Review 360: Share Items with Team Folders
Create shared team folders in Review 360 to organize your content and assign permissions. Allow multiple authors to publish new versions of the content you shared in these folders for better collaboration. Share Folders and Items Understand Tasks and Permissions Publish Collaboratively Get Answers to FAQs Share Folders and Items Move Review 360 items to the Team directory to share them with everyone on the team and let them publish new versions. Share them in folders to stay organized and customize the share settings. There are two ways to move folders and items. Hover over a single folder in the sidebar or an item card in the main window and click the More (•••) icon, then select the Move option. Move multiple items and folders by clicking the checkboxes that appear when you hover over them in the main window, then clicking the Move icon on the dynamic action toolbar at the top. Then, you have three where you can move your selected items and folders, each with slightly different steps. Team Root Directory Select Team from the tree directory and click Move. If you're moving a folder, click Set share settings. Add the Everyone group or choose specific team members in the folder share settings, then click Save. Note: Everyone on the team has editor permission for items in the team root directory. See the Understand Tasks and Permissions section below for more details. Existing Folder Select a folder in Team, then click Move. If you're moving a folder, Review 360 adds the share settings of the parent folder to the folder you moved. Learn more about permissions. New Folder Select a location in the Team section and click the Create new folder icon in the lower-left corner. Give your new folder a name, add/remove team members, and click Save. Note: Moving items to different folders or directories does not change their share link. Unshare a Folder or Item Unshare a folder or item by moving it anywhere in your Private directory. Use either of the two ways to move folders and items discussed above, then select a location in the Private section. Only owners can move folders and items they've shared. If you unshare a folder that contains folders or items owned by others, those folders and items are also unshared and moved to their Private directories. Delete a Shared Folder or Item Select folders and items as mentioned above, click the More (•••) icon, and select Delete. Only owners can delete their shared folder or item and move them to their Deleted Items folder. If you delete a folder that contains folders or items owned by others, those folders and items are also moved to their Deleted Items folders. Tip: Folders and items can only be deleted one at a time. Need to delete several items and folders? Move them to a new folder in bulk and then delete the folder. Restore a Shared Folder or Item From the Deleted Items, select the folder or item, and choose Remove from trash. Restoring shared folders or items moves them back to their original location. If the location or folder no longer exists, you'll find them in your Private directory. Understand Tasks and Permissions Everyone on the team has editor permissions to all Review 360 items in the root Team directory. Control who sees your shared items by moving them to team folders and customizing the folder share settings, as described below. Hover over the folder in the sidebar or the folder breadcrumb on top, click the More (•••) icon that appears, and choose Folder share settings. Or select the checkbox in the upper-left corner of the folder, then click the share icon on the dynamic action toolbar on top. In the pop-up that displays, search for specific team members by name or email and click their names to add them as editors. Or add the "Everyone" group to give all seatholders access to the folder. To remove access, hover over selected members and click the trash icon. Permissions can be either explicit or inherited. Explicit permission is manually adding the user or group through the folder share settings. It doesn't change even when you move the folder. Inherited permission is when the folder automatically adds the share settings from the parent folder. If the folder is moved to another location, its inherited permissions are replaced with the new parent folder's share settings. To convert inherited permissions to explicit, remove the permissions and manually add them back. Updating folder share settings applies the change to all subfolders under it. Currently, this also affects folders owned by other members. The permission on the updated folder is explicit, while the permissions on the subfolders are inherited. There are two roles in the folder share settings: owner and editor. See the table below to compare owner and editor permissions: Folders Tasks Owner Editor View the shared folder x x View shared folder permissions x x Create a subfolder in the shared folder x x Add a new item in the shared folder x x Rename the shared folder x x Change shared folder permissions x Move the shared folder x Delete the shared folder x Items Tasks Owner Editor View items x x Download videos x x Publish