Estimating Learning Time
When setting up learning creation as a founding L&D team leader the first step to success is supporting your subject matter experts (SME) content creation. Generally you are the first and only L&D professional in the organization and the below technique will help your SME’s organize their knowledge in a way that is easily translatable to learning.
As learning objectives outline the bedrock of the session writing those are critical for supporting your learner and your SME. I developed a two level chart to help me and my SME’s figure out what the learner should get out of each session, and how to keep your SME focused on delivering SMART content. See table below:
Two levels of objectives:
15 mins or less to present and complete lesson and requires one level of learning
Locate the company Wiki.
Choose the appropriate tool for communicating a request (Asana, Slack, Email)
20 minutes or more to grasp, usually has layered action
Categorize product features into the three main business functions of our industry
The learner will need to know the industry functions and product features meaning more learning time is necessary.
Estimate length of implementation time for a new customer
The learner will need to understand your company’s processes, customer set up, and resources available
Using this basic approach I have my SME’s put together a list/presentation/outline etc. of what they want to cover, then we back track and write the objectives. Dedicating 30-60 minutes to this final task creates a two-fold benefit. The firs SME speak directly to the objectives. (i.e. keeping them form wandering around topics) as superfluous information will be cut out, and the second is this structured content is ready to be re-used in e-learning setting with minimal editing.
