Estimating the cost of an e-Learning project is a dilemma that most project managers face on a regular basis. You may have to develop the course the customer wants from scratch, or the content may already be in the form of a slide program. Potential customers frequently request a ballpark estimate of these costs. The typical response is, “Well, it depends.”
Coming up with a cost for Web-based training is like pricing a car: there are so many options that it becomes very challenging to provide an accurate response.
Beyond the obvious activities, such as a kick-off meeting, master schedule, project plan, and status reports, each of which involves the use of primary project management software, guiding a project to success requires developing another layer of documents and tools. Management often overlooks these secondary project management tools, and they probably are not in the project budget. The primary layer of deliverables is certainly necessary, however, those schedules, plans, and reports typically do not address what you need to do on a daily or weekly basis.
In this article, I present a number of tools that contribute to the successful completion of a project. Some of the tools are obvious, but, hopefully, the discussion here will provide you with some new ideas, or validate what you are already doing as correct.
The collection of tools and tips in this article are the result of development over a number of years. I actively employ them today, and they have been keys to highly successful training programs. These tools evolved because of increasing pressure to rapidly prototype distance learning projects. Specific design requirements and tight budgets drive the tools, which are appropriate for use across all sectors, whether academic, private, or government.
Tool #1: The right questions to ask
Ten simple questions can aid communication with a customer during scope determination. I have found that these “Top Ten Must Ask Questions” will stimulate a productive conversation with a potential customer. (See Table 1.)
|
Question |
Key Information |
| 1. Who is the target audience? | Design the course to match the customer. If you are training GMC sales representatives don’t use a graphic of a Ford vehicle. |
| 2. What is the average level of education and experience? | Make sure you write the content to an appropriate reading level. Example: Sr. Engineer vs. entry-level engineer. |
| 3. Do you have any issues or concerns that need we need to address in the training? | Make sure the training is applicable to their needs. Example: Help Desk receives 200 calls daily for assistance with logging-on to system. |
| 4. What delivery method(s) do you foresee using, or that you can support? | If your customer is thinking classroom training and you deliver CBT, you have a problem. |
| 5. Do you want to track student progress? | A Yes answer means you need to start talking about using a Learning Management System (LMS) to track student progress. |
| 6. Do you currently use a LMS? | The course design must be compatible with the LMS you are using. Example: LMS X may have four logical levels, while LMS Y only has three. |
| 7. Do you have to comply with Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)? | SCORM compliance adds about 5% labor effort to a project. |
| 8. Do you have to comply with Section 508 of the American Disabilities Act (ADA)? | Having to write descriptive text for graphics and tables can add 10% to 15% labor effort to a project. |
| 9. What is the timeline to complete the course? | Customers tend to compress schedules, and don’t understand how long it really takes to develop and review a course. Even with adequate resources, three months is the shortest timeline for developing a WBT course. |
| 10. What level of interactivity are you expecting? | This is a difficult concept to define and explain, but you need common understanding on this issue. Low, medium, or high levels are adequate to scope a project. There is about a 50% increase in labor effort from one level to the next. |
These questions are by no means all inclusive, but they will help guide early discussions. They also gather beneficial information needed to prepare an estimate, as well as provide the beginnings of your design document.