new versions of an item x x Insert items as Storyline blocks in Rise 360 x x Hide and unhide versions of items x x Download Storyline 360 project backups x x Disable and re-enable comments x x Export videos to an LMS x x Modify share settings x x Copy the shareable link x x Allow users without Articulate IDs to comment x x Set a password to view the item x x Rename item titles x x Duplicate items x x Move items x Delete items x Restore versions x Delete comments x Publish Collaboratively Allow multiple authors to publish new versions of Review 360 items you shared using any Articulate 360 authoring app. Here's how: Publish your content to Review 360. Items are stored in the Private root directory when you first publish directly from authoring apps. Move it to any folder in the Team directory, including the root folder. Make sure co-authors have editor access to the folder. When co-authors choose to publish a new version of an existing item to Review 360 using the same authoring app, they'll see the item you shared on the list. For Storyline 360 items, editors also have the option to upload a new version, as shown below. Learn more about other editor tasks in the Understand Tasks and Permissions section above. To see who made changes to the shared item, click the Version drop-down list in the upper left corner of the screen to switch between versions. Editors can hide or unhide versions, but only owners can restore a version. Get Answers to FAQs Can I transfer ownership of folders and items? No, but editors can duplicate Review 360 items, and they'll own the copies. However, these won't include comments. You can also transfer ownership when removing the owner from the team subscription and selecting a new team member as the owner. As a folder editor, I can publish new versions of Rise 360 content in team folders, even if I'm not a course/microlearning manager in Rise 360. Is this expected? Yes, any seatholder in the same subscription with editor access to the Rise 360 item in Review 360 can publish a new version. This may include content on which you aren't assigned a collaborator role. Assigned collaborator roles in Rise 360 control who can publish the course or microlearning to Review 360. Assigned folder permissions in Review 360 team folders control who can publish new versions of the items in the folder. Note: When publishing a new version from Rise 360, you can select any content to which you have editor permissions in Review 360. Let us know how this works for your organization. What happens to shared content when the owner is removed from the team? When you remove someone from your team, you must transfer all their shared content to another member to complete the process. To keep the user's unshared content with their Articulate ID account, uncheck the Include personal content box. This is handy when the user is a contractor or freelancer who used their personal Articulate ID to join your team and has personal content connected to it. See this article for more information about managing content when users leave your team. If you're leaving the team, move all the content you want to keep to your Private directory first, then ask your admin to uncheck the Include personal content box when removing your access. More details on how long we'll keep your data here. Can I give non-seatholder admins access to team folders? Only seatholders in the same subscription can access team folders. Will I be notified when someone updates the items I shared? No, we don't send any notifications for team folders at this time. What should I do when I plan to merge subscriptions? We'll help you combine multiple Articulate 360 subscriptions to ensure shared content is transferred to the new subscription. Learn more about merging subscriptions. What happens when the subscription expires and I want to reactivate it? Shared content, such as Review 360 items in team folders, stays with the subscription. If you think you might renew your subscription later and want to keep your shared items, move them to your private directory before your subscription expires. Your online data remains intact if you renew your subscription with the same Articulate ID within six months. You'll have access to all your personal content items. Let us know if you need help retrieving shared content.Review 360: Organize Items on Your Dashboard
To access your Review 360 dashboard (image below), sign in to Articulate 360 using one of these web browsers, then select the Review 360 tab at the top. Use your dashboard to manage your e-learning content and stakeholder feedback. A card appears on your dashboard for each item you publish to Review 360. Each card displays a title, the most recent publish date, an icon indicating the type of content, and a hover menu with several options for managing the item. Search Items Filter Items Manage Items Export Videos as LMS Packages Download Videos Manage Folders Organize Items and Folders Search Items Need help finding a specific Review 360 item? Use the search field in the upper right corner of your dashboard to quickly find items by title or date—for example, onboarding or November 