How to Scope an eLearning Project

[0:00]Hey there folks, Tim Slade here from the eLearning Designer's Academy. In today's video, I want to talk about how you go about scoping your eLearning projects. And of course, why scoping your projects properly will keep them from going off the rails, as they sometimes do. So let's get to it. You know, when you're starting a new e-learning or instructional design project, much of the work you do on the front end will oftentimes dictate your success on the back end. In fact, with a lot of my e-learning projects, most of the hard work is done before I've even opened articulate storyline or whatever e-learning authoring tool I might be using. Now, whether you work as an eLearning designer for a company or as a freelancer, one of the most important tasks you need to do at the start of any project is to scope it out. And scoping a project simply means to clearly define all of the parameters, tasks, roles, responsibilities, deliverables, timelines, and sometimes the cost for a particular project before it begins. Now, if it's not already obvious to you as to why it's so important to properly scope your eLearning projects, you'd quickly understand if you've ever had a project go off the rails. Having a well-defined scope ensures there's a clear understanding between you and your stakeholder or client about what the project aims to achieve, what will be delivered as a result of the project, when it'll be done, who's involved in the project, and how much it might cost, if that applies to you. Now, the thing is, the risk of not scoping your projects oftentimes results in a lot of scope creep, costly delays, and unhappy stakeholders, and, well, none of that's a good thing. So, how do you properly scope an eLearning project? Well, I've broken it down into five steps. The first step is to conduct a needs analysis. Now, before you start scoping any training project, e-learning or otherwise, you want to make sure training is the solution to the performance issue you're trying to solve. Because otherwise, you run the risk of creating a training solution for a non-training problem. You know what that's called? A waste of everybody's time. And so, by conducting a needs analysis, this can help you begin to scope your project by understanding the nature of the performance gap and the level of effort that might be required to fix it. Now, this brings me to the second step in scoping your projects. If after you conduct a needs analysis and you determine that training is, indeed, the solution to whatever issue you're trying to solve, the next thing you want to do is design, at a high level, a proposed training solution. Whether it's just a single e-learning course or a full blended training curriculum, I usually like to propose my training solutions by creating a simple design document. Now, a design document simply defines each of the topics that will be covered in the training, who the audience is, who will receive the training, the learning objectives that will be achieved through the training, the suggested modality for how the training will be delivered, and, of course, how it'll be measured. By taking the time to create a design document like this one, you can get a high-level sense at the scope of what needs to be built. And, of course, it's something you can easily iterate on with your stakeholders, subject matter experts, or your client. All right, so after you've conducted your needs analysis and defined a training solution with a design document, the third step is to define the requirements and the constraints of the project. Now, this is where you start to outline the parameters of creating your proposed eLearning course or training solution. For example, when I'm defining the requirements and constraints for my e-learning project, it includes identifying what e-learning authoring tool or tools I might be using to develop the course. Whether or not I'll be creating custom graphics or using stock graphics, whether or not it'll include audio narration, whether the training content will be provided to me or if I need to create it from scratch in collaboration with a subject matter expert. How many review cycles will be included at each stage of the development process? How and where the course will be hosted and implemented after development is finished, and really anything that might define what is in scope versus out of scope for the project. And, of course, the same thing goes for any constraints. For example, does the course need to be delivered by, you know, a particular deadline, or do some learners not have access to computers? A constraint is anything that threatens the successful delivery, implementation, and effectiveness of the training solution you've designed. Okay, now, this, of course, leads me to the fourth step in scoping an e-learning project, which is to define the tasks, responsibilities, and due dates. Once you've defined your proposed training solution and the requirements of the overall project, you then want to break that all down into granular tasks. Typically, what I like to do is outline all of the tasks in the form of a timeline. And to do that, I start by listing every single task that's necessary throughout the project. This includes everything from collecting the training content, drafting a storyboard, having my stakeholders and subject matter experts review it, developing a prototype, and, of course, implementing the course. And once I have all of my tasks listed, I then go through and identify who's responsible for each task, whether that's me as the e-learning developer, my stakeholders, and my subject matter experts. And then finally, I define the timeframes for each deliverable, along with the dependencies for each one. This helps to illustrate how delays with one task can result in delays with the whole project. All right, so at this point, you've conducted a needs analysis to make sure you're not wasting your time. You've defined a training solution by creating a design document, you've outlined the requirements and the constraints of the project, and you've defined each of the tasks that need to be completed throughout the project by creating a timeline. Now, the fifth and final step in scoping an e-learning project or any training project is to document everything. That's right, everything you've agreed upon with your stakeholders and subject matter experts, no matter how small, should be documented. And the reason you want to do this is that when one of your stakeholders or subject matter experts asks for something that is outside of the scope of the project, and trust me, they will, they always do. You want to have all of your documentation to fall back on. Now, this doesn't mean you refuse every request for a scope change, but you need to evaluate the cost of that scope change with your stakeholders and subject matter experts before accepting it, as it might affect your timeline. And in my case, as a freelancer, the actual cost of the project. Now, typically, documenting the scope of the project can be done by creating a project plan, or what I call as a freelancer, a statement of work. This defines who's involved in the project, what will be delivered as a result of the project, how the project will be created, how it'll be implemented, and, of course, how it'll be measured. Ultimately, this document becomes your source of truth for you and everyone else involved in the project. All right, so those are my five steps for scoping an e-learning project. Again, at the end of the day, the purpose of scoping a project is simply about making sure you and your stakeholders and subject matter experts or your client know and agree upon what you're doing before you do it. All right, so this leads me to my question of the day, which is, what other tips can you share for scoping an e-learning or instructional design project? Share your tips by commenting below. As always, I want to thank you for watching. Make sure to hit that subscribe button below. And if you want to learn more about managing your e-learning projects or growing your e-learning career, make sure to check out the e-learning designers Academy at e-learningacademy.io. My name is Tim Slade, and until next time, I'll see you around.