Process Overview
In a corporate setting, creating training for internal and customer staff is time sensitive. Although time is of the essence, a curriculum planning effort should be conducted in order to design an efficient and effective skills enablement training course or program.
Approaching curriculum planning using academic methods can take time. Over the years of conducting curriculum planning, I’ve honed the time it takes to complete a curriculum planning analysis while not compromising the results. If you are under time constraints but want to create optimal training products, use this 5-step process:
- Step 1: Gather Data
- Step 2: Reconcile Data
- Step 3: Report Findings
- Step 4: Create the Curriculum Plan
- Step 5: Finalize Report
Step 1: Gathering Data
Gathering data is the first step in the process and is a qualitative research exercise. It includes performing face-to-face interviews and researching collateral associated with the job roles. This step collects the following type of data:
- Relevant job tasks of the target audience, by job role if necessary
- Target subject matter and how it impacts the business
- Definition of success for the subject to be trained in the organization
- Level of competency the target audience currently has and needs to have to support their revised job tasks
- Preferred delivery methods for training currently supplied to target audience
Data Gathering Methods
The methods used to gather the needed information include interviews and reviewing documentation. The data sources include
- Target audience stakeholders
- Target audience candidates
- Job descriptions for target audience
- Documentation on the subject matter. For example, if the subject matter is technology, the research would include features and functions used in technical environment
- Collateral used by the target audience to perform the relevant job tasks
Tips for Efficiency
- Let the audience responses lead the focus of the interviews
- Break up your pool of interviewees into three groups. These groups do not have to be large. By breaking the interviewees into the groups listed below, you are able to validate and refine the findings as you are conducting the interviews.
- Limit the documentation review to documents used or are most relevant to the target audience.
- Use the documentation review to further validate data gathered in the interviews or be the source of questions for the interviews.
- Group 1: Provides the initial data
- Group 2: Used to validate and add detail to what was captured from group 1
- Group 3: Validates data
Curriculum planning is an essential effort to building effective training. The data gathering process can provide you with a holistic approach on not only the content that should be covered in the training but also the best ways to deliver the training to the target audience.