Investing in training and learning activities positively affects revenue. Organizations across industries are starting to understand this. The wheels typically fall off when these organizations attempt to standardize the tools used to create and execute these new learning initiatives.
Determining the tools used to create compelling learning activities is an important task but not the first step. Standardizing the authoring tool before identifying the objectives (the what) or audience (the who) will stifle creativity and diminish your ability to innovate. The right “step one” is determining the objectives, i.e. What do you want to teach? What do you want the audience to walk away with?
Objectives frame the conversation. A conversation without an objective is a meandering mess, which equates to a waste of time. Think of these objectives as the cornerstones of the “what” conversation.
Following the “what” is the “who” which predicates the “how”. This creates a three step process: determining the “what”(step one), outlining the “who” (step two), and determining the “how” (step three). It’s only appropriate to deviate from this process if you have an endless budget, cycles to burn and believe that generating a positive ROI doesn’t pertain to your deliverables.
Placing more emphasis on one step as opposed to another is impossible because each step is predicated on the one before it. Changing the pitch or length of one of the steps will throw your audience’s balance and no one wants that.
Knowing your audience, is invaluable. Developing a deep understanding of their job related responsibilities and how they consume information will pay dividends in the future. It’s these differences that will help you to determine the best way to communicate with them. If you’re hearing marketing speak, that’s good, you get it. Frankly, if you’re unable to understand how your audience listens you’ll be unable to connect with them and therefore ultimately your learning activity will fail.
The data points you’ve gathered in steps one and two culminate with the “how”. How are you going to communicate your points? What is the learning experience going to look like? Is the material best delivered face-to-face in an instructor-led format or should you leverage the web? Is the audience expecting materials that they can use for reference later? These are the core qualifying questions that will help you to determine which authoring tool is the right one for the job.
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