2. The search results dynamically update as you type. Perform a search from any folder on your dashboard. Review 360 always searches all your content in all your folders (except deleted items). Filter Items Use the product filters in the upper right corner of the screen to easily find what you’re looking for. Filter your items for Storyline 360, Rise 360, Studio 360, or video content, as shown below. Video content includes Peek 360 videos, Replay 360 videos, and video files you’ve uploaded to your account. Filter your Private, Team, or Deleted Items folders, the contents of a specific folder, or your search results. When you select a product filter, it remains active as you switch folders and enter new search terms. To remove a filter, choose All Formats from the list of product filters. Manage Items There's a lot you can do right from your Review 360 dashboard. Hover over an item and click the More (•••) icon that appears to show a drop-down list of actions available. Or select the checkbox in the upper-left corner to show the action toolbar on top (note that this also disables the More (•••) icon). Depending on the type of content selected, you'll see the following choices: Export to LMS (Toolbar: Right arrow icon) Host videos in your LMS to track learners’ progress. Once selected, follow these steps to export your video content as LMS packages from Review 360: When the export settings appear, choose one of these LMS standards: AICC, SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, or Tin Can API (xAPI). Enter the percentage of the video learners must watch for it to be marked complete in your LMS. The default is 80%, but you can choose any percentage between 1 and 100. Click Export to finish the process. Or export videos by opening the video content, then clicking the More (•••) icon in the upper right corner of the screen and choosing Export to LMS. To publish Rise 360, Storyline 360, and Studio 360 content for LMS distribution, see these user guides: Storyline 360 Rise 360 Presenter 360 Quizmaker 360 Engage 360 Rename (Toolbar: Pencil icon) Give your content a new name and click Save. Upload new version (Toolbar: Up arrow icon) Upload a new version of your manually-uploaded video content or Storyline 360 project published for manual upload. Select the video or your zipped published output, then click Open. Duplicate (Toolbar: Papers icon) Duplicate an item when you need to share it with a different group of stakeholders or just need to start fresh. Give the copy a name and click Duplicate. The new item won’t have any comments or version history from the original. Move to (Toolbar: Folder with arrow icon) Move your item to an existing or new folder. Select a folder from the list or click the Create new folder icon, give it a name, then click Move. Download Download MP4 files of your video content. Or access this option by opening the video content, then clicking the More (•••) icon in the upper right corner of the screen and choosing Download. You can’t download Storyline 360, Rise 360, or Studio 360 content from Review 360. Delete (Toolbar: Trash bin icon) Delete items when you’re done with them, but don’t worry! You can always restore them if the need arises. They remain in your Deleted Items folder until you permanently delete or restore them. Click the Delete button in the window prompt to confirm that you want to move the Review 360 item to the Deleted Items. When a folder is in the Deleted Items, you'll see the following choices: Remove from trash (Toolbar: Up left arrow icon) If the item was in a folder when you deleted it, it's restored to that same folder (unless the folder itself has also been deleted). Version history and feedback remain intact, so the content looks exactly like it did when it was deleted. You can’t open or view content while it’s in the Deleted Items folder. You’ll need to restore it before you can open it. Delete forever (Toolbar: Trash bin icon) Permanently delete an item by choosing Delete forever. To permanently remove all your deleted items at once, hover over the Deleted Items folder in the sidebar and click Empty. Manage Folders Use folders to organize your Review 360 items and quickly find what you need. Your folders are listed in the sidebar and automatically alphabetized. There are two permanent folders for personal plans and three for Articulate 360 Teams. The Private folder directory, the first folder on top, is the default view when you open Review 360. It's also where your items are stored when you first publish to Review 360 directly from authoring apps. Articulate 360 Teams have a Team directory to manage and collaborate on shared Review 360 items using team folders. The Deleted Items folder can be found at the bottom of the list. You have three options for creating a new folder or subfolder on your Review 360 dashboard: Navigate to where you'd like to create the folder, click New Folder at the top of your dashboard, give your folder a name, and click Save. Hover over a folder in the sidebar, click the More (•••) icon that appears, and choose New folder. Hover over an item, click the More (•••) icon that appears, and choose