Making mandatory training delightful

Company: Dropbox | Role: Security content specialist

Script excerpt

Each year I tried to take the experience up a notch. My developer partner Rohan helped me create a simple interactive game. Players must keep our hero “Bee Worthy” afloat by answering privacy and security questions correctly. I came up with the storyline and wrote the script.

One year we created a live-action short, Social Engineering: Voldemort’s Vocation on Vacation. My teammate Sam wrote a terrific script. I’ll just take credit for the title.

Challenge

Capture the minds and hearts of Dropbox employees with annual privacy and security training.

Every October at Dropbox, you can almost hear a collective groan in the halls: “Annual training? Ugh.”

“Annual Trustworthiness Training” is vital to the business because it helps Dropbox meet compliance requirements, and that’s important to both current and prospective customers.

For the Security Culture team, it’s also an opportunity to reach everyone at Dropbox, because, hey, it’s mandatory! Our goals:

• Inform full-time employees and contractors on what they can do to keep Dropbox worthy of trust

• Create a fun, memorable experience that builds positive associations with the Privacy and Security teams

We operated on a shoestring budget, so fancy productions were out of the question.

Solution

Create homemade animated videos and interactive experiences with fun surprises.

Highlights of my approach

• Outlined key topics, messages, and details to cover based on input from Compliance, Privacy, and Security

• Drafted and revised scripts based on feedback from teammates and partners

• Enlisted the creative talents of teammates (such as resident rapper Joe Wheeler) to highlight key points

• Created animations using Powerpoint and images from the Dropbox illustration library

Outcome

Delight all around.

• The Compliance team was happy because after we started producing these homemade trainings, 99.8% of employees completed them within the first two weeks of the four-week compliance period, up 10% from prior years.

• We got lots of praise on the training experience. We deliberately decided not to send out follow-up surveys because Dropboxers were usually survey-fatigued.