medical equipment, there's all this jargon, there's all this compliance, there's different user groups. There's surgeons and nurses and administrators. And so if—
Patients.
And patients, of course, and family and all the needs, administrative staff. So let's say you have an undergraduate in architecture and maybe you've worked on some school projects and now you're going to be doing some healthcare projects. There's this kind of desire in our community to, to find a way to speed that learning cycle up a little bit so that I can be competent working in healthcare and understand that as quickly as possible. So I've got some foundation in design and understanding how buildings go together, but I don't really know this discipline. If you're just hearing that, where, how do you start thinking about a performance ecosystem to put around that emerging professional? Novice, to use your term?
Well, let's start thinking, you know, so if they know buildings and design and we're talking about buildings designed for specific healthcare needs, I'd probably also want them to get a foundation in the healthcare field. Just what do they need to know? And it's not everything about the healthcare. They may not need to know about filing forms for administration or reimbursements, but they probably need to know about what are the common things people do, what are the common things people need. And who are all the different stakeholders? Just what you were mentioning. And then I'd start saying, how do I— and a company, Jos Aretz and Vivien Hynion have Tulsar, which is based in Belgium. And the name is result spelled backwards, Tulsar. But they have worked with my colleague, Charles Jennings, and created a whole process about thinking through just those situations and saying, what is it we need? Because Some of that's going to be performance support. What do you absolutely have to make sure a healthcare solution for a building looks like, includes? So there's the standard checklist for buildings in general. There's electrical and plumbing and everything.
Sure.
But then healthcare, there's probably got to be the right power points for all the different machinery, and there probably has to be open space for wheeling complex equipment around. Et cetera. So you start having multiple checklists.
Extra backup generators in case of earthquake or something like that. Right.
And asking people to remember that is probably not worthwhile. They may learn it over time, but you probably want to teach them how to use the checklist to make sure you get that right. And then you have that associated to other information.
So you're building kind of awareness of the resources that are available to you as part of what you're starting.
But also you want people you want that person, make sure they take the additional healthcare class. Then when they start going in, have them apprentice with somebody so that they're watching somebody and gradually handing off some of that responsibility. But somebody is looking at their thing, and that person needs to know enough about learning to know, when do I stop giving them feedback and start asking them, what feedback should you receive right now? So there's this transition from, you got that wrong, you forgot to include consideration of the family, you don't have seating for the family around the table, the bedside. Okay. And I'm making this up. I'm not an expert in the domain. Okay. Excuse my simplistic examples, but correct them if necessary, otherwise understand them. But at one point you start, first you start saying, you've forgotten the seating for the family, but at some point you start saying, what have you forgotten?
"Ah, seating for the family." You mean you as the expert see they've forgotten something, but you don't give them the answer. You make them go struggle for it.
You recognize that they should now have developed enough ability that if they stop and pause, they're going to recognize, you know, if when I go through, "Ah, yes, I remember I didn't include this. So thank you. Yes, I'm moving on." That's how they develop. And then eventually you can start giving them real design requirements. Mm-hmm. But it's that mentoring and it's also the community. So they should be seeing what other people, new people are being assigned to do.
Different projects.
The other people and see the feedback they're getting and then start giving their own feedback and getting corrected and sharing what they're doing and getting feedback. So you start building this community and again, the culture matters to make that community vibrant. People often go, oh well, if I create a community, they'll share bad ideas. There is a period of time until you achieve the ideal status, but that ideal status is the community self-correcting. If somebody says something wrong, somebody else will jump in and do that. And that happens if you're doing it right.
If you have enough senior people in the community who can help with the domain.
But also you have make it safe for them to share their good ideas and they don't feel threatened by these new people. They welcome the new generation. And if they say something wrong, somebody else will connect them. There's a lot of factors that go into making that work. It's not just easy and simple. Oh, I just— one of the best ways to find out you don't have a vibrant community is to put a social media platform in there and nobody shares and you go, oh, maybe we don't have the right culture. So, and we're probably a generation past that now, but—
Oh no, we lived through that. When we first came to business in 2009, we were a social intranet and it was, Did they have the right culture? Like checklist number one. Is there psychological safety? If somebody asks a naive question or says the wrong thing, what's— how does the organization respond?
Right. And it takes nurturing to get there. And that I found out I'm not a good social media facilitator. I'm too much of an introvert that I just don't have because it takes time to build it. It takes Kate's, it takes soliciting people, it Kate's make people have to continue to find value to, to stay in a community, to continue to be there and gradually move from a legitimate peripheral participation to a central role.
