How important is

Project Management
for eLearning Course
Development?

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Table of Contents

1. Project Management in eLearning

• Meaning
• Importance
2. Key Components of Project Management in eLearning
A. Understanding Customer and Project Requirements
— Understanding the client
— Understanding the stakeholders
— Understanding the project
B. Understanding the Timeframe and Scope
— Project timeframe
— Project scope document
C. Understanding Roles, Responsibilities and Relationships
— eLearning team (Clients, Vendors, Internal Team members)
— Team dynamics
— Interpersonal relationships
3. eLearning Course Development Process
• Initiation
• Planning
• Execution
• Controlling or QA
• Project Closure
4. Conclusion
5. About CommLab India

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Project Management in eLearning

Meaning
Every organization is engaged in doing some kind of work. The work can be operational or
project based. Unlike operational activity, project based work is always temporary and unique in
its characteristics. Project is always a result of an organizations response to those issues or requests
that cannot be addressed by its day-to-day operational activities.
Project Management is an approach to manage and control project initiatives of an
organization. Different projects are handled in different ways, but they all follow a well disciplined
approach accompanied with general management skills. The success of any project always
depends on how well it was managed. Therefore, it becomes very important to have knowledge
of key elements in a project in order to manage it more efficiently.

Project Management is an approach to manage and

control project initiatives of an organization.

Importance
With globalization, there was need among educational institutions, universities and companies/
organizations to rapidly create and deploy knowledge, information and training to their global
audience. Training needed to be more sophisticated, flexible and easily accessible. eLearning
industry started emerging as a revolution to meet this need. In simple layman‟s language
eLearning can be defined a s “Learning enabled via electronic technology”. Content in
eLearning can be delivered via Internet, Intranet, CD-Rom‟s, satellite TV‟s, video tapes or audio
tapes.
Anyone who understands eLearning will also understand that every eLearning organization is a
project based organization. At any given point, they are working for multiple clients on multiple
projects. Projects here refer to eLearning course development. One should never forget that
each client is different in their own way and so are their projects. In fact, each project is different
with its own set of unique requirements for a particular client. To have long term relationship with
the clients, it is very important that these projects are managed efficiently and effectively. Thus,
the need for project management for eLearning Course Development becomes crucial.

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Key Components of Project Management of eLearning

At CommLab India, project management starts much before the project initiation and does not
end with project closure. Our project management approach has always been to understand
not only the project requirements, but also to understand the client and the stakeholders
involved with the project so that we maintain long term business relationship with them.
Given this, you might be tempted to believe that the success of a project depends on your
understanding of the client, the stakeholders and the objectives of the project? Well! In reality
there is more to it than this. Of course, understanding of the client and his requirements, the
stakeholders and the objectives of the project are important aspects that help you achieve
success, but the ultimate success is achieved only when you have the right project team.
Understanding the internal team members, vendors and all the others who directly or indirectly
have an impact on your project is an essential part of Project Management.
Now let‟s understand the basic components in the project management approach.

A. Understanding Customer and Project Requirements

It has been our experience that an extra bit of knowledge about your client can always help
you in your relationship with the client and generate good business. Our approach is threefold -
Understand the client, understand the stakeholder and understand the project.

I. Understanding the client

Here we understand our client as a company. Though in-depth knowledge is not required, we
gather some basic information such as
Key Data – Key data is compiled based on the answers to the following questions:-

• What business is our client into?

• Which market needs are being taken care by them?
• When and how did they come into existence? Where is their head quarter?

• What is its mission and vision statement?

• Who are the key people and their roles?
• What is the approximate number of employees?
• What is the present turnover of the company.
Along with this data it is also very important that we include information about the industry to
which it belongs and the latest trends in that industry.

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Key Components of Project Management of eLearning

Products and Markets

We need to understand in detail the products or services offered by the client. We also need to
understand its major customers and the markets where they are active and its market position.
Knowledge about the number of offices it has all over the world is extremely useful to our business
as our solutions can be based on this information.
Training Initiatives.
Since we are into eLearning business, it becomes essential that we understand the training needs
of our client and the current methods adopted by them. This helps us in offering the most
appropriate solutions for their training requirements. Clients typically use one of the following
methods to meet their training needs.
Instructor Led Training: This type of training is particularly given in training rooms; it has one or
more instructors who teach skills or material to a group of persons as a lecture, demo, discussions
or presentations.
eLearning: This type of training is particularly used by those who want to reach maximum
audience, but is not possible through ILT‟s.

Blended: This is a mix of both eLearning with ILT.

