At the core of PT’s work in using hands-on product work and testing to create marketing materials are facts. As I explore the relationship between creating those technology-marketing materials and creating technology training, I find myself examining the treatment of facts in course development. Do we give facts the same level of importance as learning objectives or competencies? Do we know where the facts come from, who created them, and whether they are reliable? The more I dig into this subject, the more I realize the learning and development community often overlooks a critical component in making sure our training hits the mark: the facts!
How many of us have experienced the following situation?
There’s a new product launch in three months, and you have to develop training materials for the sales, support, and customer audiences. The engineering team is working with the marketing group to generate collateral about the fantastic new solution. Everyone is working feverishly to pull together every possible detail they can use for the launch and to help the learning teams create training.
Your learning organization receives volumes of white papers, presentation decks, and reference documents. You begin the tedious job of filtering through the information to identify what is relevant to your target audience. You assemble a course development team with instructional designers, writers, graphic artists, etc.… and eventually you create and launch the course.
The feedback on the course starts to come in: there are issues with accuracy of the information. Your learning team scrambles to review the content. You have no idea why the course went wrong.
Could we have avoided it?
Yes, by paying more attention to the facts. When you receive the volumes of information about the new product, create a learning FACT sheet. List each key fact, its origin, and how it supports your learning goals, just as you would when you create the learning objectives for your course. You can use this FACT sheet throughout the course development process to ensure accuracy and to validate course direction with your stakeholders. If there are issues about the content after you launch the course, you have a document to use as a reference.
At PT we live and breathe the facts. We test, analyze, measure, compare, and evaluate to discover the facts. With those facts, we build materials that inform a target audience. Most course-development companies don’t have this capability. Instead, course outsourcers must rely on multiple organizations to produce the information they need to create training. When we create training solutions, we follow the same rigor, methodology, and adherence to facts as we do when we’re testing.
I hope having a FACT sheet for your next project will help you bridge the gap between your sources of information and increase your course quality by focusing on the facts.
