Appendix

The Developer's Dream:
A Fairy-Tale Technical Training Project

Even though there are a lot of challenges associated with technical training development, with practice, you can streamline your processes and more efficiently and effectively develop your own training courses.

The following is an example of a positive work flow:

Development Notes

Once upon a time in the technical training world, a project began. Today I received a course starter packet from Marie, an SME putting together a training course for a nuclear engineering lab.

I met with Marie. I described our different roles in the project, what the instructional design process entails, and what type of information I would be seeking. We talked about the overall business need of the training course and the audience. From there, we put together preliminary course objectives. Marie wanted to think further on what we did so far. We planned to meet at the end of the week.

I had an extensive meeting with Marie today. She brought a few changes she had made to the objectives, and then we started to brainstorm on topics of the course that would meet those objectives. We took those topics and wrote each one down on an index card. I gave her a brief rundown of the various ways that we could organize technical courses. She thought it would be best to order the course as follows: (1) Basic Knowledge; (2) Pre-job; (3) Job; and (4) Post-job. We then started arranging the index cards in that order. When Marie and I were satisfied that we had included all of the necessary topics, we started to brainstorm activities. At first, when prompted to think about what the learners would be asked to do in class, Marie thought it would be enough to include an informal question-and-answer session halfway through the class at the end of Day 1. I showed her some examples of exercises I had developed for previous courses. Marie looked at them with interest and chose four of them that she thought would work for our topic. I showed her three other exercise examples that I saw as possibilities for our topic, and she agreed to give them a try. We now have a good mix of lecture and activity in most of the class except in the “Job” chapter. We agreed that we will both think further on this. We then quickly looked at our list of topics, and I asked Marie to identify any areas where new graphics, video, models, or animations might be needed. She identified two new images and one animation that were needed. I documented these. At the end of the meeting, I agreed to type out a course design document for Marie to review. She agreed to start gathering technical data she has on her computer and on the lab’s server for me. We planned to meet next week.

I emailed the course design document to Marie.

Marie returned the course design document. She slightly tweaked a few terms I used, but the topical outline is still largely the same. Along with the course design document, she sent me seven PowerPoint presentations that she gave to the lab techs last year. Marie explained that two of the presentations clearly fit into the “Basic Knowledge” category, three fit into the “Job” category, and two fit into the “Pre-job” category. I created electronic files on my computer with the names of the four chapters of the course, and placed the seven PowerPoint presentations in their respective folders.

I reviewed the PowerPoint presentations. The “Basic Knowledge” presentations seemed to get really complicated, really fast. I sent Marie an email asking her if she knew of any other sources where I might find some really basic, basic information. Marie responded, giving me the name of an industry association and a government website. I studied these, and the topic made a little more sense to me.

I began to take information from the PowerPoint and put it into the learner manual. After I had done all that I could on my own (based on the outline), Marie and I met and together went through the presentations and continued to add more information. Marie said that in a few days she would email me the exercises we talked about when creating our course design document. Marie cut the meeting short slightly because she had to prepare a presentation for a global product line meeting that she has been asked to attend.

It has been three days since our last meeting, and I still have not heard from Marie regarding information for the exercises. I gave her a call and asked her about the progress of the exercises. She seemed a little confused and asked me to describe again what I needed. I explained the exercises again and advised her that I would send her some documents that should help remind her of the information I needed. I prepared skeleton worksheets for Marie to fill out that would eventually become the exercises of the class. I emailed these worksheets to Marie.

I formatted and rewrote the existing PowerPoint text that is now incorporated into the learner manual. The learner manual chapters begin to take shape. After I completed each chapter, I sent it to Marie to review.

Marie and I met to go over the three chapters that she has edited so far: Basic Knowledge, Pre-job, and Job. She explained each of her comments to me to my satisfaction. I agreed to make her content edits, and she agreed that she will continue to edit the final chapter.

I sent Marie an email asking if she has completed the skeleton worksheets for our course exercises. Marie immediately responded and said she had all of the worksheets completed except for one, because she was trying to get clarification about a particular field test. I asked her to send me what is already complete. She agreed, and after I received the files, I formatted the exercises.

Marie sent me the last chapter. Marie was preparing to travel internationally and informed me she would not be available for a face-to-face meeting until late next week. She said there are only a few changes needed in the Post-job chapter and thought that we could simply discuss these over the phone tomorrow in order to keep things moving.

Marie and I talked over the phone and went over her edits from the last chapter. The changes were pretty self-explanatory, so it was a short conversation. She updated me on the still-missing information she needed to complete the last exercise worksheet. She said she thought she should have an answer after this international trip.

During her trip, Marie emailed me the final worksheet. She also explained that a pilot course has already been scheduled for three weeks from now, and that she would actually be teaching it. We coordinated to meet after she returned to go over the class as a whole.

I finished making all the edits to the final chapter. I incorporated the missing exercise information and finalized the content.

Marie and I met for a course debrief. We went over the course as a whole and the sections, one by one. I asked if she had any questions. She had a couple about one of the exercises. I explained the directions to her as if I were speaking directly to the learners. She said, “Ahhhhh” and commented that she now understood. I explained that if there were any problems I would be attending the pilot course and would stand up to help explain the exercises if necessary. Marie looked relieved and thanked me.

The pilot course was held. Marie did not tell the learners that it was a pilot course, preferring to get unbiased feedback. The course ran smoothly for the most part. After the class, we discussed with the learners what they liked and disliked about the course. There was one exercise in the Job chapter that needed to be reworked, and there was a chart in the Pre-job section that needed to be replaced. We celebrated after the class.

I made the necessary tweaks to the course and sent them to Marie. She responded that the changes looked good. I then set up an electronic folder for Marie to log any additional changes she thought about as she continued to teach the course. I thanked her for her time and she thanked me for my time.

We both lived happily ever after with the finished product.

The End

Smooth projects like this do occur in real life. It can, and it will, eventually happen to you!