Michael Allen's Guide to E-Learning: Building Interactive, Fun, and Effective Learning Programs for Any Company

CHAPTER FOUR

GETTING THERE THROUGH SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION

• “With adequate funding we will have the cure for cancer 6 months from Thursday.”
• “In my administration, taxes will drop 50 percent while lifelong full-coverage health benefits will be extended to all citizens.”
• “We will deliver a strongly motivating, high-impact e-learning application as soon as you need it within whatever budget you happen to have set aside.”

Some challenges are truly tough challenges. Although it might get a program launched, setting expectations unrealistically high doesn’t help solve the real challenges at hand.

Designing effective e-learning applications is one of those truly tough challenges if you don’t have the benefit of an effective process. This chapter talks about the design process and how to involve stakeholders so that expectations can be an ally rather than an additional burden.

A Multifaceted Challenge

Developing learning experiences that change behavior is a tough, multi-faceted challenge, no matter how few constraints are in place and how generous the funding. Just as in designing modern buildings, setting up a new business operation, or manufacturing an aircraft, in e-learning design there are multifarious complexities requiring a tremendous breadth of knowledge and skill. It’s easy for newcomers to be unaware of this until they see their dreams fade in projects that struggle for ...