Three Angles of Approach for Instructional Design Reviews

In a world where most e-learning development is rapid e-learning development, one of the design process elements that could be easily overlooked is the design review. Instructional Designers and Course Developers who are challenged with getting new modules out the door as quickly as possible to meet a business need may be tempted to skip design reviews as they try to crunch their project timelines down by a few days. But this is a risky proposition. Experience shows that the chances the developer got everything right the first time are slim to none. Skipping design reviews might seem like a great way to save time, but pushing modules out without them may diminish learning and create rework.

Design reviews don’t have to cause project delays if they are planned properly. Anyone who is working to develop a course against a tight deadline will have a pretty good handle on what is going to be done by when. The key is to use this information to schedule design reviews as early on as possible. This will lock in the reviewers and also create additional incentives to keep the project on track. Don’t worry about unforeseen circumstances that might jeopardize readiness by the review date. Put a stake in the ground! The worst that could happen is that the review meetings will need to be postponed and rescheduled.

The bigger issue is: who needs to be involved in the design reviews? Ideally, as few people as possible but reviewers have to be able to cover all the necessary angles. There are three key ones to consider:

Content – Subject matter experts should weigh in on whether or not the content covered in the module is accurate. Since most instructional designers will work with subject matter experts while developing a course, this should be the easiest reviewer to secure.

Learners - Even if the content is accurate, it may not necessarily be relevant. A learning partner who is familiar with the target audience can help by answering questions such as: Is there content missing that the audience might need? Is there content included that could be dropped? Is the module coming across in a way that is clear and motivating to the target audience? Getting questions like these answered during the review process will help pilot tests go more smoothly.

Learning – There is more to learning than just communicating content. The module has to be instructionally sound. A peer review by another instructional designer will ensure the objectives are being met and the learning activities lead to intended outcomes.

And of course, any additional set of eyes is helpful for catching errors, typos or technical glitches.

Skype to the Rescue!

Here is a winter-time scenario that is probably familiar to many learning professionals:

You have a group of employees participating in a learning program.   As part of the program, they are scheduled to attend a classroom learning event.  Participants, instructors, subject matter experts and senior leaders are scheduled to fly in from different parts of the country to converge at the training location for three-days of discussion, instruction and action-planning for the days that follow.  Then the weather strikes.  One or more of the key players for this event can't make it on time, or worst case scenario, at all.   Instead of a smooth-running, well-planned event, now you are faced with using a less-than-ideal contingency plan. 

This week my team facilitated a program for a group of supervisors from our service organization at our training center outside of Atlanta.  The topics mainly had to do with people management issues.  Everything went as planned on days one and two, but winter weather threatened to disrupt the agenda on day three.  One of our key subject matter experts (SMEs), an employee relations specialist, was scheduled to join us for a three-hour segment on day three.  Since that was the only time he needed to be there, his plan was to fly in Wednesday night, join us for the positive employee relations segment on Thursday morning and fly back home Thursday afternoon.  He was coming from the northeast, where I live, and flew in from just a few days earlier.   I've lived in Connecticut for fifteen years.   We have had more major snowstorms this year than in any other year since I've lived here.   On Wednesday night, we had another one.  There was no way our employee relations specialist was going to be able to get to Atlanta for our session.  Time for plan B.

Now we had used this particular gentleman as a subject matter expert for similar training sessions in the past. He facilitates discussion about treating people professionally and in a manner that is in line with our company values.   He also covers important information about legal aspects of the supervisor/employee relationship.   Needless to say, I was disappointed that we weren't going to have him with us in person.  In the past, when things like this happened, we would often have the SME join us via conference call and through Microsoft Live Meeting.  This works well when the SME has a lot of written or visual material to cover.  But our employee relations SME doesn't use PowerPoint slides.  He doesn't have a three-inch binder loaded with printed materials.   He relies on group discussion and storytelling to deliver his message - and he is a very animated storyteller.   He is a dynamic and engaging speaker who adds a lot of value to the topic with his style.  His messages come through clearly and powerfully, and he makes a memorable visual impression.  I didn't want our supervisors to miss out on the advantages created by that style.

