A 10-Point eLearning Planning Checklist Perfect For You

Why This 10-Point eLearning Planning Checklist Is Perfect For You
Summary: Learning is about helping people change their behavior. For this to happen, you need to inform your eLearning with an understanding of who your audience is, what their challenges are, and the best way to engage them. Before you even get started on designing or creating, you need to have a plan in place.

The Useful eLearning Planning Checklist In 10 Points Every eLearning Professional Needs

The following eLearning project checklist is the perfect planning template to use in order to develop your plan. Formulated into 3 sections (goals, success metrics, and dependencies), work through each section and make sure you’ve got all 10 steps covered.

eLearning Project Goals

1. Objective

Describe the purpose of your project. Ideally, in 10 words or less to keep your goal streamlined and achievable. Start by working backward and thinking about the end result. What are your learners trying to achieve by using your eLearning?

Use these questions to help you shape your objective:

  • Why does it deserve to exist?
  • What are the benefits for learners?
  • What are the benefits for you?

2. Success Metrics

There’s little point investing time and effort into creating a new eLearning project if you’re not planning to measure its performance. Otherwise, how will you know if you’ve seen a Return On Investment (ROI)? And how will you plan future projects? You want to ensure that your resources are being best-placed.

Before you start designing, decide on the success metrics you will use to measure performance then ensure you make format, structure, and design choices that will help you achieve success. Not sure what metrics to look at? Consider the top 10 eLearning analytics.

3. Dependencies

Are there any related activities or resources that will help you drive your desired outcome? Consider whether the use of any additional interventions, coaching, support, initiatives, or communications will increase the effectiveness of your eLearning.

Audience

4. Who Is The Target Audience?

Get under the skin of who your target audience is. Build a profile of your audience by conducting research and capturing your audience's needs. Try to find out the demographics of your audience (such as age and gender), their location, and the devices they use. You can use this insight to inform important decisions, including how you will reach your audience and when.

5. What Is The Behavior Change You Are Looking For?

Define the behavior change that you want your learners to achieve. What one thing that your learners can do will mean that your eLearning has worked? In essence, you need to decide what you need your audience to do more of or be better at.

6. Current Blockers To Change

Think about why your audience hasn’t already achieved the desired outcome. What’s the blocker? The best way to assess this is to look to those that are already successfully achieving the goal. What are they doing differently or what do they have access to that your audience doesn’t? Once you’ve identified the skills, knowledge, or tools that your audience is currently lacking, ensure that your eLearning provides these.

7. Motivations

Your eLearning needs to compel your audience to take action and change their behavior. Consider the following questions:

  • What kind of approach or digital experience could appeal to your audience? What will motivate your learners?
  • What will be genuinely useful in helping your audience achieve the desired outcome?

eLearning Development Process

8. Process

This step involves thinking about the journey that you will need to go on to achieve your final product. How will you get there? Write down the key stages or milestones and then think about which order they will need to come in. This is your process. Once you’ve established your process, link this back to step 2 and the success metrics you decided on. Throughout the process, how can you be sure that your project is going in the right direction?

Take a look behind the scenes of a successful creative eLearning development process

9. Stakeholders

Now you’ve decided your process, it’s time to do an audit of who and what can help you achieve your end goal of a completed new digital learning project. List the people who have the skills and expertise that can help you get your project off the ground. Additionally, consider any existing materials that you already have access to that you can draw on or repurpose. Essentially, where can you get help from?!

10. Potential Risks

Consider any potential fail points as it’s better to be prepared than caught off guard. You want to try and preempt any problems or roadblocks that you could run into along the way. Then, create a mitigation plan for how you will cope if these risks do materialize.

Summary

Developing a plan of this structure at the start of your project means that every decision you take, including the format you choose and the content you create, will be focused on helping your project perform effectively, and you’ll have the tools in place to be able to quantify your success.

Download a free project planning template now.

Originally published on December 12, 2017