2. RESOURCES

There is no way of escaping the fact that if you want to deliver an e-Learning training program with content that is unique to your organization, you are going to need people to put it together. Even if you have the budget to outsource the entire project someone still has to manage it. Unfortunately, we are all being asked to deliver more, with less of everything.

Solutions:
Our suggestion here is to look for tools that can take advantage of the structure of your organization. If your organization, or the department that is responsible for delivering the training, is very technical, they may be more inclined to use tools that have a lot of features and don’t mind that those tools come with a more challenging learning curve. If the department has more non-technical people, look for ease-of-use features. If your courseware developers cannot use the tools, you will end up with nothing or, at the most, a small amount of training compared to the amount of time invested. You really want your limited resources engaged. Many vendors offer training and free Webinars on their products.

Another idea is to make sure you train more than one person on how to use your e-Learning toolset. What happens if the few people who know how to use this software leave the company? You do not want your project falling behind because you have to start the project again by training a new developer.

On another, but somewhat related subject of resources, Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) are an extremely valuable resource. This person or persons are the information part of your learning program. The SME needs to feel a part of the team. And indeed they are. It is their expertise that you are trying to capture. Don’t forget the SME resources when you bring your plan to management. What happens if the one person who knows how to back up our data walks out the door and never comes back? What happens if we never captured that SME’s knowledge? What is that worth in dollars and productivity?