Developing the training material

If you have been following this blog, then you should have already gone through the posts on analysis and design. In this post, I will be giving a brief overview on the steps involved in the development phase. The objective of the development phase is to create high quality printed and electronic training material. This is achieved by creating a series of checklists and making sure that all the training material that was planned for adheres to these check lists.

There are primarily five checklists used to ensure the quality of the training material:

1. Learner's Materials Checklist
   
   • There should ideally be one checklist for group training and one for self paced training. Obviously, if only you have planned/designed for both formats.
   
   
2. Facilitator's Guide Checklist
   
   • The Facilitator' Guide is a very important component of the development phase
   
   
3. Audiovisual Materials Checklist
   
   • Audiovisual Materials usually consist of the presentations, videos, audio etc. that are used for enhancing and/or supporting the training delivery
   
   
4. Technology Based Training Checklist
   
   • In case you have designed for Technology based trainings i.e. Web Based Trainings or Computer Based Trainings, you should ideally have a checklist for this as well
   
   
5. Pilot Session Checklist
   
   • The most important event in the development phase, is the Pilot Session. A well designed/developed program should ideally require only one Pilot Session. In case some major gaps are found, it is imprtant to go through the same iteration once again.

I believe the development phase of a training program is one of the most critical phases. It requires the developers involved to have an eye for detail, and everyone who is involved in this phase needs to have an uncompromising attitude as far as quality goes. I remember that in one of my previous organizations, the training material developers used to be the ones burning the midnight oil just to get the right quality material ready.