At Defra, we have no shortage of expertise. Across our Digital, Data, Technology and Security function colleagues have built deep knowledge of product management, delivery, agile practices and the many disciplines needed to deliver better services.
The challenge is making that knowledge easy to share.
Over the past year, conversations with professions leads highlighted a common problem. Demand for skills training was increasing across Defra, but creating and delivering learning was still difficult.
External training can be expensive and does not always reflect the reality of working in government. Internal training is more tailored, but it relies on busy subject matter experts finding time to create and deliver it. We needed an approach that was sustainable, scalable and grounded in Defra’s own context.
At the same time, we wanted to support more learning in the flow of work: shorter, practical learning that colleagues could access when they needed it and apply immediately.
So, we asked a simple question: if the knowledge already exists in our documents, presentations and guidance, could we make it easier for people to learn from it?
Exploring a different approach
That question became the starting point for a small, practical experiment: could we turn the knowledge colleagues had already created into learning that was easier to access, easier to reuse and easier to scale?
To explore this, the product management and capability teams came together for a proof of concept. We wanted to test whether we could create high-quality learning products using our own expertise and low cost tools, rather than relying solely on expensive external provision.
This was also an opportunity to put Defra’s approach to AI into practice. We worked with Immersive Fox to understand how existing content could be transformed into structured digital learning.
Using a range of non-sensitive, non-official input materials and data, we created learning pathways containing videos, transcripts and quizzes. We also developed Agile and product management courses as the first content for our e-learning platform and began developing templates and guidance that other teams can use to create learning in future.
What surprised us
The biggest surprise was how quickly we could move from existing content to something colleagues could use.
As an experiment, we took material that would traditionally be delivered through a two-day workshop and transformed it into interactive online learning in less than a day. Instead of spending weeks creating and producing training materials, we could focus our efforts on improving content, reviewing outputs and ensuring learning met genuine user needs. But the most important outcome was not speed.
This proof of concept showed us that AI can help make better use of the expertise we already have. Rather than asking subject matter experts to deliver the same content repeatedly, we can capture their knowledge once and make it available to many more colleagues. That frees up more of their time for coaching, discussion and deeper support. This ensures that foundational learning is available whenever people need it.
What we've learned so far
Perhaps the most important lesson is that successful AI adoption is about people as much as technology.
The proof of concept reinforced that expertise remains our most valuable asset. AI can help reduce some of the effort involved in creating learning products, but it cannot replace the judgement, context and experience that subject matter experts bring.
What excites us most is the potential to create a repeatable model for capability development. The proof of concept was designed not only to create learning products, but to explore an approach that other professions and teams can adopt, adapt and scale.
We are continuing to evaluate the outcomes, but early learning suggests there is real potential to make knowledge more accessible, create learning products more efficiently and help colleagues develop skills in ways that are tailored to Defra's needs. If successful, this approach could help ensure that the expertise already present across Defra reaches more people, more quickly, and with less effort to maintain over time.
More information
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