Once we are aware of products and services offered by our clients, we can identify the type of
training that would be required by them which we have divided as follows:
• Sales, Product and Customer Training
• HR, Legal and Compliance Training
• Career Enhancement Training

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Key Components of Project Management of eLearning

II. Understanding the stakeholder

Understanding the stakeholder is the next step in understanding the client and the project
requirements. He/ She will be the key contact between us and the client.
We need to get information about the following:
• His/ her designation?
• His/ her role in the project - Decision makers or influencer?
• Is he/ she reporting to any superior, if yes who is he?
• Who are the key people who are part of his/her team?
• His/ her personal traits with respect to cost, time, and quality?
• Communication methods that he/ she comfortable with?
Along with this data it is also very important that we include information about the industry to
which it belongs and the latest trends in that industry.
One should remember that in order to understand the stakeholder, we should have a clear
understanding of all of the above. While some of them are important for smooth running of your
current project, others are important to maintain long term business relation not only with the
stakeholder but also with the client. Ultimately, we need to tailor our methods to suit the client‟s
requirements and expectations.

III. Understanding the Project

There is always an 80-20 rule that you should follow when understanding the customer and the
requirements of a project. Your focus on the client and stakeholder should be 20% and the rest
80% should be devoted to understanding the project.
Project manager is essentially a representative of the client; he should have complete
knowledge and understanding of the project so that he can direct the project team towards
satisfying client‟s requirements.

Things you should focus on when Understanding the Project:

Have a clear understanding on the type of content that needs to be developed into a
courseware so that you can estimate the correct development time and pass on the same to
the client.

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Key Components of Project Management of eLearning

Content could be in many forms such as:

• Facts: Specific and unique piece of information that must be individually memorized to be
known
• Concepts: Include definitions, features, examples etc. (technical/ non-technical)
• Process: Descriptions of how things work
• Procedure: Series of clearly defined steps that are done same way each time
• Principle: Needs to be trained at the application level of performance

Principles

Process

Procedure

Concepts
+Facts

You also need to comprehend the requirements of your clients and capture his perception
about the end product.
At the same time you need to have a very good understanding of the learners are the benefits
that they are going to get after taking up the course. It is essential to develop the course keeping
in mind the learners and not the stakeholder. Only when a course is learner centric it will be able
to achieve the project objectives and client requirements.

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Key Components of Project Management of eLearning

B. Understanding the Timeframe and Scope

Project Scope is a document that defines the project work along with the project objectives,
requirements, assumptions, constraints, estimated risk, estimated budget and development. The
following diagram represents the typical stages of eLearning course development process and
the timeframe required at each process. This of course is a rough indication and the actual
timeframe might vary depending on the complexities involved in the project.

Project Scope is a document that defines the project work along with
the project objectives, requirements, assumptions, constraints,
estimated risk, estimated budget and development.

Project Timeframe

The eLearning course development process starts with initiation and planning and ends once the
final version submitted to client. The chart above will give you an idea of the typical process
followed for developing an eLearning course and breakup of the development time. For any
course with duration of 45 – 60 minutes, the development time would be around 8 weeks
approximately.

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Key Components of Project Management of eLearning

Project Scope document

The first thing that needs to be prepared with the initiation of a project is the Project Scope
Document. As is the case with any other project, scoping for eLearning project is very important.
It consists of information about the following.
• Project Background and Description: It refers to the client‟s business needs that would be
addressed with the eLearning course development. This also specifies the context which
has propelled the client to initiate the project. It provides justification for the project which
will be the basis for its evaluation in future. Here you identify who the learners are and what
is expected from them once they take the course.
• Project Objectives and Goals: It is a statement that defines the specific objective that the
project aims to achieve. The main objective of course, is to design and develop a highly
effective eLearning course that not only addresses the client‟s business needs but proves to
be beneficial to them in the long run. However, the project objective also includes the
parameters to which all stakeholders should adhere to. These parameters are the
quantifiable criteria of the project such as the cost, schedule, scope and quality baselines.
• High Level Requirements: It refers to special requirements from client with respect to the
course. It could be the use of a particular development tool, a specific GUI design
requirement, extent of interactivities in the course, special animations and audio,
bookmarking feature, certification after completion & tracking on the LMS, compliance
version and so on.
• Assumptions: It refers to those factors that are assumed to be certain for the purpose of
costing and planning. Some of the assumptions are duration of the course, duration of the
course audio, client review days and so on.
• Constraints: It refers to the restrictions that can affect the performance and options
available to the project team. Some of the constraints that could be faced by the team
are the budget of the project, pre-defined launch date, client‟s availability for review and
the course development tool.
• Project Risk: An event that changes the scope, cost and schedule of a project are
identified as project risks. The project scope document should anticipate the probable risks
that are likely to be encountered during the course of the project and have a risk
management plan in place to counter such exigencies. Some of the possible risks include
undue delay in client reviews, non-availability of subject matter experts or too many
changes in audio narration at every stage.
• Project Deliverables: Any project follows a pre-defined process. The process is divided into
many milestones and each milestone has its own deliverables. Deliverables needs to be
clearly specified for each stage of the project management process. The final output of
the project is a compliant eLearning course ready to be uploaded on client‟s LMS for
access by the learners.

