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Four Technology Tips for E-learning Project Managers
By Mark Harrison
The e-learning project manager’s lot is not always a happy one. An e-learning program is a mix of learning, software and corporate communication and the e-learning project manager is right in the middle of it trying to please a whole range of stakeholders.
Half your project time can be spent communicating with others and trying to get a handle on the diverse elements that make up an e-learning project. But help is at hand. Here are some insights into how software tools out there can make life much easier.
In a recent E-learning Guild survey, data showed that:
• 78% of organizations need faster development
• 70% need to reduce costs of development
• 86% use SMEs as primary source of content
• 53% have a problem accessing SMEs
• 60% have a problem with content review approval
"An e-learning project is actually two projects: a software project combined with a performance enhancement (‘training’) project. That means MORE scope, MORE stakeholders, MORE risk, MORE duration, MORE budget pressures, and MORE opportunities for communication to fail." - Lou Russell (Russell Martin & Associates)
Anyone who has managed an e-learning project will recognize what both of these items of information indicate. You can spend almost as much time ‘managing’ around the edges of e-learning development project (with liaising with stakeholders, chasing subject matter experts, piloting content etc) as you spend actually designing the experience and creating the content. It can lead to long delays, serious budget overruns and internal clients deciding they will never do anything like this ever again!
Old hands in the business offer some valuable advice for us to follow:
From the very beginning your team needs to totally understand the project process and the necessity of agreements and sign offs. Remember, they don’t really care about your hassle - they're doing their day job, that's the most important bit for them - not really reading the 38 page storyboard.”
William Ward, experienced e-learning project manager in the Telecoms sector:
“Projects tend to fail on day one. Make sure that what you have to do is achievable… Build your project processes around the client – not around you. There are best practice ways of handling projects, and help the client to understand this, but we still need to deliver to the client."
Nick Reed, experienced e-learning project manager now at Capita Learning and Development
"Be friendly - this can get you a long way. Talk to people - do not rely on email. An audit trail may become important but the communication can be documented in other ways… Put yourself in others’ shoes - what are their motivators, targets?”
Simon Connolly, Learning Solutions and Technologies, ntl:Telewest
But how much can technology help you make this happen? This Kineo Insight Report aims to answer this question.
What’s in here?
We focus on four aspects of project management in e-learning that can be supported and improved by software, such as collaborative authoring tools and project management tools.
Who’s it for?
Our target audience for this report is the training professional who is relatively new to the task of managing an e-learning project and is interested in where to improve efficiencies. Obviously more experienced e-learning project managers can benefit from reviewing the tips and advice but may already be familiar with several of the basic principles.
How to take it further?
If you’re looking to take your e-learning project management expertise further, Kineo’s Rapid E-learning Store contains a wealth of tools, guides and resources to equip the new e-learning project manager in core tasks including
• Stakeholder management templates
• Project initiation checklists
• Needs identification worksheets
These and more are available now at www.rapidelearningstore.com.
First thoughts: What makes e-learning project management different?
At the heart of the question lies the hybrid nature of e-learning. It is a combination of three different domains: learning and content design, software development and corporate communications. Each of these in their own right can lead to logistic challenges. Combine all of them and you have a complex set of responsibilities for the project manager.
Since it is primarily about learning, you have to ensure it does exactly what it is designed to do – it must engage, inform and ensure knowledge and skills acquisition in line with key objectives.
Project manager implications: you need to manage the scoping and design phases to ensure learning objectives, scope, and learning design are conducted in line with overall project objectives.
But it is essentially a piece of software, so it has to run on a whole range of possible software environments without error or interference with business critical applications.
Project manager implications: you need to manage closely the development, testing and launch phases to ensure the successful delivery of an e-learning application.
Finally it has to look right, sound right and please the stakeholders. It is often a high profile piece of corporate communication and a lot of egos need to be accommodated in its development and implementation.
E-learning projects are typically a derived demand, emerging from a larger change or compliance program in an organization with its own momentum and deadlines. Any learning content will need to integrate as seamlessly as possible with the overall initiative.
