Dec 13
The other day a client sent us a note, looking for some information that we included as part of her LCMS training, information on how long it takes to make an e-learning course.
I recalled from the training sessions that she had really welcomed the information – and the fact she was looking for it again a few weeks later really shows how important and helpful and valuable the information was to her.
Then the light bulb went on – if it's important and helpful and valuable to her, it's likely important and helpful and valuable to others as well.
After all, at some point someone above us in the organization chart is going to ask us, "How long is this going to take?" And it's always good for your career to have an answer, isn't it?
Apples and Oranges
When we're talking to someone about a possible project, the first thing we need to do is get to an understanding of just what is going to be made.
We use the following chart as a way of framing the conversation. It's a bit arbitrary but it helps explain why some e-learning courses take longer than others to develop.
From there, we have enough experience in course projects to be able to draw some ballpark development times based on person hours:
Remember, there are very ballpark, and include everything from initial content gathering and sifting to instructional design and storyboarding through to building the actual course pages and getting them approved.
But you don't have to just take our word for it.
Karl Kapp and Robyn Defelice have a great article called Time to Develop One Hour of Training in ASTD's Learning Circuits online magazine. And Bryan Chapman has a similar study, How Long Does it Take to Create Learning. Both of these studies have data from a good cross section of organizations, and break the development process down into a far more granular level of course projects than our charts above.
They are great resources to bookmark for that inevitable question, "So, how long is this going to take?"
Chris Van Wingerden is Vice President Learning Solutions at dominKnow Learning Systems.
I recalled from the training sessions that she had really welcomed the information – and the fact she was looking for it again a few weeks later really shows how important and helpful and valuable the information was to her.
Then the light bulb went on – if it's important and helpful and valuable to her, it's likely important and helpful and valuable to others as well.
After all, at some point someone above us in the organization chart is going to ask us, "How long is this going to take?" And it's always good for your career to have an answer, isn't it?
Apples and Oranges
When we're talking to someone about a possible project, the first thing we need to do is get to an understanding of just what is going to be made.
We use the following chart as a way of framing the conversation. It's a bit arbitrary but it helps explain why some e-learning courses take longer than others to develop.
From there, we have enough experience in course projects to be able to draw some ballpark development times based on person hours:
Remember, there are very ballpark, and include everything from initial content gathering and sifting to instructional design and storyboarding through to building the actual course pages and getting them approved.
But you don't have to just take our word for it.
Karl Kapp and Robyn Defelice have a great article called Time to Develop One Hour of Training in ASTD's Learning Circuits online magazine. And Bryan Chapman has a similar study, How Long Does it Take to Create Learning. Both of these studies have data from a good cross section of organizations, and break the development process down into a far more granular level of course projects than our charts above.
They are great resources to bookmark for that inevitable question, "So, how long is this going to take?"
Chris Van Wingerden is Vice President Learning Solutions at dominKnow Learning Systems.
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