Move to. When the folder dialog appears, click the Create new folder icon in the lower right corner, give your folder a name, and click Move. To make changes to a folder, hover your mouse over a folder from the sidebar or the folder breadcrumb on top and click the More (•••) icon that appears. Or tick the checkbox in the upper-left corner to show the action toolbar on top (note that this also disables the More (•••) icon). Then select from the following actions: Rename (Toolbar: Pencil icon) Enter a new name for the folder and click Save to rename it. Move folder (Toolbar: Folder with arrow icon) Move your folder to an existing or new folder. Select a folder from the list or click the Create new folder icon, give your new folder a name, then click Move to move the folder to this location. Delete (Toolbar: Trash bin icon) Delete unneeded folders to make space for new ones. Click the Delete button when prompted to confirm that you want to move the folder and all its items to the Deleted Items. They remain in your Deleted Items folder until you permanently delete or restore them. When a folder is in the Deleted Items, you can do either of the following: Remove from trash (Toolbar: Up left arrow icon) Restore a folder and all its items to their original location. Click the View option that appears on the lower-left corner of your screen to jump to this location. Delete forever (Toolbar: Trash bin icon) When prompted, click the Delete forever button to permanently delete the folder and all its items. You can't undo this action. Tip: Click and drag the sidebar divider to the right for a better view of your folder structure. Organize Items and Folders Move or delete items and folders with ease. Select items and folders in three ways: Click and drag your mouse over the items and folders you want to include in the selection. Press Shift+click+drag or Ctrl/Cmd+click+drag to include items in separate sections or pages in the same folder. Hover your mouse over each item or folder and click the checkboxes in the upper-left corner of the card. Press Ctrl+A to select all the items and folders on the current page. You can use this keyboard shortcut across multiple pages in the same folder. To change location, click and drag the selected items to the destination folder on the sidebar or via the breadcrumb navigation on top. Or use the Move icon on the dynamic action toolbar on top to choose a new location, then click Move. To move items and folders to Deleted Items, click and drag the selected items to the folder or choose the Delete icon on the action toolbar. To permanently delete them, select the items and folders from the Deleted Items folder, click the Delete icon from the action toolbar, and choose Delete Forever from the prompt.9 Steps to Better E-Learning Project Management
For e-learning creators, the success of any e-learning project often hinges on how it’s planned and managed. You can have a fantastic idea, design it to perfection, and even line up awesome tools to build your course. But without a solid project management plan, you might find yourself facing some frustrating—and unnecessary—challenges. This e-book walks you through the steps you need to manage your e-learning course projects effectively, from start to finish. You’ll find effective tips, resources, and strategies to help you create and deliver an e-learning course that meets everyone’s expectations. This nine-step guide will show you how to: Get the right people on board Set goals and expectations with your team—and execute on them Find the best solution to meet your project goals Create success metrics and a service level agreement Develop a project plan that shows who’s doing what and by when Avoid common pitfalls that can derail a project Build a foolproof rollout and implementation plan Measure your course’s successRASCI Chart Template
One way to keep your e-learning project on track and ensure everyone is on the same page is to use an accountability matrix (or RASCI chart) to define the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved. Alongside the RASCI chart is a GANTT chart, which allows you to make sure the accountable parties respect the defined timeline. This template is also available as a Word document here.How To Calculate the Cost-Benefit of E-Learning
Most organizations create e-learning as a means to improve employee performance. Courses are supposed to deliver knowledge and skills that make workers better at their jobs. So if e-learning doesn’t improve job performance or the bottom line, most organizations don’t want to invest in it. That’s why it’s critical to calculate the cost-benefit of your e-learning course before you start to develop it. You want to show ahead of time that the benefits of creating and administering the e-learning course outweigh the development costs associated with it. Here are a few things to consider when you calculate the cost-benefit of your course: The Costs Design, Development, and Delivery A lot of factors go into calculating the costs associated with designing, developing, and delivering your e-learning course. You might need to see the HR department to