As an instructional designer, typically the first task I perform
when receiving a project is to scope the new request with the individual that
requested the project. During the scoping call, I will review what prompted the
request to be submitted, if there are any other solutions that may be better
than designing training, who the impacted
audience is, and what are the learning goals of
the project.
One project came through that was
requesting training be designed for front line staff to cover enhancements that
have recently been made to the member enrollment system. The enhancement was
massive, and the training request called for a multimedia project be developed
with knowledge checks, a mastery test, and practical application simulations. The
training requested would need to be delivered to approx. 10, 000 customer service
representatives, and will take approx. 1 hour to complete.
During the scoping call, it was identified that there would be seven different enhancements that will be communicated in training. However, after the storyboarding process and once programming of the training was almost complete a member of the workgroup who was not a part of the initial scoping call, demanding that additional topics (somewhat related to the system enhancement but only specific to a few csrs) be incorporated into the training, and would not provide final sign-off from their business area until the content was added.
Since this request came so late in the project and was not identified in the scope, this request could potentially cause the project to meet its release date, in addition, to cause the need for additional resources to be brought on board to obtain the requested content. Since call management schedules time for csrs to be pulled from the phones based upon call forecast, not releasing the project on the set release date could impact production, as well as forecasting. Instead of advising the workgroup member that I would not be able to accommodate them since the request was not identified during the scope, I set up a private meeting between that individual, the project requestor, and myself to discuss the request.
Since it was identified that the requested content did not need to be communicated to everyone that is required to take the course, there may be an alternate way for me to communicate this information and not impact the project timeline. I was able to get all parties to agree on not incorporating this information in the multimedia course. However, I would create a separate communication identifying the missing content and send it to select csrs that are impacted.
