One of the best reasons for investing in a state of the art e-learning publishing system is that you get to keep some of the money you'd previously have spent getting expensive consultants to create e-learning for you. Instead, you can set up your own internal e-learning 'kitchen' and cook up your organisation's Recommended Daily Allowance of training for yourself, in less time and for less money. And, if you can reassure your in-house SMEs that their time is well spent, you will radically improve the ROI on your investment.
"Set up your own internal e-learning 'kitchen' and cook up your organisation's Recommended Daily Allowance of training for yourself."
Good ways to keep your SMEs 'cooking with gas' are to:
- Set clear, achievable project deadlines and manage expectations
- Make sure that SME's managers have bought in to the project and approve this use of their time and resources
- Hold one-to-one coaching sessions throughout the content production process
- Sing the their praises when they do a good job - building up your SMEs improves the profile of for e-learning within the organisation.
Going à la carte
But you may occasionally have projects that demand more advanced functionality than your SMEs can cope with: whether in the form of animation, video or some other feature needed to lift your project to the level you have envisaged. At this point, many an e-learning manager calls in a five star chef from one of the e-learning establishments out there, who invites them to sit back and enjoy the service - then delivers the sobering bill with the coffee.
"External 'chefs' may take control of your menu. There are some common warning signs to look out for."
And all too often in this process, the external 'chef' also begins subtly to take control of the menu. There are some common warning signs to look out for: suggesting that 'just for this project' you follow their workflow/process instead of yours; implying that your authoring tool is only suitable for 'rapid' and won't work for higher-end content; or insisting that content must be scripted outside the publishing system. If you compromise on these points you are much more likely to end up paying money for every element of the project, instead of for just those parts that can't be delivered using your e-learning publishing system. You'll also be stuck with content that you can't update and bound to a specific supplier for alterations.
Keep control of your kitchen
I suggest that you avoid handing over too much control to external consultants - even for high-end projects. By all means, call in the pros when you need them, but don't let them start to undermine the project visibility and control you've gained by deploying a single platform e-learning publishing platform like Mohive eLPS. Instead you should insist that all production and approval is carried out:
- Using your software platform
- Following your development model
- Using the same project workflow that works for your internal projects.
"The more experience you have with internal production the better you'll be as a buyer of à la carte e-learning services."
True mastery of the e-learning kitchen lies in managing a combination of internal and external production. And it's worth pointing out here that the more experience you have with internal production the better you'll be as a buyer of à la carte e-learning services, making more effective use of external resources to achieve better quality for less money. So, by all means, invite different chefs to cook for your kitchen, just be very clear that you are the maitre of the restaurant.
Enjoy.