Everyone knows that developing eLearning is easy: Throw together some PowerPoint presentations, training manuals, and notes scribbled on the backs of cocktail napkins; post it to the company website, and voila!-eLearning! Right? Not exactly.

To reap the full benefits of eLearning, companies must commit time, attention, and careful planning to the project. Even the most common development process can be an arduous task that takes months if it isn’t executed correctly. The good news is that with the proper planning and preparation, you can avoid the sweat and agony associated with antiquated development methods.

Rapid eLearning Development and Deployment (REDD) is a new method designed to streamline eLearning course development. It’s a fast and effective way to get online training up and running. It’s also a system that strictly enforces (with non-negotiable deadlines) planning, approval, and roll-out processes. The following is a primer on successfully tackling an in-house eLearning project using REDD.

REDD-y…
The first step in the REDD process is to build a strong and knowledgeable team. It’s essential to select an individual who is experienced and capable of multitasking to be the leader. (She needs to be able to motivate team members while simultaneously managing her project duties.) With that solid leader on board, your development team will be able to navigate through the inevitable stormy waters that come with eLearning development.

In addition to a competent leader, your team needs skilled and deadline-oriented members. An instructional designer, a graphic artist, and a tech-savvy person who can build the interface and manage the courseware’s deployment are required components. Equally important, your REDD team needs a subject matter expert or someone who is well-versed on products or fundamental processes of the training. If those skill sets aren’t available in-house, an outsourced individual or firm may be needed.

Now that you’ve got a talented and dedicated group of developers to conquer your eLearning initiative, you need to concentrate on outside relations. The team’s relationship with management makes or breaks a project. Choose your corporate food chain, the smoother the development process. The best contact is a person who can make final approvals on his or her own. If your management contact doesn’t have that authority, the project might be delayed when it gets thrown through the bureaucratic spin-cycle. Here are some other elements that help facilitate the process:

Approvals and deadlines. These two important principles need to be understood by the entire REDD team. Both are crucial to the project’s success and shape the development team’s strategy.

The approval process is the defining feature of REDD. While most other strategies waste time waiting for numerous approvals at each stage of development, REDD requires one approval per stage. Management and SMEs review and approve the content, storyboards, and the prototype together. That heightens the importance of management’s edits while eliminating last-minute tweaks in the later stages of development. Once management gives its approval, the REDD development team bases all further development on those edits.

Deadlines are the lifeblood of REDD. Be sure that the management and development teams understand that they are airtight. Both parties must be committed to this standard and hold each accountable if goals are not met. Deadlines are the crucial factor in the successful completion of a REDD project and cannot be delayed or ignored.

Before turning to the step-by-step planning process, it’s important to hold in-depth meetings with the entire REDD team to establish goals and objectives for the project. It’s during this critical stage that breakdowns in communication can occur. Small concerns, such as standardized file formats and personal contact sheets, don’t sound like they could jeopardize your work, but it’s that type of minutiae that could derail the project.

One valuable tool for the development team is an online reporting structure that allows everyone with the login information—including management—to view the project’s status. It should contain assignments, deadline information, and a checklist to determine when items are completed and by whom. That kind of solid reporting structure helps your team leader track the project’s development, prevent duplicate work, and eliminate time-consuming meetings and status reports.

Set…
Now, you’re ready to begin the process. To start, you’ll need to gather content for the training course. In addition to conducting more formal research, your development team should utilize SMEs during this stage. When all of your data is filtered into an appropriate format (an outline that reflects the structure and chronology of the course to be developed is best), send it to SMEs and management for approval: they will verify the accuracy of your information. Content is the basis of good courseware, so it’s important to make sure data is correct.

With approved content in hand, the next step is storyboarding. When developing storyboards, it’s imperative to plan from the audience’s perspective. Think about soft treatments such as animation, graphics, and testing methods that your participants will accept. While cartoon animation may work well in call-center training courses, it may miss the mark if you are targeting software engineers. Courses designed with the audience in mind will be better received among employees, improving its effectiveness.

After preliminaries are completed, it’s time to create the first functional training module to present to management. This module will be your prototype and should represent the look and interaction of the eLearning. Management can make final tweaks to colors, fonts, bullets, formatting, animations, or any other soft treatments at this time. Note that it is extremely important for the development team and management to be on the same page at that time because there’s no turning back. Once the prototype is approved, all other modules will be based on that design, and the REDD team kicks into overdrive to produce the remaining courseware without interruption.

As your project nears completion, the REDD team will need to determine how to deploy the training. To ensure that the courses will run as designed, the team must have a thorough understanding of participants’ technological capabilities. It’s best to gear the project to the lowest common technology-denominator. For example, if only two users out of 2000 will access your courseware via dial-up modems, those two may need to accept slightly longer loading times. But, if 500 people have dial-up connections, then that information would factor prominently when choosing your design and deployment options.

Go!
Now that the project is completed, it’s ready to be tested. The ideal pilot group is a mixture of intended participants and SMEs (for quality assurance purposes). Nothing sets the stage for a successful rollout more than involving people who can provide constructive input and are likely to extend their positive reviews among their peers. So, choose your testers wisely. When all of the glitches are ironed out and the final approvals are made, take a look around. Feel like your group has been running a marathon? Probably not, if you had an effective REDD team working together. The REDD process is a surefire way to avoid hurdles and run a valuable eLearning curriculum that can dramatically increase your
workforce’s productivity.

Kerry S. Kalous is founder and president of Resource Bridge, a provider of custom eLearning solutions and learning management software; www.resourcebridge.com or 1.877.4eLEARNING.

Source: T&D magazine, July 2005.