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Key Components of Project Management of eLearning

• Project Staffing: It refers to the project team who will be working on a particular project.
The project manager needs to be identified and the role and responsibilities of each team
member needs to be specified. Here we also include the members from the client‟s end
who will be constantly involved through the entire duration of the project. It includes the
subject matter experts and the single point of contact at the client‟s side for any
clarifications and coordination purposes.

• Estimated Timeframe: The project scope document also consists of the estimated
development time for the course inclusive of client reviews. It is arrived at by first deciding
the project development process (activities) and then estimating the timeframe for each
individual activity.
• Estimated Budget: Budget of the project refers to the total costs of all the resources and
skills that would be used for the completion of the eLearning course development. Here
resources could be both physical and intangible such as use of technology, data and
expertise.

C. Understanding Roles, Responsibilities and Relationships

eLearning course development is a project that has certain pre-defined process to be followed
and requires members with specialized qualities to complete it. The various stakeholders involved
in eLearning courseware development can be represented in the following diagram.

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Key Components of Project Management of eLearning

I.eLearning Team (Clients, Vendors and Internal Team Members)

eLearning Team consists of the Client, Vendors and the Internal Team members handling the
project. Let‟s look at their roles and responsibilities individually.

eLearning Team consists of the Client, Vendors and

the Internal Team members handling the project.

Client
Client consists of the project owner and the subject matter experts.
Project Owner: Any person, who feels the need for a project, initiates it and enjoys the benefits of
the output, is the project owner. They have full authority for the project and accountability for its
performance.
SME‟s: Subject M atter Experts or Domain Experts are persons who have technical knowledge on a
particular topic or area and provide content to be converted into eLearning. SME have a very
important role to play; they are responsible for providing performance objectives and assuring
technical soundness of a course.
Vendors
Any organization or person who sells services to another organization or person to form an
economic production chain is known as a vendor. The vendors in eLearning context would be
the audio recording provider and the translation services provider.

The vendors in eLearning context would be the audio

recording provider and the translation services provider.

Audio recording provider: For an eLearning, company that provides audio recording is one of the
most important vendors. They take the responsibility for recording the course audio in almost any
language.
Translation Company: Most of the clients have their offices spread all over the world and hence
will need translation of courses in different languages so that they can reach out to maximum
learners. This requirement is met by translation companies who have freelancers to translate
English content into almost any language as per client requirements.

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Key Components of Project Management of eLearning

Internal Team
This is the team formed by the eLearning organization to executive a particular project on time
adhering to the cost, scope and schedule baseline.

Internal team formed by the eLearning organization to

executive a particular project on time adhering to the
cost, scope and schedule baseline.

Any eLearning team consists of the following specialists:

Instructional designers: They design and develop educational programs, learning support
resource and delivery/ assessment tools. Multimedia applications offer the flexibility to design the
courses keeping in mind the learning objectives and profile of the audience. They follow the
Instructional Development Learning System (IDLS) model and its components are:
• Design a Task Analysis
• Develop Criterion Tests and Performance Measures
• Develop Instructional Materials that are Interactive

• Validate the Instruction Materials that are Interactive

Visual designers: If instructional designers develop the content, visual designers are those who
give look and feel to the course and the content so that it keeps the learner motivated and
engaged throughout the course.
Multimedia Developers: The multimedia developers design, create and integrate the multimedia
content such as text, graphics, sounds and videos into the programs. Their end product is ready
to use eLearning course that can be launched on the client LMS (Learning Management System)
and accessed by learners from various locations.
Technology: They are computer based graphical designers who use the computing technology
knowledge and special software(s) to develop interface and integrate graphics, audios, videos
and other media into an eLearning course.
Project Manager: They are specialists in particular area and are closely involved in the five
Project Management stages discussed above in the earlier unit i.e. Initiation, Planning, Execution,
Controlling and Closure. They are always responsible for setting clear and attainable objectives
for the project and manage the three key drivers of a project cost, time and quality. He acts as
client‟s spokesperson in project organization and a close link between client stakeholders and
project team.

