Training As a Tool for Website Promotion and Usage
Many companies have made significant investments in online website or portal applications whose goal is to support employees, customers, and business partners. The successful implementation of these applications requires two key activities. These are application promotion and application utilization. Application promotion is the effort that drives users to view and evaluate the application. Application utilization is the planned positive impact created by the targeted acceptance and successful usage of the application. We recently completed a training development project that addressed both of these requirements.
Database Driven Training
Business factors such as domestic regionalization and international operations require many companies to offer e-Learning based training that must vary in content to accommodate variations in business practices, processes, or language resulting from multiple types of business operations. One example of this is a large telecommunications company whose business practices were controlled by state regulations. These regulations were not consistent across all of their operating areas so certain training content had to be specific to the location of the learner. Read more
Estimating e-Learning Project Scope
As we all struggle to meet our business objectives with less resources, this issue will be devoted to resource planning and ways to leverage your resources. We will look at e-Learning project metrics and determining scope. In estimating e-Learning projects, the following table can serve as an overall guideline in determining project scope and cost. The table details three basic levels of e-Learning and the average resource requirements in their development. Read more
How are you using e-Learning to leverage resources?
This question came up in one of the forums I belong to and I thought I would include it and my response.
“Has e-Learning has changed so much over the past decade, it can be difficult to keep up with what one is using for eLearning. I am trying to get a list of all the possible means/methods of eLearning. What do you think or the most widely used methods by individuals in companies?”
Here was my response.
Outsourcing Strategies
Many learning organizations are thinking about or doing some type of training development outsourcing.
Here are a couple of thoughts on outsourcing.
There are two typical options in outsourcing course development.
Option One: outsource complete projects on a fixed bid basis to vendor companies specializing in classroom and e-Learning development
Option Two: use independent contractors on an hourly basis to augment internal resources
Each of these course development options has advantages and drawbacks. These are summarized in the following table:
| Option | Pro’s | Con’s |
| One | Minimum impact on internal resources, high level of expertise, high level of cost control | Higher tangible cost, requires focus on communications and prioritization |
| Two | Lower cost, provides additional resources in incremental units, maximum flexibility | Limited cost control, scope creep, requires internal project management resources |
Quantifying Your Training Resource Needs
As we all struggle to meet our business objectives with less resources, this issue will be devoted to resource planning and ways to leverage your resources. We will look at e-Learning project metrics and determining scope.
A challenge many training professionals face is determining training development and delivery resources. In developing e-Learning projects, we have found that five basic resource types are required with each resource comprising a predictable percentage of the project. For example, if we estimate the total development time for an hour of average e-Learning as 120 hours, we can create the table shown below.
The Benefits and Challenges of User Generated Learning Content Survey Results
In our July newsletter, we posted a survey on the use of user generated learning content company. We had 31 responses and here are the results.
Learning Professionals: Don’t say Pedagogical in the boardroom
I often think that as knowledge workers and learning professionals we believe the sheer intellectual brilliance and insight of our ideas will carry the day and win support. But generally, this just isn’t true. When we are selling our ideas, we have to remember a very important fundamental axiom. “The best idea does not always win. It is the best-presented idea that wins.”
The Rise of the Corporate Learning Content Rock star
The job description read, “Leverage your knowledge and experience to develop learning content in written, audio, video, and other formats that will be available to workers on an enterprise wide basis through deployment on the corporate information infrastructure. This will include wiki’s, forums, and blogs, as well as both informal and formal training assets.” I heard Steven Spielberg applied for this position and was turned down. So who is this job description addressed to? To answer that question, we should probably get some perspective.
Guerrilla ROI: Building a High-Impact Project Portfolio
As the economic climate improves, and companies transition from a bottom-line focus to a top-line focus, businesses must respond quickly to new opportunities and changes in the landscape. In this ultra-competitive economy, enterprises are introducing products, services and processes at an accelerating rate.
Companies must respond quickly and effectively to opportunity. To be successful, they must rapidly respond to new opportunities and continually search for ways to maximize the impact of resources.
This faster pace influences all business functions, especially workforce learning and performance. Every function must maximize its resources to produce the highest-possible impact.
Learning and performance are no different. Learning organizations have reduced resources and must manage a larger number of training projects requests. In addition, these projects are completed in shorter periods to retain competitive advantage.