help you figure hourly rates for various job titles, and then do some calculations to convert a salary into an hourly rate. Some costs to include are: Software/Hardware Costs: For example, you might need to purchase a new authoring tool, some stock photography, or a new microphone. Development Time: Calculate development time by multiplying developer’s hourly rate by number of hours needed to develop the course. To calculate an hourly rate from a yearly salary, you can use this formula:salary / 52 weeks / number of hours in a workweek. Meeting and Review Time: Include the value of the time of everyone involved with the project: meetings with a manager, the tech department, your SMEs, copyedit, graphic design, etc. Calculate the dollar value of the time spent in meetings with these people as well as the time they devote to the project. Lost Production Time: The time your participants spend taking your e-learning course is called lost production time. Calculate the lost production time using this formula:# of employees x hourly rate x # of hours the training lasts. These are some of the most obvious costs you need to consider. There might be others, such as organizational overhead and, the cost of setting up an LMS or webpage to host the course. Once you’ve identified and calculated the costs associated with developing and delivering your e-learning, you need to look at the second part of the equation: the dollar value associated with the benefits of your e-learning. The Benefits Benefit of Training The benefits of training can be tricky to identify and narrow down, but it is possible and very important to do so. To calculate the dollar value of the benefits, you need to identify 1) the specific task that is being taught in the training or e-learning, and 2) the average benefit, in dollars, of improving performance surrounding this task. Once you’ve done this, multiply the dollar value of the benefit by the number of employees, and multiply that by a time period. When you have both your total costs and your total benefits, you can calculate your Return on Investment (ROI) using this formula: Having flashbacks to math class? Let me share an example with you to illustrate this more clearly. Cost-Benefit Analysis Example: XYZ Delivery You work for XYZ Delivery as a training designer. Over the past few months, an increase in shipping label errors has caused more packages to be returned undelivered. To reduce the amount of errors, the Shipping Manager wants to create a one-hour e-learning module for 50 employees on the proper way to fill out shipping labels. They ask you, their in-house training designer, to do a cost-benefit analysis for designing this module. First you look at the costs associated with designing, developing and delivering this module: Now that you’ve looked at the total costs, you need to identify the benefits of training the employees at XYZ Delivery on how to fill out shipping labels properly. The specific task being taught: How to fill out a shipping label. The benefit of improving performance for filling out shipping labels: You investigate and identify that, currently, the 50 employees get an average of one error each per week on shipping labels. An error on a shipping label means a package is returned at an average cost to XYZ Delivery of $15 per returned package. Teaching the employees how to properly fill out the shipping label could save XYZ Delivery $750 per week (50 errors per week x $15 per error = $750). Multiply that by four weeks in a month and by 12 months in a year, and XYZ Delivery can potentially save $36,000 per year if they can reduce the rate of packages returned due to shipping label errors to zero. To calculate the net benefit, we’d then subtract the cost of training from the benefit, $36,000 - $4000 = $32,000 is the total net benefit. Now let’s plug these numbers into the ROI calculation shown above: XYZ Delivery can potentially get an 800% return on their money in a year if they invest in this one-hour e-learning module designed to reduce the error rate for shipping labels to zero. It may make sense to leave room for a few shipping label errors—that’s only normal human behavior—so you could edit your calculation to reflect this. Again, this is just a general example to illustrate the cost-benefit analysis more clearly. Hopefully this simple method for completing a cost-benefit analysis and calculating the ROI of your e-learning course will encourage you to do so for your next project. If you’ve done a cost-benefit analysis in the past and you’ve learned a thing or two that you’d like to share, please leave a comment below. We love to hear your feedback! You can always sign up for a fully functional, free trial of Articulate software. And don’t forget to post your questions and comments in the forums! We’re here to help. For more e-learning tips, examples, and downloads, follow us on Twitter.Project Kickoff Questions
Are you starting a new project, but aren’t sure what to ask your Subject Matter Experts? Then download and customize this project kickoff questionnaire to help guide the conversation. If you found this document helpful, then check out:Make Working With SMEs a Breeze with These 3 DownloadsAudio Recording Script in Word
