eLearning Designer’s Academy · July 2026 Design Challenge
Performance Analysis in Practice
A scenario-based Rise 360 course that helps managers diagnose the real cause of a performance issue — before they decide on a fix.
Step into Marcus’s case before you read how it was built.
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Performance Analysis in Practice
You’re the manager. Marcus’s numbers have slipped, and the easy explanations — skill, motivation, attitude — are all sitting right there. The course won’t let you reach for one until you’ve gathered the evidence.
- Investigate Marcus’s case through evidence, not assumptions
- Apply Mager & Pipe’s framework at each decision point
- Land on a coaching plan built on the real root cause
Diagnosing before deciding — not after.
“How can managers diagnose the real cause of a performance issue before deciding on an intervention?”
Not understanding the root cause of a performance issue
Incorrect diagnosis of the performance problem
Ineffective coaching conversations and interventions
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Three gaps behind premature coaching.
A review of common managerial practices revealed three key gaps:
Premature diagnosis
Managers tend to rely on intuition or first impressions, quickly labeling problems as “skill issues” or “motivation issues” without collecting sufficient evidence.
Limited diagnostic skills
Many managers are familiar with giving feedback but have less experience systematically analyzing performance problems, identifying environmental barriers, or uncovering conflicting incentives.
Need for structured decision-making tools
Managers require practical frameworks that guide inquiry, encourage evidence gathering, and support more accurate coaching decisions.
Mager and Pipe’s Performance Analysis framework addresses these needs by providing a structured process to distinguish between:
The learning need, therefore, was not to teach managers how to coach in general — it was to help them diagnose before they decide.
A single case, unfolding progressively.
I designed a 15-minute, scenario-based microlearning experience in Rise 360 centered around a single workplace case. Rather than presenting the framework through static content, learners step into the role of a manager investigating Marcus’s performance issue. The interaction intentionally surfaces plausible but incomplete explanations — skill gaps, low motivation, poor personal accountability — before gradually revealing additional evidence, mirroring how real workplace decision-making rarely arrives with the full picture upfront.
Diagnostic framework
Mager & Pipe’s Performance Analysis, used as the throughline of the whole investigation.
Coaching questions
Prompts that push learners to gather evidence rather than guess at a cause.
Decision points
Moments built to challenge assumptions in the middle of the investigation, not after it.
Progressive disclosure
Information revealed gradually, to recreate the ambiguity of a real workplace case.
Effective coaching begins not with answers, but with better diagnosis.
What I’d take further.
Designing for meaningful ambiguity
Designed Marcus’s situation around several plausible explanations — skill, motivation, and accountability — so learners couldn’t immediately identify the root cause.
Make the 1:1 coaching conversation more nuanced and tense, introducing competing perspectives and more ambiguous responses that require managers to navigate uncertainty before deciding how to respond.
Making the framework necessary
Rather than teaching Mager & Pipe as a framework to memorize, embedded it into the investigation of Marcus’s performance problem — learners experience why structured diagnosis matters before deciding on an intervention.
Strengthen the connection between each diagnostic decision and its potential coaching consequence, making the value of the framework even more visible.
Designing for a specific audience
Because the scenario was designed for a SaaS team, used technical workplace language and situations — sprint commitments, backend engineering, integrations, client escalations — to make the case feel authentic.
For a different audience, tone down the technical language and adapt the workplace context while preserving the underlying performance problem and diagnostic challenge.