A client surprised (and thrilled!) the Poncho team recently when they asked, “How can I help you make my eLearning project a success?”
You see, there’s no doubt that creating a successful bespoke eLearning development project requires a high level of commitment and attention to detail from our team. However, in our experience, the client’s role is just as critical.
Making sure you partner with a professional, experienced company that you can easily collaborate with is an important part of this equation. At Poncho, we believe that maintaining consistent communication between our team and our clients is imperative for a project’s success.
Our specialised team offers a range of unique skills, and it’s important to know how to work effectively with us to get the most out of our expertise. Whether you’re engaging an eLearning development company for the first time or looking to improve your ways of working with a current partner, Poncho eLearning is here to guide you.
Here are six things you can do to effectively collaborate with your chosen company, so your project can produce exceptional, effective results.
1. Prepare and Share
It can be hard to know what to bring to the table to kick off a bespoke eLearning development project, especially when you’re briefing a partner for the first time.
Our tip: prepare and share as much of your existing training content and organisational details as possible, even if you’re not sure it’s directly relevant to your brief. Any information you bring to the table at the start has the potential to become incredibly useful down the line!
Sharing existing training materials and past strategies you’ve utilised to achieve successful learning outcomes in the past will provide valuable context and insights into your requirements and challenges.
As well as providing insights into past training methods, we also highly recommend sharing knowledge about your organisation as a whole. This is the easiest way to have your chosen development company understand your work culture and environment. This will give them the opportunity to rapidly get up to speed and function as a true extension of your training team.
While it’s by no means essential, we also find great outcomes are quickly achieved when our clients take the time to research different eLearning module development approaches. Doing so provides a better understanding of the many options available for creating memorable, engaging, and effective training modules.
2.) Make Time to Understand the Process
Every company will have its own process for scheduling and managing its design and development projects. Regardless of the approach, all parties involved will have an important role to perform. In our experience, the best bespoke eLearning development projects are achieved when everyone’s roles and responsibilities are well defined.
While you don’t need to become an eLearning expert, it’s important you understand the various stages and requirements involved. Doing so will help you to quickly and effectively develop, review, approve, test, and launch your project in a successful way.
3.) Nominate a Project Lead
It’s essential to appoint a dedicated project lead who can easily work alongside the development company’s eLearning consultant. Taking the time to find the right fit for this role will streamline the whole process, making all communication as straightforward as possible.
Having one dedicated contact ensures important communications are never missed. It’s easy for requests for information to go astray when a project has multiple people communicating with your eLearning consultant. Trust us — everyone will assume someone else has it handled the minute things get busy!
Having several people individually provide feedback on a project’s progress is also a recipe for disaster. One person consolidating and sharing everyone’s feedback will make sure your direction is crystal clear.
4.) Communicate Effectively and Honestly
Efficient production processes, effective relationships, and exceptional project outcomes are all built on the foundations of healthy communication. Whether it’s an entire organisation or an individual client, everyone is different when it comes to how they prefer to correspond with one another.
As such, it’s important to establish your expectations from the outset. This will prevent any breakdowns in communication from happening further down the line. Agree on how you’ll communicate, how frequently you’ll communicate, and how long it should take to respond to one another.
Committing to being transparent and open throughout the process is also important. Whether it’s communicating your available budget, the timeframe realistically needed to secure feedback and approvals, or providing constructive feedback, communicating honestly will save time and money and avoid frustration.
5.) Provide Clear, Actionable Feedback
Your chosen company will undoubtedly want to create amazing learning modules that meet your brief. To keep them well-informed, it’s essential you let them know when something is not meeting your expectations and why.
It’s always best to provide feedback in writing so there’s no room for misinterpretation.
It also helps to avoid going into solutions mode — the company you work with has a team dedicated to nailing your expectations, and they are sure to know how to solve any issues you may have.
6.) Stay Open to New Ideas
Technology changes rapidly, especially in the eLearning industry. To stay ahead of the curve and create effective content and modules, you must embrace innovation.
There has never been a better time to create amazing eLearning experiences, thanks to the ever-evolving tools and techniques available.
To get the most value out of your partnership with your eLearning development company, keep an open mind to new methods and approaches. Doing so will help to solve your training challenges by creating super engaging, fun and memorable eLearning content.
Achieve Success With Poncho eLearning!
We’ll say it again: choosing the right partner plays a big part in achieving exceptional results. When you invest time in ensuring you’re engaging effectively with the company you’re collaborating with, you’ll be on the fast track to producing exceptional results.
If you’re looking for an experienced and dedicated team you can truly rely on, look no further than Poncho eLearning. To learn more about what it’s like to work with the expert Poncho team, head over to our contact page and book a call with us today.
