According to a study of L&D professionals, 67% of learning development workers lack the time, money and/or workforce to do their job.

Here are some strategies to employ to help you save time when it comes to designing and developing instructor-training and VILT.

1. Start with a Design Document: Create a design document before developing the training. A solid design document summarizes the analysis, lays out the course goal and learning objectives, describes the delivery format and learner achievement activities, and includes a detailed content outline; all of which help secure stakeholder buy-in.

   Try this helpful design document builder to instantly organize, format and deliver instructionally sound design documents.

2. Learning Objectives & Structure: Define clear and specific learning objectives. They focus the training to the performance outcomes the program is being created to address. They also guide the content creation process and ensure that the training stays on track. Use the objectives to set the structure of your course.

3. Use Templates & Style Guides: Utilize templates and style guides to expedite the development process. On average, 50% of the time spent developing training materials is on non-training matters such as fussing with formatting and struggling with images and lists gone awry. Templates and style guides corral and manage fonts, sizing, image placement, headers, footer, pagination and many other page layout and document set-up needs to expedite the document development process.

   Try this helpful facilitator & participant guide builder to instantly set up, format and build out consistent, easy to follow facilitator guides and participant materials. BONUS: If you create a design document using the Learning Design Tool, you can import your content outline into LeaderGuide Pro to seriously jump-start your development process.

4. Don’t Start from a Blank Page: Make sure to repurpose existing content, when available. If you have training materials from previous sessions or other courses, adapt and reuse them. This way, you can start farther down the path. Why recreate the wheel if it is not needed?

5. Chunking Content: Break down the content into smaller, manageable chunks that provide the “Say This”, “Do This”, “Show This Slide” instructions needed to ensure consistent delivery. Chunking makes it easier for the facilitator to glance down and get the information they need to deliver and then be back up in front of the participants. For learners, chunking allows information to be absorbed easier.

6. Leverage Technology: Use training document authoring tools, like the Learning Design Tool and LeaderGuide Pro, to streamline the creation of your training materials. They provide you with the means to jump start the design & development process. They organize and format your documents, help you craft learning objectives and icon-driven instructions, and automate the grunt work associated with importing slides and notes, inserting images and more.

By including these strategies in the design & development of your instructor-led and virtual ILT programs, you can streamline the process and reduce the overall development time significantly.

Did you know?

The average user of LeaderGuide Pro has reduced their development time by 57%.

What could you do with that extra time?