Gillian Hutchison, Project Operations Director, RIOS

Talk Description
At many firms, the challenge of launching a learning platform starts with creating content. At RIOS, it was the opposite—the challenge was figuring out what to do with all the content they already had. Years of specialist-led trainings, recorded presentations, detailed Revit tutorials, and in-house manuals meant there was no shortage of material. The real question was: Where do we start?

In this talk, Project Operations Director Gillian Hutchison shares how RIOS is preparing for Synthesis LMS by shifting from content creation to content strategy. Her team began by cataloging their existing learning resources in a centralized planning system, surfacing redundancies, identifying gaps, and collaborating across disciplines to define what mattered most for launch. They’re now developing role-specific learning paths that reflect how people actually grow at RIOS—whether stepping into a new role, learning a new tool, or expanding into project management.

Rather than trying to do everything at once, RIOS is focusing on what will have the biggest impact first. It’s a thoughtful, scalable approach to building a learning program—one grounded not in starting from scratch, but in turning a rich base of internal knowledge into meaningful and flexible learning experiences.

Speaker Bio
As a certified PMP and licensed Landscape Architect, Gillian uses her project experience to drive RIOS' global project workflow and integration strategies. While Gillian oversees KM, L+D, and project operations, efficiency is at the center with the goal of giving teams more time and space for the 'fun stuff'.

Christopher Parsons of Knowledge Architecture interviews Gillian Hutchinson of RIOS at KA Connect 2025.

Q+A Timeline

00:00 Can you tell us more about the mind map content, process, and desired outcome?
01:41 How do annual review metrics relate to the LMS?
03:45 Can you take us through your timeline at RIOS?
05:14 What were you originally hired to do and what you are actually doing?
07:55 Is the Excel catalog useful to users and the future LMS?
09:05 What makes your content manager meetings work so well?
11:10 Since you don’t have an L+D team, who creates job descriptions and learning paths?
12:44 What surprised you while preparing LMS content?
14:16 What does a wildly successful RIOS LMS look like?