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Key Components of Project Management of eLearning

II. Team dynamics

Team dynamics is the combination of the underlying forces that work in a team between group
members or between individuals in the team. It can have a strong influence on the way the
team reacts or performs and can have a lasting effect on the project undertaken by the team.

Team dynamics is the combination of the underlying

forces that work in a team between group members or
between individuals in the team.

It is always the responsibility of the project manager to see that his/ her project team works in
synergy for the benefit of the project. It is extremely essential for the project manager to manage
team dynamics for successful accomplishment of project objectives. This can be done by just
following four simple yet powerful mantras, they are
• Create a win-win workplace
• Have a diversified team where each member is given equal importance and respect in the
project
• Enhance synergy to use not their energy but ability
• Always direct them towards achieving client requirements

III. Interpersonal relationships

Good interpersonal relationship among team members in a project helps them to put in their
best ability and also support other team members when required. Every person is interdependent
and they tend to share thoughts, feelings and views, influencing each other and collectively
working together which sometimes may not be to move in the same direction. In addition to that
there are other issues that normally arise when a group of people are working as a team; they
are issues such as rivalry, jealously, misunderstandings, personality clashes and so on. A project
manager needs to ensure that there is good interpersonal relationship among the team
members and diffuse any conflict causing situations before it is blown out of proportion. He needs
to create an atmosphere so that individuals feel comfortable, take decisions collectively,
appreciate and motivate each other to give their best and achieve team deliverables on time.

Interpersonal relationship among team members in a

project helps them to put in their best ability and also
support other team members when required.

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eLearning Course Development Process

Project Management Process is a combination of five stages. A project management for an

eLearning Course Development is no different. Let‟s understand these stages with the help of the
following figure.

Initiation: At this stage, a team identifies the need for the project and formally presents its ideas
which are accepted. Project Manager is identified to initiate the process. The scope document is
developed stating the project process and identifying the project team. Thus, the major
deliverables of this stage are the scope document, project process and project team.
An approved scope document is an agreement between the project owner and project
organization. Every scope document that includes project objective, project requirements,
project deliverables, significant risks, constraints and cost takes the project one step ahead
towards being successful.

Planning: Effective planning is very critical to the success of any project and more so for smaller
projects. It is an ongoing process and never ends during the lifetime of a project.
The first and the foremost requisite for eLearning project management is the preparation of a
“Project Plan”. It is a formal document used as a guide for project execution and control. It
includes detailed project process, deliverables of each milestone, project team, their
responsibilities and timelines. A well designed project plan provides solution to the three basic
questions, they are
• What?

• Who?
• When?

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eLearning Course Development Process

Once the project plan is prepared with all the information with respect to the project process,
timelines and responsible people, it needs to be distributed to all stakeholders who are involved
with the project especially the client and external vendors for their acceptance and signoff. This
is very important so that there are no misunderstandings with the client regarding the deliverables
or timelines.
Given below a sample project plan that is used at CommLab India. This can be customized to
suit your individual requirements.

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eLearning Course Development Process

Once the project plan is finalized and approved by all the stakeholders, you need to prepare
some groundwork with respect to the project. It can be divided into three segments.
Technical Requirements: Understand the technical requirements of the project and discuss it with
the IT department. All constraints with respect to the project in terms of software or hardware
compatibility issues or any other technical specifications needs to addressed or resolved at this
stage.
Content gathering: As a project manager, you are the first point of contact with the client. You
need to gather all the content that needs to be obtained from the client – that is CDs, brochures,
manuals or PPT presentations.
Visual elements: You will also need to gather the graphics, logos and color scheme requirements
from the client.
Once you have gathered all the data, you need to analyze it and determine if there is any
requirement for supplementing the information available with respect to the learning objectives
of the course. Assist in sourcing the information either by liaising with the client or by obtaining it
from external sources.
The major deliverables at this stage are Resources List, Project Plan, Plan for Quality
Management, Plan for Risk Management and plan for the communication.

Execution: Putting Project Plan into action is nothing but Project execution. It requires
coordination among the team members and the use of resources. A well executed project will
have visible deliverables at each milestone along with performance reports outlining the success
at each stage. Execution is done in four stages in eLearning Courseware development.

Execution requires co-ordination among the team

members and the use of resources.

• Instructional Design Stage: You will need to work closely with the instructional designers to
determine the instructional strategy. This needs to be formulated based on the instructional
goals and performance objectives of the given eLearning course. The strategy gives a
broad outline with respect to the means of delivering the eLearning course in an engaging
manner. For example, is it going to be scenario-based, story based, games-based or is it
going to take a more hands-on approach with lots of interactivities. A project manager
understands the needs and requirements of the clients and therefore needs to closely work
with the IDs to prepare a design document. The design document is like a blue print of the
project. It specifies the content, look and feel and instructional design elements of the
program.

