4 tips to brief an instructional design team for your content development
You want to ensure that your vision for your new online learning module is realized. You don’t have sufficient internal capability to design and build it. You need to brief an external organization that has the skills and expertise to create exactly what you have in mind for your cohort.
How do you brief the external team in a way that conveys information accurately to them?
Tip #1:
Provide enough context
Give the expert team enough information to provide them with the background as to why this project is being undertaken. Spend some time thinking this through so that you don’t overload them with unnecessary information and at the same time ensure that there is sufficient data and insights to help them clearly ‘get’ the reason for this project.
Make this as real and tangible as possible. Perhaps include a walk-about (even virtual is fine) in the area where participants will be trained. Or arrange some interviews with relevant stakeholders.
Ensure that the external provider feels as if they are part of your business!
Tip #2
Who are the users?
Provide them with details around the intended audience. What is their standing and level in the organisation? What is their level of language usage and IT literacy? How do they usually consume training? What could be a barrier for them or what could enable their training?
If there is the possibility of meeting some representative users? Think of anything that will help the design team to get as close as possible to the end users – not just their leaders and managers.
Tip #3
Distinguish between Need to Have vs Nice to Have content.
When you brief your expert design team, they need to know what is absolutely essential to include in the course, and what could possibly either be left out for now or included as further reading for those who would like more detail.
This is essential to know or your project risks not achieving its intended outcomes. It requires some thought beforehand so that you don’t simply ‘dump’ all the information onto the expert team without taking time to clearly what is really needed to ensure that your team members are trained to perform at high levels.
Tip #4
Be involved all the way along
Don’t assume that an initial briefing is sufficient. Be available for ongoing input and feedback. Set up regular meetings so that you are able to answer questions, review draft content and also seek feedback from the users at the coalface.
This ensures that the project moves along more smoothly with fewer revisions. Everyone feels like that are an integral and important part of the journey.
Speak to us at Play4Business! We’d love to be involved in your next instructional design project!