Project manager implications: you need to identify and manage stakeholders and subject matter experts throughout the development cycle to ensure their needs are addressed and their expectations are met.
Layer each of these implications on top of the standard project management tasks of managing resources, forward planning, ensuring that timeline, budget and quality criteria are addressed, and you start to get a picture of why e-learning project management is different from others: there are more layers, more moving parts and more responsibilities. So it’s not surprising that, sometimes, things can go wrong…
Nightmare on E-learning Street: a brief history of e-learning horror stories
There have been some horror stories over the years when you review the history of e-learning projects. These are just a few common problems in e-learning project management:
• Budget and time overruns
• Stakeholder dissatisfaction
• The end solution fails to meet the needs of the organization
• The content doesn’t work properly within an LMS
Below we share a few real anecdotes of how these issues can impact a live project (with names being withheld to protect the reputation of those concerned):
• One project aimed to develop 70 hours of content in 8 weeks. The project did not deliver as this was unrealistic. In the end, the whole project was abandoned. Just reviewing, let alone writing and programming, 70 hours of content would have been difficult.
Lesson learned: Lack of control during project planning, resource analysis and scoping phase. Could a more detailed project resourcing and management tool have helped?
• A financial services project where the project budget was exceeded and timetable missed through constant changes by stakeholders and subject matter experts. There were over 15 separate iterations and revisions as no one controlled the process.
Lesson learned: More active management of stakeholders and SMEs was required. Could a workflow tool have helped?
• A telecoms e-learning project which looked fantastic, with great use of video and flash was cutting edge learning design and well executed. However, the program was simply not used by learners. Managers were not convinced of the merits, and staff decided there was little value in doing the program. Completion rates are generally very low.
Lesson learned: More consultation of end users and their managers earlier in the process, as stakeholders, would have helped to shape a more useful program. Could using a collaborative tool to share early versions and gather feedback have addressed this?
• One major project had three different project managers and a succession of project sponsors and overran in time by 70%
Lesson learned: Perhaps more active resource tracking would have helped to alert senior management to the crisis?
Most e-learning developers have experienced projects like these, or variations on them. E-learning is not the simplest medium to produce at the best of times but without consistently good project management it can go out of control very easily.
So, you can try and do the basics right: by planning ahead and communicating clearly with everyone along the way.
But how might software help the e-learning project manager help to avoid these mistakes and effectively manage e-learning projects?
Four ways in which software can support e-learning project managers
There are lots of software packages out there that can help the e-learning project manager and yet often you still find projects being run without the increased control and efficiencies that they provide. In our view, that’s a missed opportunity for most project managers.
Here are just a few of the main areas that can benefit hugely from the use of software to partially automate the process
1. Workflow & Stakeholder Management
2. Project planning, task analysis and resource planning
3. Resource Monitoring
4. Bug Tracking
Let’s review each in turn.
1. Workflow & Stakeholder Management – using a collaborative authoring tool
One of the key tasks for any project manager is to manage the workflow on a project and minimize the time wasted through the process of feedback and amendment.
E-learning goes through a number of iterations and reviews as it is developed from design to scripts to graphics to animations etc. If you are not careful this can burn up days in ‘actual’ and ‘lapsed’ time.
Getting the various stakeholders to review content is a huge challenge. Content ideally needs to be made available on a timely basis to those that have to review content. Their comments need to come back equally quickly from a variety of reviewers. In this process it is very important for a project manager to manage these inputs and be constantly aware of who has responded and who hasn’t. If it is the most important stakeholder who comes back after the deadline, it is a very brave (and potentially foolish) project manager who tells them they are too late.
The larger your e-learning project, the greater the number of stakeholders. If your content needs to be updated over time, it can become even more complex.
This whole process can be made far easier if you have a server-based collaborative e-learning authoring tool. This is a growing market with Brandon Hall recent report on authoring tools listing over 30 server based tools, including
• Brainshark
• Composica Enterprise
• Content Point (Atlantic Link)
• Experience Builder LE
• Mohive
Some of these server-based tools include a workflow and collaboration functionality. To see in practice how this can help a project manager, let’s look at one tool that has all of these features: Mohive’s e-learning publishing system.
