I am currently working on a project where we
are creating learning activities to help representatives gain practice for
certain topics. In the original project meeting it was decided that we would
make them generic (since we had four target audiences that could benefit from
this activity) and no customization at all. As we started to meet with the
subject matter experts, they wanted us to target the activities to the audience
group they represented. They were getting very specific even though we were
told by the business to keep it generic.
We tried to keep the SMEs on track however it
was hard for them to imagine a generic piece. We eventually just developed a
prototype for them to review. We also talked to the business to eliminate other
audiences and focus on one main group for the topics that could not be generic.
The Project Manager decided to create a phase
two of the project to customize to specific roles. We informed the SMEs of this
and it certainly helped to keep them on track for us to finish phase 1 of the
project. I think this was a good idea and it helped us with phase 1.
If I were the project manager or was able to
do things differently, I would definitely do the phase 2 of the project as
well. I think I would also have a better description of the phase 1 project
(since the instructional designers, including myself, were unsure of the need
of the original request).
