Author Archives: Cindy McCourt

I believe that a successful training event depends on several success factors. Three primary success factors include: The design of the instructional materials and activities. The procedures and techniques used during the delivery of the training. The delivery skills of the instructor. Assuming the instructional materials and activities are at their best, the delivery proceduresContinue reading “A View of Training and Education Delivery”

What does the instructional development project need in order to be successful? The answer from anyone who has studied project management might include such items as: an appropriately sized budget; a schedule with enough time; human resources with the applicable skill sets; a development plan that considers risk; and a communication plan. If you wereContinue reading “Success Factors: Instructional D3 Projects”

“Bring me a rock, please.” Ever get the feeling that you are being asked to deliver a product or work that has not been completely defined? You assume you know what a rock looks like based on basic information provided. You find it and paint it, only to find the client wanted a small roundContinue reading “Requirements and Change Requests”

In today’s world of do it better, do it faster, we often look to technology to save the day. There isn’t anything wrong with looking to technology for opportunities to improve. The challenge arises when the technology is chosen before the process that needs to be improved is analyzed. This happens for many reasons. SomeContinue reading “Process versus System”

There are a lot books out there on facilitation. They all say basically the same thing. They tell you a well planned event is better than one you do off the cuff. This is true. However, the best made facilitation plans have unknown factors that can prevent the plan from being successfully executed. I startedContinue reading “Facilitation Tricks of the Trade”

I like to distinguish between measure, metric, and measurement because when it comes to process improvement, design, benchmarking, and re-engineering, there is a difference between what you want to know (measure) what it is that can be collected (metric) when that information is available (interval) what the measurement is against (process or product) what theContinue reading “Understanding Measures, Metrics, and Measurements”

The process of Drupal web design has moved to the front of my thoughts recently. I am not necessarily talking about the graphic design but instead the information architecture component of the design. I started thinking about how much has changed since I was creating basic HTML sites. What constituted planning back then seems aContinue reading “A Drupal Life-cycle”

In brick-and-mortar higher education institutions, where online learning is a grass roots effort, the quality of the course is dependent upon the professor/instructor. In other words, online environments quite often mirror classroom environments. A good classroom environment often translates to a reasonable online experience as well. The professors who put as much energy into theirContinue reading “Online Instructional Development in Higher Ed”

When we are given a tool that makes the development of online learning easier for the novice, we risk loosing the power of the design process. The temptation to open the course shell in Blackboard, for example, and start adding sections, items, folders, documents, etc. can be overwhelming. Add to this temptation the fact thatContinue reading “Instructional Design versus Building Online Courses”

What is cross-training? I use this term to describe a management approach I tried as a Project Control Manager for TRW. A project control manager is responsible for managing the financial books of a government contract. The number of staff in this type of office is often limited in order to keep total project costsContinue reading “Building a Dynamic Workplace with Cross-Training”