Working with voice talent? If so, you may find that sending along a storyboard document as a recording script is a nice little timesaver. However, in my experience,thatapproachdoesn't always scale well for morecomplex, branched projectsbecause things get tricky when it comes timeto matchup audio clips to individual feedback layers in Storyline. That's where this audio script format comes in handy. It's a Word doc with a simple 3 column table format. The first columnis aspace to record a reference number that coincides with thestoryboard and/or .story file. The second column is forcapturing the script that needs recording. And the third column is a space for calling out any pronunciation pointers to the voice talent and/or notes for yourself or adeveloper. While a little time-consuming to set-up, using this format is agreat way to easeSME approval of a script before it's recorded—and it saves you development timeonce you get that audio back from the voice talent since every clip is clearly mapped to its place in your course. Enjoy!Accounting Tools for Freelancers
There’s an old saying that “time is money,” a notion most of us can appreciate. But when you’re a freelancer, you’re actually living and breathing that truth every day! Whether your freelance business consists of a few clients or side jobs, or is a burgeoning boutique e-learning shop, getting a grip on your finances is the only way to make informed decisions about your business. And when time is money, what’s the point of being in business for yourself if you’re not streamlining your administrative work and continuously reevaluating your goals to optimize both time AND money? That’s where accounting tools come in. In a previous article, I dove into the world of time management tools—which are helpful to everyone. In this article I’d like to expand the focus to include tools that are especially helpful to freelancers: accounting tools. So let’s jump in and run through some apps and tools you might want to check out. Billing When you’re freelancing, getting paid (especially on time) is everything. Without the predictability of a paycheck, staying on top of your billings and monitoring your cash flow become essential to your survival. Here are a few tools that can help make the cash flow and invoicing part of your freelance life a little easier to manage. If you’re a solo shop or just picking up a few projects here and there on the side, you may not need robust invoicing software when PayPal’s invoicing feature will do the trick. PayPal invoices are easy to create and send from a desktop or mobile device, and you only pay a small fee when you’re paid. It’s also a great way to give clients the flexibility to pay you by credit card online, rather than waiting for a check to show up in the mail. Paydirt, an app I mentioned in my rundown of time management tools, also offers invoicing, as well as features that scale well from individuals to small teams, like online quoting and estimating, integration with PayPal and Stripe for credit card processing of invoices, and simple reporting that allows you to see uncollected invoices orkeep tabs on your productivity. Due is an app focused on invoicing and on making payments easier for you and your clients. A notable characteristic is Due’s credit card processing for international transactions, which makes a lot of sense if you do business with companies in other countries. Due also integrates with apps like Wave (for accounting) and Basecamp (for project management). Harvest turns up on nearly every “tools for freelancers” list, and for good reason: it’s easy to use, scales well from individuals to teams, and is feature-rich. Harvest includes time tracking, expense logging, resource forecasting (via an optional add-on called Forecast), and invoicing. But perhaps its most appealing feature is how well it integrates with other popular apps for freelancers and small teams, like Basecamp and Stripe. Although scalable from individual to small business, Freshbooks leans a little more toward small business in its product features. Overall, the features are comparable to Harvest—time tracking, expense logging, and invoicing. Freshbook’s prebuilt reports give you a quick way to save time when you’re crunching the numbers or prepping for tax time (more about that below). And it integrates with Bidsketch, Capsule CRM, Acuity Scheduling, and other small business apps. Taxes Freelancing is a great way to build your portfolio doing work that you love with more autonomy. But when it comes to tax time, every freelancer I’ve ever known expresses a bit of longing for the good ol’ days when the HR department took care of all that pesky paperwork. But tax time doesn’t have to be a headache when you’ve got tools to do the heavy lifting. Many of the tools I’ve already highlighted, both here and in the time management article, offer reporting capabilities to make tax time a bit less … um … taxing. But here are a few others you might want to add to your list. No list of accounting tools is complete without including