Learning and development (L&D) has always been very good at building things: courses, classes, eLearning, videos, portals, libraries and curricula.

We have invested enormous energy in improving those things, and many have been very well designed. But one question has followed our profession for decades: What happens when the formal instruction is over and the employee is back at work?

That question sits at the heart of Gloria Gery’s vision for the electronic performance support system (EPSS). In 1991, Gery described a technology-enabled environment that could bring together task guidance, knowledge, data, tools and access to other people while someone was doing complex work. The goal was not simply to help people “look something up.” It was to enable effective, increasingly self-reliant performance at the moment it mattered — their moment of need.

Dr. Conrad Gottfredson, Con to his friends, later emphasized that a true EPSS could move beyond IT help systems and support branching work, respond to user input and provide situationally relevant guidance, even for soft skills. That is a long way from an electronic job aid.

From Learning to Performance

Why was that vision so important? Because learning to perform has never been a single event.

For years, we organized much of our work around the assumption that people first learn and then perform. We put knowledge into a classroom or course, the learner consumed it and successful application was expected to follow.

Sometimes it did. Often it did not.

Con and I have described the journey to performance in three broad stages: Train, Transfer, and Sustain. The training event may begin the journey, but the performer must still transfer what was learned into a real job, system, customer interaction and set of conditions. Then that performance must be sustained as processes, tools and expectations change.

When L&D focuses primarily on Train, we leave the hardest parts of the journey largely unsupported. This is where the 5 Moments of Need, a framework pioneered by Dr. Gottfredson, became so important.

The 5 Moments of Need

People need support when they are learning something for the first time — New — and when they want to deepen what they know — More. They also need support when they must use what they have learned — Apply. When something goes wrong — Solve; and when they must replace an established way of working — Change.

New and More naturally received most of our attention because they fit the classroom and course model. Apply, Solve, and Change happened later, in the workflow, where the instructor was no longer standing nearby. Yet those are the moments where performance is tested and business results are won or lost.

Now, I want to be clear. This is not an argument against instructors or classrooms. The classroom is an extraordinary environment when it is used for explanation, demonstration, discussion, feedback, practice, reflection and the safe development of judgment. An instructor can inspire, challenge, observe and coach in ways a static resource cannot.

The problem was that we asked the classroom to do too much. We turned it into the place where everything had to be taught because we had no confidence that support would be available later. We loaded instructors with policies, procedures, exceptions, system screens and “just in case” knowledge. Then we asked learners to remember and transfer all of it, sometimes weeks or months later.

When Technology Moved the Course, Not the Support

Technology appeared to offer an answer. Computer-based training, eLearning, learning management systems (LMSs), portals, mobile devices, collaboration tools and video made content easier to distribute. That was real progress. But often the underlying model remained unchanged.

We had moved the course to a screen — not moved support into the work. Opening an LMS at your desk is still a pause from performance; it is not the same as learning while doing. An online learning library can contain excellent information and still force the performer to search, interpret and decide how it applies. A true performance support solution brokers information around the performer’s workflow, role, task and situation.

Con and I later described this expectation as access to task-level help within two clicks and 10 seconds. Ten seconds is not magical; the point is that the workflow is unforgiving. When help takes too long to find or too much effort to interpret, people guess, ask someone else, invent a workaround or move on.

Designing for the Moment of Need

Gery’s vision was right. The challenge was that the technology and organizational practices of the time weren’t ready to deliver it at scale, and L&D’s event-first habits were difficult to break. But the central idea endured: Performers need an intentionally designed support environment at the point of work.

The next step was to turn that vision into a repeatable discipline — to begin with the workflow, decide what truly merits formal instruction and build a modern digital coach around the moments where performance actually happens. This journey will be outlined in the next article in this three-part article series.

Where Do We Go From Here?

So, how can we apply Gery’s vision?

1. Stop assuming every performance problem requires more training.

Before building another course, ask: “What would help this person perform this task successfully at the moment they need to do it?” The answer might be training, but it might also be a digital coach, embedded guidance, a decision aid, a job aid, workflow changes or easier access to expertise. Design the solution around the work, not around L&D’s traditional deliverables.

2. Pick one critical workflow and follow the performer.

Don’t start by asking, “What training do they need?” Start by asking, “What are they actually trying to accomplish?” Map the work, identify the moments where performance breaks down, and look specifically at Apply, Solve, and Change. Those are the places where a well-designed support solution can have immediate impact.

3. Take one step toward building your modern EPSS.

You don’t have to build a sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital coach tomorrow. Start small. Pick one high-value task and make the right guidance, information, decisions and resources available in the workflow, at the moment of need. Then test it. Learn from the performer. Improve it. Scale it. Gery’s vision doesn’t require us to wait for the perfect technology — it requires us to finally design for performance.