VISION User Guide

Planning an instructional design project can be simple or extremely involved.  It depends on the scope and complexity of the project.  Some plans are complete documents with fold out schedules, resource plans, detailed budgets and more.  Others are simple, one or two page documents.  But all project plans should have these basic elements:

Goals, Assumptions and Constraints

First, the project goal(s) and expectations should be clear. Constraints, such as cost, resource or time constraints should be documented and communicated to every member of the project team.

Every plan must be based on a complete understanding of the issues, the expectations and goals. This understanding depends largely on the needs analysis, which should have been completed by this point.

Tasking and Staff Plan

Start by listing the project tasks. Identify the resource requirements for each. A matrix is a good way to show the relationship between the project tasks and staff required.  Sometimes this is called a Tasking and Staffing Plan.

Schedule and Milestones

Use the tasking and staffing plan to develop a project schedule with milestones.  The schedule is a fundamental part of any plan.  For very simple projects, a list of dates may be sufficient.  Better yet is a GANTT chart that represents each project task on a timeline. GANTT charts show beginning and end dates, the "critical path" activities and any overlap among the task durations.

Budget

From the project tasking and staffing plan, and considering elements of the schedule, a budget is developed for the project.  Budgets usually have line items such as direct labor costs, and "other direct costs" such as travel expenses, cost of equipment, materials, and so on.

Project planning software applications can be very helpful. They can save time, help you design a better plan, and produce project reports and tracking documents during the project.

Example Project Scenario

Below is a scenario that describes a typical technical training requirement in an industry setting.

•Job position:  Electrical maintenance technician at an electric power plant.

•Target Audience:  About 20 experienced electricians maintain the plant electrical systems.

•Problem:  A 20 day outage is expected to start in four weeks. About 10 temporary contract electricians will be added to the normal complement to help with the outage. The temporary electricians will be union approved at the journeyman level with a minimum of two years experience.

oDuring the last outage, the contractors were not familiar with a new splicing technique involving the use of a commercial product called "Raychem."  Raychem splices require a special technique that, when applied correctly result in better splices and save time.  But when improperly applied, the splices fail quality control inspection and even more time is needed to rework them.  The current 20 electricians will not have time to train the contractors "on the job." They certainly will not have time to make all of the Raychem splices themselves.

•Needs:  The Electrical Maintenance department wants a quick, low cost course to teach contract outage electricians to make good Raychem splices.  They expect the course will be only a day or so long, if possible.  They can spare one experienced electrician to conduct the course before the outage begins.  They also want to be able to use the course for future outage training.

•Asset:  The project will be done with VISION.  Assume automated task checklist, tests, and expedited training documents.

•Constraints:  The Electrical Maintenance supervisor can spare an expert in Raychem splices to work with the Instructional Technologists to develop the course.  However, he can only provide the expert for a few days up front.  After that, the expert can only help out on a part time, as needed basis.

The course must be done in only four weeks.  This does not allow time for video tape or other more elaborate media given, other commitments the video group has at this time.  For now, it appears that a quick print based course is all that can be done.  Later, the media might be upgraded.

The Instructional Technologist developed a quick plan for the project.

Goals and Strategy

Summary

Here is a summary of the outcomes we need:

•A core product will be a self-study guide to teach the knowledge based fundamentals related to the tasks.  Pre test and post test covering 100% of the knowledge objectives will also be provided.

•Another core product will be a laboratory guide.  It will walk through the hands-on portion of the training.  The instructor will support the lab by providing demonstrations, and by supervising trainees as they practice the tasks in the lab.  An instructor guide will provide specific guidelines to the instructor.

•In addition, a task qualification checklist will be produced for use by the instructor to determine if the trainees are qualified to perform the tasks without supervision in a real world setting.

The total package then will consist of pre and post tests, a knowledge lesson, a student lab guide, instructor guide and a hands-on task evaluation checklist.

Project Strategy

The site's resident Instructional Technologist will be the principal project resource.  She will also be responsible to carry out the plan on time.  The Subject Matter Expert (SME) will be used mostly up front, to help with a quick task analysis.  After that, the SME will help with examples, demonstration scenarios, and test questions on a part time basis.

The VISION system will be used to expedite the project.  The job qualification checklist can be nearly automated from the task analysis.  Development of objectives and a course outline will mostly entail on-line processing of task analysis data.   Once test question are entered for the objectives, pre and post tests will be automatic.

VISION uses content that was entered with each objective to produce self study guides or instructor guides.  The IT will use vendor manuals to find most of the content.  Development of  the content will still comprise the bulk of the effort.  The self study format will be modified to produce a lab guide for the hands on portion of the course.  Demonstrations will be provided by the instructor, using a script in the Instructor Guide.

Tasking and Staffing Plan

Below is the project staffing plan to meet the requirements specified in the profile.