Developing a successful training curriculum requires a high degree of cooperation and collaboration between various members of the organization. Achieving the required cooperation and collaboration necessitates addressing some critical training project planning considerations that will ensure a comprehensive plan that can be carefully administered throughout the training design and development effort.

The following 7 critical planning requirements are discussed:

• Start on time.
• Clearly define roles and responsibilities.
• Provide detailed information gathering and review schedules.
• Facilitate communication.
• Prevent plan-related distractions.
• Seek organizational support.
• Promote plan compliance.

Let’s take a closer look at each.

1. Start On Time

When the training development plan is an afterthought, training curriculum is developed within unreasonable deadlines and becomes a stressful and unpleasant process for the training development team and others involved in the effort.

Since training development is a collaborative effort, the inevitable pressures associated with unrealistic deadlines are felt throughout the organization. The training development effort must start at the earliest possible point in time to allow for a productive and thoughtful process.

2. Clearly Define Roles and Responsibilities

Successful training development requires that all project participants have both a complete understanding of their role in the process, and an awareness of the expectations others have for their performance.

Clearly defining and communicating all project roles and task responsibilities will avoid confusion and help to instill accountability throughout the training development process.

3. Provide Detailed Information Gathering and Review Schedules

One of the most critical functions of a successful training project plan is to keep information flowing between the training design and development team and the subject matter experts assigned to provide and review information.

Information gathering schedules must address the following elements for each information gathering cycle:

• Who is responsible for providing information at a given point in the information gathering cycle?
• What is the specific timeframe within which the information must be received?
• How will the training team request the information?
• How will the subject matter experts provide the information?

Review schedules must address the following elements for each review cycle:

• Who is responsible for reviewing information at a given point in the review cycle?
• What is the specific timeframe in which review feedback is to be returned?
• How will the training team seek specific reviewer input?
• How will the reviewers provide feedback to the training development team?

NOTE: For optimal efficiency it is recommended to keep the number of review cycles to a minimum. Better feedback can be obtained if reviewers can evaluate content contiguously in the context of the overall curriculum, rather than in sporadic fragments. A comprehensive preliminary review and a final review are often sufficient.

4. Facilitate Communication

Good communication between team members is essential for the success of any project plan, and is especially important in training development due to the collaborative nature of the process.

Fostering the necessary degree of communication between project plan participants requires a solid communication framework comprising three essential components:

A detailed list of project contacts.
Prepare a detailed training team roster that includes complete contact information as well as information on backgrounds, experience and roles and responsibilities within the project.

Scheduled communication activity.
This activity can range from informal conference calls to the structured presentation of status reports. Scheduled communications activities need not be frequent. In fact, too many of them can become a distraction.to the team.

Ongoing feedback from project leaders as to performance in relation to the plan.
For optimal results the plan-related feedback will include positive reinforcement for individual performance in accordance with the plan, and corrective action and proper guidance when individual performance falls short of plan requirements.

5. Prevent Plan-related Distractions

A key requirement of maintaining a high level of productivity is to avoid the many potential distractions and disruptions that result from over-administering your project plan.

Over-administering a plan can shift the focus of the training effort away from the required learning by expending valuable resources on administrative tasks at the expense of more critical training development tasks.

Symptoms of over-administering your plan include:

• Unnecessary use or overuse of project management software. More time can be spent maintaining this software than on the training project itself.
• Frequent meetings that disrupt focus and continuity.
• Excessive planning-related emails or other documents that detract from the curriculum-related information on which the team should be focusing.

It is important to plan carefully and adequately, but it is also necessary to ensure that the plan itself does not impede the actual training development process.

6. Seek Organizational Support

Strong organizational support instills an element of accountability into your overall training project plan. The following are some helpful guidelines and strategies for obtaining strong organizational support for your training development effort:

Seek high-level support.
Solicit support at the highest possible levels of your organization.

Sell the benefits of training to other organization members.
Engage in some intra-company PR. Advise potential supporters of what your training can do for them. For example, higher sales, increased customer satisfaction, an edge over the competition, new and innovative products or processes, or any other factor contributing to organizational growth and/or personal growth for organization members.

Use the investment angle.
Training is often wrongly perceived as an unnecessary expense. Promoting your training effort as an investment will make it significantly easier to get the needed support throughout the organization.

Pursue recognized names.
Get buy-in from individuals in the organization who are known influencers and respected by their peers. Including the names of organizational supporters on training-related emails and other documents can boost the perceived importance of the training development effort and promote an increased willingness to comply with the training project plan.

7. Promote Plan Compliance

Even the best plan will be ineffective if people don’t follow it. In organizations lacking a strong culture of responsibility and accountability, participation by organization members in training development projects is often perceived as voluntary.

The following are some best practices to help ensure that your project plan receives the required level of participation and cooperation:

Enlist strong leaders.
For proper plan compliance, the project team must include strong managers and supervisors who possess both leadership skills and a high level of respect from other organization members. In many, if not most cases, the presence of strong team leadership will, in and of itself, promote a high degree of accountability and compliance among project participants.

Establish recourse.
Define specific procedural steps for cases in which plan participants are not meeting the expectations of their roles and responsibilities. Communicating established recourse procedures provides project managers with additional leverage when addressing cases of non-compliance.

Enforce as necessary. In cases where unresponsive or uncooperative training team members or subject matter experts put the success of the project at risk, enforcement actions are critical. Established recourse procedures must be implemented. Enforcing plan compliance will help to maintain the morale of those performing in accordance with the plan by making all organization members accountable to their specified roles, responsibilities and deadlines.

Proper planning is a prerequisite to success in any endeavor. Be sure to devote sufficient time and effort to properly planning your training design and development effort. Good planning will help to ensure a smooth and productive process and ultimately an effective curriculum capable of meeting your organizational training needs.