Article by Juan P. Naranjo MBA CTDP Senior Manager Next Gen Learning at Rogers Communications
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-long-does-take-produce-one-hour-learning-juan-p-naranjo-mba-ctdp/
How long does it take to produce one hour of learning?
The answer to this question is like the holy grail of design and development. This is how we figured it out.
Here’s Part 3 in my series of blog posts from my I4PL talk. I want to thank multiple colleagues who have reached out to me and are really curious about this topic, itching to know more details about our findings.
Knowing how long it takes to produce one hour of learning is something like the holy grail of design and development. In fact, This was the first thing my hiring manager asked me to figure out when I joined Rogers and like any decent obsessive-compulsive professional, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Seven years later, I feel my team and I have managed to break the code and worked out a solution.
How did we do it?
We created a digital system where designers track the time they work on projects, every day. Using the same platform they also keep tabs on any learning produced (a.k.a: “seat time”). They do this as soon as their assets reach gold stage (which in our world means they are ready for upload into the LMS or any other publishing tool). On the back-end, the system’s algorithm links both: The time the IDs work on something and the amount of learning they produce. It also calculates how much design and development time went into producing any given asset and the average effort needed to produce one hour of learning in any modality. The beauty of this solution is that we can see the individual number of hours required to produce one specific item, as well as the average of hours to produce any type of asset.
What did we learn?
Well, first: modalities in the world of measuring productivity in learning aren’t linked, necessarily, to the learner’s experience. It’s more about the amount of work required to produce a specific output. To put it in plain English: A learner, let’s call her Carol, takes two WBT courses, one is WBT level one and the other WBT level two. Both would feel similar to her. She may notice that one is more interactive than the other, but beyond that, Carol would feel both experiences could easily be classified as the same thing: WBT. However, the amount of design and development hours put toward creating the WBT level two is substantially higher than producing the WBT level one.
Now that we are clear on this first learning, let’s jump on the specifics: our current standards and some details on what each modality means to us at Rogers:
Instructor Led Training (ILT): 36:1: Producing one hour of Instructor Led Training when the expected output is a participant workbook, a leader’s guide and a PowerPoint deck is 36 hours. This time (and the times for all other modalities below) includes the instructional designer’s development work at their desk and meetings with business stakeholders (SMEs); however, it doesn’t account for translation into another language.
Coaching Kits: 22:1: Generally speaking, these are simpler to design than the ILT pieces mentioned above. The output is usually just a Leader’s Guide. Coaching Kits don’t include PowerPoint decks and the participant workbook (if any) is extremely simple. The standard timeline to complete one of these is 22 hours.
Job Aids: We have established two options: A 10 minute job aid takes 12 hours to design. For a 20 minute Job Aid, the standard is 17 hours.
Web Based Training (WBT): This modality needs some clarification before getting into the details. First: The understanding of WBT “levels” are different from organization to organization. Second: The definitions are never perfect. More than anything else, they are a guideline, so the designer can make an informed call when tracking their work in the system. Labelling the levels requires judgement and there is always some subjectivity involved. As all we know, Design is an art and a science, this aspect is a good example of the “art” part of it. Third: Don’t worry, we are not putting our people to sleep with one hour WBT courses, this is a standard for measurement based on shorter experiences that range from 15 to 45 minutes. Personally, I believe one-hour WBT courses go against the basic principles of neuroscience, adult education and human decency!
Level One: 134:1: Web-based training Level 1 has minimal user interactivity, such as clicking Next or Back to navigate. The assumptions are: the ID is using an authoring tool (E.g. Articulate Storyline or Lectora), has access to pre-established templates and is also doing testing before uploading to the LMS.
Level Two: 190:1: It has intermediate user interactivity, such as clickable options text and graphics. It may also contain knowledge checks that may require tracking. All other aspects from Level One also apply. Developing a Level Two asset will take someone around 190 hours per hour of learning.
Level Three: 225:1: Web-based training Level Three has advanced user interactivity, such as system simulations, branching scenarios, or game-based learning activities. This level would take around 225 hours per hour of learning to complete. There is a caveat though, we had produced a very limited amount of WBT level three assets up until the end of 2017. Once we evaluate our numbers for 2018, we’ll have a larger sample of projects and generate a more reliable number. Take this 225:1 with a pinch of salt.
One last thing we’ve learnt, SLAs (Service Level Agreements) change with the evolution of:
Your standards (E.g. if you decide to entirely forgo creating participant workbooks for ILT courses, that would shorten them)Your technology (assets created using an XML based LCMS vs. more traditional authoring tools would also decrease the amount of time it takes to create one hour of learning)Your people’s experience and skill set (a new hire will take longer to create a course than an experienced designer).
In conclusion, your SLAs are alive, they are a reflection of your specific situation, processes, policies, technology and your team’s culture. SLAs are meant to change in time, if you think that once you’ve calculated them you are done; you will be in for big surprises.
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