Over the next few weeks, I’m going to explore
the process by which I prefer to develop technology enabled learning
products. While not every project
follows this process, it includes the primary elements that I find necessary
for a project. The process will be
broken down into two sections: Initiation and Creation. I’m intentionally staying away from ADDIE and
SAM terminology as I find elements of both extremely helpful, but the labels
problematic when describing a process that follows neither precisely.
Initiation
Initiation follows the initial stages of the
development process. While it is
sometimes challenging to get excited about the type of work involved in intake
and consultation, these steps provide a solid foundation on which the project
can be built. Stages of this portion
include: Need Identification, Stakeholders, Audience, and Delivery Medium.
Need Identification
Sometimes this is as simple as a call,
e-mail, IM, or simple form request saying, “I need you to help me build
X.” Others, it is a learning team
identifying a need or a reengineered process requiring training to help people
execute it. Either way, this initial
step is crucial as it allows the requestor and developer(s) to get on the same
page as to what problem you are looking to solve.
The outcome of this stage can often be
written as a goal or objective. Whatever
learning is produced will help the learners do something different or
understand something new.
Stakeholders
This stage focuses on the people involved in
creating the learning and providing subject matter. While this stage doesn’t define the
developers involved – depending on the complexity of the work and the size and
skillset of the development team, that is likely done during once the delivery
method has been defined – it does help to define everyone else.
The requestor is easily understood, as they
are the one coming to the learning team (or they are the learning team
themselves). However, the requestor may
also wear one of the other hats.
The subject matter expert or SME is the one
who will help the development team to understand the content or process. She will also help provide periodic reviews
and act as a sounding board as things are created to ensure they are accurate. The SME is somewhat of a double-edged
sword. While she provides information to
you that helps you throughout the process, she is also likely the most
knowledgeable – which may include shortcuts, tribal knowledge, and respect as
the expert in the area that she may not want to lose.
The process owner is also crucial. Depending on the type of work, the process
owner may also be the SME, but others, the process owner could be a step
removed, knowing how everything should work on paper, but never actually doing
the work. This person can provide a good
balance with the SME as one understands the ideal state and the other reality.
Finally, the approvers are essential to
define as they can make or break a project.
While others may be approvers, often approvers reside in upper
management. In those cases, the
developer is often left relying on the relationship between the SME, process
owner, and requestor with the approvers.
Periodically, the developer is included in the meetings with the
approver to get buy in, understand their points of hesitation, or help to
explain or ideate to create solutions based on their hesitations. In addition to understanding who will work
with the approvers and getting an idea of how the approver likes to work, it is
helpful to get an understanding of the timeline necessary when working with
this particular approver. Some will drop
everything and review every word of a storyboard while others will leave the
project gathering dust in their inbox while they tend to production
issues. This knowledge will help to
create a realistic and manageable timeline.
Audience
Similar to the Stakeholders, the audience is
all about people. Falling into the
Analysis stage of ADDIE, this step helps to get an understanding of the
audience as well as their environment.
In addition to getting a handle on their prior knowledge and learning
preferences, it is important to see examples of their prior learning content in
order to better understand what they are used to seeing. Whether your development looks similar or
not, at least this will help you know what they have seen as “normal” so you
can better guide them with what you create.
While knowing the people is important, it is
also essential to understand their technology expectations. If these individuals are used to synchronous
meetings or huddles, that can influence the delivery method. If they don’t have access to a computer, or
have access to a computer only periodically, those are things to consider. If you are dealing with an audience that
doesn’t have access to your network or LMS, it will influence the type of
material you can deliver to them.
Additional questions to ask include those related to audio options,
bandwidth, and plugins (like Flash).
Beyond typical tethered computers, there is also the potential that they
will be using mobile devices to get to content.
Do those devices connect in an expected manner to your delivery
channel? Are they personal devices with
security limiatations?
Getting a better understanding of the people
taking the learning, their prior experiences, and the technology that enables
their learning are key to creating a successful learning engagement.
Delivery Medium
This stage is a combination of the outputs of
the prior stages. Knowing what the
requestor initially indicated they would like – rarely do they come to the
table asking for the best learning intervention – as well as the delivery
method that supports the content and objectives themselves, selecting the
proper delivery medium is key. The
Audience (individuals and technology) and types of tracking, reporting, and
assessment necessary will all help to influence the delivery medium. This step is also the one where it may be
identified that it isn’t a true learning need, but rather an awareness
need. For some, that can indicate the
conclusion of the engagement, but for others it merely helps to drive to a
specific type of delivery and tracking.
Once the delivery medium has been defined,
the development team can be identified.
Of course, this assumes that you have the ability to grab the particular
players necessary for graphics, video, interactive eLearning, etc – otherwise,
it just lets the lone developer understand the types of work that will be done
throughout the project.
Next week, we’ll explore the Creation stages
that follow the above Initiation stages.
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