Intuit’s Quickbooks. And Quickbooks’ new “Quickbooks Self-Employed” is pretty ideal for freelancers. Not only is the tool easy to use, but it’s popular, which means it integrates with most banks, allowing you to easily import your income and expenses. Quickbooks can even separate work and personal expenses automatically. Springing for the Quickbooks “Tax Bundle” gets you the added convenience of quarterly online tax filing and payments through TurboTax. Wave is a feature-rich solution for freelancers and small businesses. It offers invoicing and payments, as well as a host of other features. When I’ve heard from folks who use Wave, it’s almost always to praise its accounting feature. Wave prides itself on being easy and intuitive, so if you’re someone who doesn’t use an accountant, this might be a good fit. Xero is another online accounting app for small businesses. It offers features such as bank account integration for monitoring cash flow and reconciling accounts and the ability to invite a bookkeeper or accountant to collaborate. Speaking of collaboration, I like that Xero also has a partner program for accountants and bookkeepers who specialize in helping clients who use Xero. This is good if you’re cool doing some basic record-keeping but want the help of a pro from time to time. This was just a quick overview of some standout accounting tools for freelancers, but there’s an ever-growing assortment of apps and innovations for supporting workers in the new gig economy. The ones I’ve highlighted here are just the tip of the tool iceberg, so I hope you’ll do your own research and share your recommendations with us here, on E-Learning Heroes. Leave your ideas in a comment below, share lessons learned with a new discussion in the Building Better courses forum—or follow us on Twitter, where we post the latest and greatest news about everything e-learning. Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate software? Get a free 30-day trial of Articulate 360 to check out Storyline 360, Review, Content Library, and more. Also, be sure to come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything e-learning.E-Learning Project Plan
Set clear expectations from the start with this E-Learning Project Plan. Download and customize this Microsoft Word document to help you and your Subject Matter Experts get on the same page. If you found this document helpful, then check out:Make Working With SMEs a Breeze with These 3 Downloads10 Tips for Coping With Vague E-Learning Project Requests
The typical advice when you start a new e-learning project is to find out as much as possible about the problem you’re trying to solve, the audience you’re creating it for, and your stakeholders’ vision for the solution. And while this is a best practice for a reason, sometimes it doesn’t go as planned in the real world. Maybe new regulations require you to provide training on a topic but don’t specify much other than course length. Perhaps your only guidance is that doing anything new is better than what your company is doing now. Or you could be dealing with the problem our Articulate User Conference attendees faced in this Training Trailblazers activity—stakeholders who don’t know enough about training to understand what exactly they need. So, what should you do when you need to know a lot more about a project before you can move forward? Let’s look at some useful strategies community members suggest for digging up that information! 1. Start by outlining what you do know If you feel overwhelmed by project ambiguity, sometimes the simple act of summarizing everything shared with you so far in one document can give you a better sense of what to do next. Also, if all the project conversations and decisions up to this point have been fragmented across lots of meetings and teams, your stakeholders and subject matter experts (SMEs) may not realize how little has been settled. Rounding up the few facts you have and sharing them with those partners can make it easier for you to highlight critical project gaps. 2. Create a list of questions—and experts to answer them Another way to narrow down next steps is to list the big questions that come to mind as you consider the project. Once you’ve finished your initial list, consolidate what you want to ask, ensure you’re covering all your information gaps, and triage the items so you’re asking the most vital questions first. When you finish the list, review each question and identify the best person to answer them. Project stakeholders or SMEs are logical places to start. But also consider if there are others inside or outside your organization that could have helpful information to share. 3. Analyze the problem with the project requester One source for answers can be the person or group who first contacted you for assistance. Even if they’re not experts in the material, they may have insights into what problem they want this training to solve and what they want people to do differently after they take it. If the project requester doesn’t know the answer off the top of their head, it’s worth spending some time chatting with them to try and uncover the answer. After all, if the requester doesn’t know what performance gap the training needs to fill, you’ll be hard-pressed to make that happen. 