Case Study
The Welsh Government

Welsh Government has an ongoing requirement to ensure that all staff have a clear understanding of excellent governance and practice it in discharging their responsibilities as Civil Servants.

To promote this, David Richards, Director of Governance in Welsh Government, developed a programme called ‘Monsters and Trolls - the Slayers’ Guide and Things that go Bump in the Night’ which included a 90-minute presentation and supporting material.  Delivered in a humorous but highly informative way this programme has been delivered to a large number of staff during a lecture style approach that involves David and his support staff visiting Welsh Government offices across Wales.

This approach was a time consuming and resource intensive method of delivery. Welsh Government was therefore looking for a method to reach more staff with the same level of richness that the existing delivery approach provided.

After discussion with the major stakeholders, an approach was developed that would utilise Eliesha’s highly innovative pearls of wisdom® products in an exciting way to capture all the key aspects of the face to face programme, incorporate scripts, videos and support material from the existing programme and recreate, through the use of suitable animation, its humour and outcomes.

The final product, consisting of 10 pearls of wisdom® and supporting material, was then integrated onto the Eliesha Learning Management System for access by all Welsh Government staff allowing it to be monitored and reported on.

When designing the pearls of wisdom® in detail, Eliesha echoed the Monsters and Trolls metaphor throughout - particularly the Trolls analogy, being the ‘things that can get in the way of good governance’ - so that this language appeared throughout the programme. We also incorporated some of David Richards’s voice clips/anecdotes to embed his unique and engaging style into the end product.

The pearls of wisdom® were used to structure the input of the various concepts that were key to the delivery of the overall Governance message. For the Nolan Principles, for example, the pearls of wisdom® delivered the background behind the development of each principle, which was then brought into context with examples. The Slayer’s Seven Guides were designed to sit across five pearls of wisdom®. This allowed flexibility in delivery whilst using time effectively and anecdotes were used to enhance the experience.

The programme was also repurposed using discrete pearls of wisdom® including the Civil Service Code, Nolan Principles and Values to incorporate in other online products including Introduction to Legislation and Reception Stage One. This demonstrated the versatility of the product and value for money through effective reuse.

The client and senior stakeholders were delighted with the end product and the quality and effectiveness of design and delivery.  In addition to being available to the 5500 staff in Welsh Government it was incorporated into programmes for the wider Welsh public sector including the Wales Audit Office.

The Monsters and Trolls Governance training was delivered throughout Wales resulting in significant reduction in costs at a time of continuing budget constraints.

Work is now ongoing to integrate the programme and individual associated pearls of wisdom® onto the Welsh Government Internet site for wider distribution to the public servants and those working alongside the Welsh Government.