Work out who in your organisation can help with your project, and how to manage their input.
So, you have done your business needs analysis and you are sure that e-learning is the best way to go. You have considered the needs of your learners in depth. Now is the time to put together your team for the project.
It can be tempting to jump straight in to commissioning an e-learning company without considering how the course, programme or resources will sit in your organisation. You may not have an in-house instructional designer, but you can begin designing your e-learning project using internal resources. Then you can better describe what you want to an external provider, and it’s more likely you will get what you need.
As with any training intervention, e-learning is a team effort, whether you develop internally, externally or a mixture of both. So who do you need on your team?
In most organisations there will be a budget holder or business owner who commissions the project (often working with learning and development, or the HR department) and whose staff or department will benefit as a result of the training. The business owner needs to be supported in making the right decisions about how to create, implement and measure training. This is where the team starts to get bigger, starting with a project manager.
To be successful your project will need an in-house project manager who is responsible for managing contact between the wider team. Handling input and feedback is the single most challenging aspect of any learning project – your project manager needs to be part-diplomat, part-task master! Project management for e-learning can involve mediation between suppliers and subject experts, dealing with different views on the best way to achieve the project goals and coordinating the roll-out and ongoing support of the programme.
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