4. Get to know your audience It’s hard to design training when you don’t know much about who you’re designing it for. Learning more about your target audience can answer lots of questions about what your project should cover and formats likely to work well for them. Not sure what information is most important to find out? This article on how to do an e-learning audience analysis can guide you along the way. Your audience is also a valuable resource when your stakeholders know the gist of what they want your training to address but are foggy on the specifics. Interviewing and surveying your audience members can fill in those content gaps and give you practical ideas for what training experiences would help them the most. Not only that, but their feedback can also point out aspects of the topic you can leave out because your audience already has them mastered. 5. Research common problems and solutions If the initial request is vague about what exactly your training should cover, try exploring the most frequent issues people have with the topic and best practices for overcoming them. That way you can uncover tried-and-true ideas for your course content. This approach may not work well for niche, company-specific content or challenges. But it’s a great starting point for more general training topics, like leadership, communication, or compliance training. 6. Dig into metrics If your stakeholders aren’t sure about the specific areas your audience is struggling with, data may paint a clearer picture for you. Performance metrics can give you direct information about learner strengths and gaps. And you can infer a lot by looking into what company goals they aren’t currently meeting. This approach also has a bonus—it gives you concrete numbers to compare pre- and post-training. That’s a handy way to show the impact of what you create. 7. Consult official documentation or regulations When designing compliance training—or any courses related to legal requirements—the regulations themselves can offer guidance on the content your project needs to cover and what behaviors need to change. While it may take some work to convert this information from legal theory to real-world application, that effort puts you in a much better position to craft learning experiences that effectively meet your compliance regulations and land well with your audience. 8. Review historic courses and related training Has this training topic been covered by your organization before? Digging into what’s been done in the past may give you inspiration for what to do in the future. Old or retired courses can point out what approaches click with your audience and which fall flat. And you may even discover that you don’t have to create your project from scratch after all, but can instead rework existing course materials to meet your new training needs. To keep your course content streamlined, try investigating related courses too. That way you can spot if there are subtopics you don’t need to touch on because they’re covered in other training your audience is taking. 9. Investigate what other organizations are doing in this space Chances are, other companies are tackling similar challenges to yours. And thankfully, we work in an industry where people tend to be generous about sharing their work. Webinars, white papers, conference sessions, podcast interviews, social media posts, and articles are some of the many places you can learn about the training approaches other organizations have used. But publicly available insights aren’t the only resources to check out. Consider reaching out to former colleagues and industry connections outside your company to chat one-on-one about what training they’ve created or seen on your topic. 10. Do a needs assessment Finally, if you’re not in an emergency time crunch, one of the best ways to get all the answers you need and more is to take a step back and do a full training needs analysis. This process helps you analyze the business problem or performance gap your stakeholders want to address and determine the best approach to help—sometimes even identifying when interventions other than training are better suited for the job. Wrap-Up Vague project requests can be stressful and confusing. But these approaches can help you cut through the ambiguity, giving you the details you need to make your e-learning a success. Want more practical tips for starting a project on the right foot? Try these articles: 6 Agenda Items for Your E-Learning Project Kickoff Meeting All About Training Needs Analysis The 7 Questions You’ll Want To Ask When Deciding What Kind of Training To Create And if you’re looking for even more ideas to make every stage of e-learning design and development easier and more effective, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest e-learning inspiration and insights directly in your inbox. You can also find us on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter). And if you have questions, please share them in the comments.
