Decision-Making in Financial Transactions
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Target Audience: Finance team members responsible for month-end close activities, including transaction approvals, reconciliations, and reporting.
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Experience Level: Mix of junior and mid-level employees with basic ERP familiarity but limited exposure to high-pressure decision-making.
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Learning Goals: Improve judgment under pressure, reduce transactional errors, and increase consistency in financial reporting.
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Context: High-stakes, time-sensitive workflows where small errors can cascade into compliance gaps and misleading KPIs.
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Constraints: Employees already know the system; training needed to focus on decision-making, not procedural “how-tos.”

Problem
Procedural Coverage Without Performance Transfer
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Linear ADDIE build focused heavily on content delivery.
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Covered procedural “how-tos” but lacked authentic assessment and experiential practice.
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Did not address cognitive load or judgment under time pressure; employees defaulted to shortcuts.
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Design failed the transfer phase of ADDIE.

Solution
Agile Redesign with Scenario-Based Learning
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Rapid prototyping of branching scenarios reflecting manual tasks and assisted system runs, highlighting differences in decision-making.
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Applied cognitive apprenticeship: modeled expert decisions, provided scaffolding in assisted runs, and gradually reduced support for independent manual decisions.
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Embedded formative assessments in a safe-to-fail environment, letting learners experience consequences of shortcuts and reinforcing correct decisions to strengthen metacognitive regulation.

Impact
From Knowledge to Strategic Judgment
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Projected reduction in transactional errors without slowing cycle times.
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Learners expected to develop stronger decision-making schemas and demonstrate retention at Level 3 (Behavior) of Kirkpatrick’s Model.
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Learning analytics dashboards enable managers to track patterns and provide data-informed coaching.
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Shift from content-focused training to performance-driven learning experiences that support business KPIs.