In this episode, we breakdown how to quickly assess, adapt, and optimize your learner tech stack from day one.
Meet our Guest
With 16+ years of experience across instructional design, LMS administration, and learning tech implementation, Yasmin’s approach blends operational rigor with empathetic leadership. Her insights are especially timely as L&D teams grapple with tool overload, shifting priorities, and the pressure to prove value.
Yasmin Gutierrez Director of Culture & Capability Enablement @ Phillips66 Connect with Yasmin
Key Takeaways
✅ Treat vendors right : It's not just a relationship, it's a data goldmine.
✅ Diagnose first : Figure out the adoption problems before you prescribe more training.
✅ Launch Right: Speed is less important. Take the time to make sure you launch right.
Tech Doesn't Fail. Adoption Does.
Background context: When Yasmin Gutierrez stepped into her new leadership role at Chipotle, she found herself owning a half-implemented tech stack. Licenses were paid for, but usage was low. Teams were burnt out. And in-flight projects had no clear owner. Rather than bulldoze ahead, she hit pause. This is the story of how Yasmin rebooted adoption—not by buying more tools, but by rethinking how existing ones were being used, measured, and supported.
Key Insight #1: Don't blame the tool—audit the experience
Yasmin’s first move was a tech stack audit—not for overlap or pricing, but purpose.
She assessed each product’s intent, adoption metrics, and audience fit. Partnering directly with vendors, she surfaced login data, usage frequency, and workflow gaps. Often, the problem wasn’t the platform—it was a broken onboarding or unclear use case.
🎤 “Are these tools complementing each other or competing with each other?” - Yasmin Gutierrez
Key Insight #2: Adopt through empathy, not urgency
Under pressure to deliver results fast, many leaders say yes to aggressive timelines. Yasmin took the opposite approach.
When a pilot timeline proved unrealistic, she made the hard call to delay. The result? A better scoped implementation, reduced team burnout, and ultimately stronger adoption.
🎤 “It’s not about doing it perfectly. It’s about doing it right. Sometimes that means saying no.” - Yasmin Gutierrez
Key Insight #3: Use your vendor as a strategic partner
Too often, L&D teams treat vendors as vendors. Yasmin treats them as force multipliers.
From benchmarking usage data to redesigning workflows, she encourages L&D leaders to tap vendors for implementation guidance, not just troubleshooting.
🎤 “Ask them to challenge your assumptions. They bring best practices we might not have seen.”— Yasmin Gutierrez
The Problem: Organizations often inherit bloated tech stacks with low usage. The instinct is to buy more or retrain. But that rarely solves the root cause.
The Solution:
Inventory all tools by audience, purpose, and overlap
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