Hosted by Sponge co-founder, Kate Pasterfield, each episode is designed to address long-term L&D challenges that are coming to a head in 2022, combining commentary with tools that help learning leaders move their organisations forward in particularly challenging learning areas.

Adam Poulter, CEO of Sponge said, "There's no doubt the pandemic has elevated the role of digital learning, with global organisations grappling with a sudden lack of visibility when it comes to their workforce. On the one hand, this is great for L&D leaders - with new investment and a new ability to contribute to strategic conversations. However, there's no doubt it also comes with a new level of scrutiny. Pressure to resolve areas that have hitherto been a long-term challenge for L&D leaders - principally around the critical issue of assessing impact - is mounting. We felt the time was right to draw upon our network to help explore and answer some of these challenges."

The series starts by examining one major L&D priority that many learning leaders are starting to face up to in earnest: learning analytics. Whilst there is a lot of appetite from organisations to gain actionable insights from data, there is a marked gap between this goal and the data maturity required to track how learning is landing with any real nuance or depth.

In the launch episode, Sponge's Head of Product Innovation, Zach Romain, discusses the various stages of the data maturity scale, from data aware to data driven, and addresses how organisations can progress their learning analytics to achieve actionable insights. The interview was released alongside a Practical Guide to Learning Analytics, giving L&D teams the essential tools they need to successfully manage their data in 2022.