With an enterprise-wide system like Mohive, all the content (assets, work in progress etc) is held centrally and can be accessed by anyone with internet access. The whole development process (from planning to publishing) is all handled in one package, all online:
The online nature of the whole development process enables an organization to collaboratively plan, create, review, and publish e-learning courses more easily than less connected approaches. A server-based system like this allows you to create and manage groups (such as Editors, Authors, SME Reviewers Group, and Marketing/Legal review) and to set permissions for these groups to allow them to comment or to make particular changes.
Below you can see a how a group of colleagues (they could be designers, SME or key stakeholders) can be assigned to a specific review stage and automatically asked for feedback and comments (by an agreed date of course).
The use of an online review facility allows stakeholders to be kept fully involved and helps manage stakeholder expectations. It can also de-risk projects by providing early sight of content and preventing any late surprises.
These tools make life easier for the project manager as they can track online any content that has been drafted, made available for review, been reviewed and completed.
These comments can be made by many reviewers simultaneously without causing any problems. This activity can be reviewed by the project manager very easily. Any slow reviewers can be prompted via email. If changes are made, this can be done quickly online and a new cycle of reviews can be set up automatically.
In effect, a project manager (or anyone else given access rights) can, at any point in time, see what has been fixed and what is still outstanding, add comments and accept or reject feedback.
Kineo insight: Larger organizations can improve e-learning project collaboration and management by using server based tools.
There are clear advantages to deploying server based tools with built-in workflow. These advantages include:
• It is fast to distribute content to reviewers
• It is easy for reviewers to login from anywhere to access and review content
• Project managers can see what has been reviewed and the comments made
• It is possible to track all comments and changes without the need for a separate tracking spreadsheet as outlined above
• It is also easy to reuse content which will of course help to reduce the timeframe of the project
These advantages are particularly marked for larger organizations where e-learning projects invariably involve people across different parts of the organization, including staff working in different locations and time zones.
In simple terms, the larger and the more dispersed your organization the more likely you are to benefit from a server-based tool like Mohive.
Not surprisingly, you will struggle to get these types of tools for free so you will need to explore what each of the main suppliers are offering. If you want to get more information on the server tool that we used as an example, you should go to the Mohive website (www.mohive.com). If you want to get a comprehensive list of the other development tools on offer in the marketplace (with links to the supplier websites on each of them) it’s worth a visit to
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/vendors/authoring.htm.
If you are looking seriously at buying an enterprise-sized system, you may find it worthwhile investing in the Brandon Hall online database with more detailed reviews on the main tools out there.
Go to http://www.brandon-hall.com/publications/atkb/atkb.shtml to find out more.
2. Project Planning & Scheduling – Using Microsoft Project
Ongoing planning and monitoring is essential to success. You can make all of this easier with the right software project management tools like Microsoft Project which are great for planning, task analysis, scheduling and resourcing.
They are more flexible and easier to maintain and manage than the more static approaches involved when people use Excel or Word to map out project timelines. When these approaches are used, the project timeline tends to become an artifact from the kick-off meeting, rather than a live tool used throughout the project.
Task scheduling is at the heart of MS Project. It forces you to break down the project activities into discrete tasks and sub-tasks. Each task has its own projected start and finish dates and resources are allocated to the tasks, usually in the form of the people who will complete the tasks, and the overall costs involved. You may also link tasks to each other to indicate where one task depends on another.
The key benefit of project management tools like MS project is task linkage. Each task is linked to a predecessor and so any delays will automatically update the dates for later tasks thus ensuring you see the impact on final delivery. Thus you have a clear view of task dependencies and the implications of delays or changes. This provides the project manager with an immediate overall view of the impact of any one task on the total project, and can identify critical paths and pressure points and identify tasks that may be able to be advanced - e.g. scripting cannot proceed without signoff of storyboard, however art direction and overall look and feel may be able to proceed without storyboard sign off.