Fortunately, I have recently become familiar with, and comfortable using Skype - which is software for making voice and video calls over the Internet.   Both of my kids are in college.  My wife and I have been using Skype  in our conversations with them.   It is one thing to talk to them on the phone and ask how they are doing,  It is another to see their faces.  Are they smiling?  Do they look happy/sad/worried/tired/etc?   Using Skype with them has made us feel that we are all a little closer.  The conversations feel more intimate.  The visual information tells us much more than their voice and words alone ever could.

Knowing our employee relations expert's speaking style, I thought, "why not try to connect him into the classroom via Skype?"   I knew it would be risky.   Would the technology hold up for a three-hour segment?  Would the one-to-group dynamic work as well as the one-to-one conversations that I've had with my kids?  But in the end we decided to try it.   I called him on his cell phone to ask if he ever used Skype.  He said that he had it on his computer but had only used it once or twice over a year ago, but he was willing to give it a try.  Next, we had to find a large monitor and speakers to connect to my laptop so that the group could clearly see and hear him.   Fortunately, we were able to find everything we needed to make the connection.

On Thursday morning, I huddled the group in closer together so that they would be in camera range and dialed up our SME through the computer.  There he was, smiling and ready to go.  He was very comfortable with the set-up.  Even though he was sitting at a desk at home, he was still able to be as lively, animated and engaging as I knew him to be in person.   He could clearly see everyone and he responded to their body language, gestures and facial expressions as if he was in the room.  The one challenge we had was that our audio feed to him was through the microphone built into my laptop.  So there were some times when he could not hear comments or questions from the group.   I acted as moderator repeating/paraphrasing questions for him.  At his direction, I also drew a few diagrams on the flip chart and captured comments from the group during some of the discussions.  All-in-all it was incredibly successful.

Afterwards, I was thinking, "If we were this successful with this impromptu effort, imagine what we could do if we had actually planned and designed this as a distance learning segment."   Now my head is filled with possibilities.   I think we will be doing more distance learning using video calls in the future.

The Power of a Well Placed Question Mark

Yesterday afternoon, my team hosted a webinar as part of an ongoing training program. We were fortunate that our Subject Matter Expert also had excellent facilitation skills, so we really didn't have too much to do. But that is not always the case.

Has this ever happened to you: You are invited to attend a webinar about a topic that is relevant and important to your work. You add it to your calendar. At the appropriate date and time you log on, eager to discuss the topic and have a few important questions answered. The webinar begins. About 15 minutes into it you realize this is going to be a "one way street." That the Subject Matter Expert (SME) will be doing all the talking, while you listen. Gradually you feel the energy drain through the phone line. You begin to hear the muted clicks of someone typing at their keyboard. You start to think about other things you have to do too. Before you know it, you and half of the other participants have tuned out and are politely hanging on waiting for the session to end.

This is often happens when there is no learning person available to host the webinar and facilitate the discussion, or when you don't have someone like the guy we were lucky enough to have leading our session yesterday. Many of us have had to rely on Subject Matter Experts to lead their own sessions at some point in time. In those cases, we prepare and coach them as best we can, and hope for the best.

One technique I have found helpful in these situations is to go through the presentation slides with the SME before hand and place a question mark on the lower right corner of the last slide for each topic. In a typical 60-minute webinar, there may be three or four key topics being covered, so there would be three or four slides containing the question mark. This serves as a visual reminder to the SME and the participants that they have reached the end of the topic and this is a good time for questions before moving onto the next topic. I tell the SME to let the group know at the beginning of the session that when they see the slide with the question mark, that is their opportunity to ask questions. Then, when they finish covering the points on a slide with the question mark, they simply need to ask something like, "What questions do you have about {topic x} before we move onto the next topic?"

This is helpful in both creating and managing the level of dialog in the session. Participants recognize the opportunity to ask questions when they see the question mark and they also recognize that the question and answer period for that topic is over when the SME moves to the next slide.

So before I move onto the next topic in this blog, what questions do you have?