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eLearning Course Development Process

• Story Boarding Stage: At the storyboard stage the content is organized into a design
template called the storyboard. It gives details about the content, graphics to be used,
audio-text and any programming instructions for each and every page of the program.
The program manager acts as a liaison between the IDs and the stakeholders to help
review and validate the storyboard. The project manager needs to then coordinate with
the relevant people for finalizing the voice-over samples. He needs to make sure that the
final audio narration sample is approved by the client before the actual recording by the
narrator starts.
• Development and Production: The tasks involved in development and production can be
concurrently done with those of the storyboard stage by a project manager. This stage
typically consists of four steps. The first stage is the GUI stage where the „look and feel‟ of
the course material is finalized. A project manager will be able to interpret best the
specifications of the client with the VDs to help them provide options. He will then need to
take approval of the stakeholders with respect to the placement of the navigational
elements, GUI and the general „look and feel‟ of the course. Next, you need to determine
and create the learning objects needed such as the graphics, photos, characters or
animations and get approval of the client. Once, you have the approval of all the stake
holders with respect to the storyboard, audio narration, GUI, learning objects and look and
feel, the content can be sent for development and production.
• Deployment: Once the client approves the beta version, the course needs to be deployed
based as per the agreement with the client. It could be integrated with the Learning
Management System (LMS) or uploaded on to an external server.

Controlling or Quality Assurance: The performance reports obtained at execution stage

indicates whether there has been any deviations in the project from the actual plan. If there has
been any deviations, it is at this stage that corrective action is taken for any such deviation that
has been documented. Like Planning, controlling is also an ongoing process that ends only after
successful closure of a project.
To ensure that the eLearning course that has been developed meets the required quality
parameters, it needs to be thoroughly checked at various stages. Normally there are two
deliveries of the eLearning course – the Alpha delivery and the Beta delivery. Before the alpha
delivery, the course is tested for all the mistakes, bugs or oversights and is recorded in the bug
tracker. It is always better to have the course tested at different stages like the ID stage,
storyboard stage, GUI stages etc to minimize the mistakes at the alpha level. Once the alpha
version is tested internally, it is then sent to the stakeholders for their approval. The final version i.e.
the Beta version is prepared based on the inputs in the alpha version and sent to the client after
internal quality assurance. The project manager is the key person who will be spearheading this
process.

Controlling or Quality Assurance ensure that the eLearning course

that has been developed meets the required quality parameters,
it needs to be thoroughly checked at various stages.

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eLearning Course Development Process

Project Closure
“Project Closure” sounds like success to anybody‟s ears because success of your project takes
you to closure. Formal Closure of any project is very important for two important reasons: to avoid
drift and to keep the stakeholders and team acknowledged about project‟s termination.
From the client‟s perspective the formal completion of an eLearning project takes pla c e when
you have actually transferred the final deliverables to the client. However, as a project manager,
your job does not end there.
Such transfer only assures that there will not be further changes to the project and also that there
will not be further charges. Apart from this there are many other tasks that you need to
coordinate before a formal closure at the end of the eLearning course development. They are:
• Invoicing the client for final payments: A project manager needs to inform the accounts
department of the completion of the project so that an invoice can be raised for the said
project and sent to the client.
• Collecting project results (backups): Project results and backups of the relevant files needs
to be taken and file away for any future reference.
• Report: The project results need to be documented along with the issues that came up
during the project, actions taken to overcome them and the learning factors of the project
for future reference.
• Filing and Storage: Each organization can have their own system so that the required
documents are updated in such a manner that other project managers working on similar
projects either in present or future can access the material which can serve as a reference
point for them.

Project Closure” sounds like success to anybody‟s ears

because success of your project takes you to closure.

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Conclusion
eLearning projects are different from traditional projects in the sense that there are two projects
rolled into one. The first is the software project that is combined with a training project. Therefore,
managing such project is not easy. It needs a well-defined and structured project management
approach for the development of high quality, cost-effective and sustainable eLearning
courseware development.

About CommLab India

CommLab India specializes in custom eLearning design & development, translation of courses,
and learning management system integration. CommLab India is a one-stop custom eLearning
solutions provider for 50 organizations in 7 countries. The company started in 2000 with its head
office in Hyderabad, India, and has an office in the US as well.
Our exclusive focus is on providing the following services:

• Custom Courseware development for product, processes and HR training

• Customizable Catalogue Courses
• Translation and Localization

• Webinars for Sales Training

To know more about us, you can visit: http://www.commlabindia.com/

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