Looking For An Instructional Design Company? - Samples Of ID Work

Instructional design and content development are core components of TrainSmart’s services. We build performance-based training by following a methodology, proven successful, through projects for some of the largest corporations.

Want TrainSmart to design and develop your training programs and/or materials?

Job aids, Participant manuals, Leader’s guides, Logos for projects, Technical documentation, New hire orientation programs, Marketing materials

Who Might Need ID?

If you have in-house personnel that are taking over various design, production, and development roles—or need to learn new software tools, technologies, and applications—a custom curriculum may be perfect for you.

TrainSmart’s Process:

Needs Analysis

Do you think training is the issue? Training doesn’t solve all performance problems. A training needs assessment is the process of identifying performance-based problems and pinpointing those problems that can be addressed through training. This type of assessment will determine the performance gap (examining the current performance against the optimal performance) that must be improved to increase productivity, response time, customer satisfaction, etc. A training needs assessment will also evaluate your current training to see if it is relevant, as well as establish a direction for future training development.

There are many factors that impact performance including: tools, incentives, environment, teams, and access to information.

A needs assessment is most important so that the right solution is determined for the problem at hand.

Audience Analysis

Designing and building a training program is not an easy 1-2-3. You must take into consideration the audience – who will be receiving this training. Group A might be all engineers where Group B might be an entire sales force the personality and behavioral make up of these two audiences are on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Understanding your audience means gathering data through focus groups, interviews, conversations with SMEs, surveys/questionnaires, observing, etc.

Task Analysis

Training is only relevant if the audience can apply it to their jobs. It must be task-oriented and focused on improving actual on-the-job performance. A task analysis will help define the training’s performance objectives for the audience.

Delivery Method Analysis

What is the best approach for training? Instructor led, web-based, eLearning, self-study? This analysis will determine what the best style(s) of training are for the target audience. TrainSmart believes in a blended learning approach, which uses a variety of teaching and learning techniques. People learn in all different ways, so by reaching out to all types of learners your training will be most effective.

Project Management

Good communication and organization equals positive, successful results. TrainSmart feels the best practice for project management is to set clear project deliverables that have set milestones along the path to project completion.

Design

A builder would never start building without a blueprint from the architect. Same goes for content development! The course design comes from the analyses, especially the task analysis. Using the performance objectives uncovered from the task analysis, content developers create a whiteboard for the course. This is a preliminary plan for all lessons and modules with their associated performance objectives and activities. There is also the proposed method of evaluation for the course.

The course design is reviewed by the Project manager(s) and SMEs before the course development occurs.

Development

Full development begins only after the client has approved the course design – outline, performance objectives, activities and evaluation. Each lesson will contain the objectives, activities, evaluation and feedback. Instructional designers use the blueprint, “course design,” to build the content for each lesson. It’s the trainer’s job to bring the objectives, content and activities to life with motivation, articulation and excitement.

Review, Review & More Review…

After development, it’s the job of the SMEs to conduct a thorough review of the content. This is to ensure the content is technically accurate. It is the job of the instructional designer to take the information gathered and delivery it in a user–friendly, non-technical style of writing. The SMEs will double check the content that makes sense and is giving the correct message. On a different level of review, editors must check for grammar, spelling, formatting and style consistency.

Pilot

Before course roll out, a pilot takes place with actual learners. This is a chance for the trainers and client to review the course one last time before its implementation to the participants, department or company wide audience.

This is an integral part of the development process itself. It allows the development team – including the training specialists, SMEs, instructional designers and instructor, to gather feedback from actual participants in a real world setting. Some questions and topics to keep in mind while running the pilot include:

• Time allotment for each module and activity
• Are the instructions for activities and exercises clearly stated?
• Flow of the course
• Are the learning objectives achieved by the end of the course?
• Is the material user-friendly?
• Collect feedback from learners
• Course assessment tools
• What revisions need to be made?
• Revisions and fine tuning of the course continue until the entire development team signs off and everyone is in agreement with the final product.