Project will create a schedule for you and display this in a number of ways including the standard Gantt chart mode. Providing a view such as this is critical for reporting on the overall condition of the project to stakeholders and interested parties.
Kineo Insight: Use MS Project or an equivalent to create and maintain your timeline – but know its limitations
MS Project is an extremely valuable tool for active management of e-learning projects. As an application it has several other functions, i.e. it enables you to track and manage resources assigned to particular tasks, track budgets by assigning a value/cost to each resource, and present project views in multiple formats. In our experience, most people do not use those deeper functions.
A Gantt-based project management software application is a must-have for a project manager, as is the discipline to continuously update it and use it to manage the project and inform your decision making.
The drawback for many is that it is not standard with most PC set ups in organizations but is worth acquiring the tool as all professional e-learning developers will use something like MS Project throughout the life history of a project.
If you want to find out more about MS Project, you go to the product website: to http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/project/ If you don't want to use Microsoft Project, you could look at an Open Source alternative such as Mr Project (http://mrproject.codefactory.se) or Task Juggler (http://www.taskjuggler.org/)
3. Resource Monitoring – using a timesheeting system
One of the key tasks for any project manager is to monitor resource usage against planned resources. This has to be done on a continual basis so that corrective action can be taken quickly. This is one of the most critical responsibilities of a project manager when budgets are tight.
Whilst it is possible to allocate actual resource days in MS Project and to monitor these days, the tool is not ideal for monitoring actual days against budget. Each week the days spent on a project will increase and may vary against what was planned. This raises the issue of time-sheeting and monitoring days spent.
Kineo insight: use a simple timesheet system and ensure it’s managed by task
The best way to manage resource usage on an ongoing basis is to have a time-sheeting system. such as http://timesheet.clockbeat.com/
By using an online time-sheeting system it is possible to monitor resource usage on a weekly basis at a very specific task level. It can be easy for the number of days to escalate especially if there are additional iterations of the content, technical issues or testing issues. You can then take immediate action as soon as there is deviation from the agreed resource days.
Of course the implication here is that, as a project manager, you must agree an estimated resource effort upfront for each task so you can measure project against the task – an individual may be recording time spend, but is real progress being made on the task (i.e. time ‘earned’ rather than ‘burned’)? That is the skill of the e-learning project manager, to review progress on the specific tasks and determine progress against effort expended.
4. Bug Tracking – Using a Bug Database
During the life of an e-learning project various bugs or required changes will be identified. Thus it will be necessary to use a tool to track these bugs and ensure they are resolved by the end of the project.
A shared tool like a simple database can save hours of wasted effort duplicating efforts fixing and re-fixing problems. It also helps you get a clear idea of how far away you are from having a final bug-free program. A simple Excel spreadsheet can be used for this purpose.
Kineo Insight: Establish a simple bug tracking database, and include columns to identify:
- the issue
- its location (ideally by screen)
- the problem
- who is responsible for addressing
- its priority
- when it has been resolved
As covered earlier in this Report, many server-based tools will also enable users to enter their comments directly into the tool and allow project managers to run bug reports instantly, removing the need to run a separate bug database.
Take it further
Collaboration, planning and tracking software can smooth the e-learning project manager’s path to success. One key way in which software can support the e-learning project manager is through reusable templates. As mentioned in this insight report, Kineo has taken the key aspects of e-learning project management and codified them into a series of practical guides and templates, which will make life easier and more rapid for the project manager in:
• Needs identification
• Project definition
• Project resourcing and planning
• Skills identification for e-learning
• Stakeholder management
• Scope definition
• SME management
• Testing and debugging
• Field testing
These guides and more are available at www.rapidelearningstore.com
Need more support, such as specific guidance and advice on project management and the use of technology to enable it? Or perhaps you need a skilled e-learning project manager in your organization right now? Kineo can help with both project management consulting, training and placement services.
Learn more about Kineo's services at or contact us at
info@kineo.co.uk, or call +44 (0) 0870 383 0003
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