Eight questions to ask your training lead

Any good e-learning partner will appreciate that digitising your learning programme can be a complex and sometimes nerve-wracking process. To help prepare you for that important first meeting with your chosen L&D lead – whether that is an external provider or your inhouse L&D lead or team – we’ve put together eight essential questions that should be covered when a new digital learning project is started.

Working through what your e-learning partner might ask can help you to stay one step ahead and feel confident you’re giving them all the information they need to support your project. We know they work as we always take our customers through them when we start a new project!

1. What do you want to achieve?

Before entering into a new partnership, we always ask this crucial question: what do you want to achieve with this project? Whatever your aim, if your chosen training provider or L&D professional can understand it from the very start, they can do more to help you achieve it.

2. Why do you want to go digital?

Digitising a training programme might seem like the best – or only – option. However, ‘going digital’ isn’t a silver bullet and can bring unique challenges for organisations, L&D professionals and learners. By understanding your reasons for digitisation, your L&D lead can give you a clear and realistic picture of what the process will be like.

3. What’s your specific programme and does it need formal accreditation?

Every training programme is unique, with different measures for success and different methods of delivery. Once your L&D lead knows what the content is that you’re helping your learners progress through, they can use their extensive knowledge and experience to map what is now required on to what you already have.

4. Who are your learners?

Learners should be at the heart of any training programme, so we recommend you take the time to get to know them. What are they like? How do they learn? How does this training fit into their day? By asking lots of questions about your learners, your L&D lead can start to build a picture of the best learning solution for them as well as one that will work for you.

You want to try and avoid reinventing the wheel or spending your budget on replicating high quality content you may already have, so make sure to share your existing content with your L&D lead.

5. What content do you already have?

You want to try and avoid reinventing the wheel or spending your budget on replicating high quality content you may already have, so make sure to share your existing content with your L&D lead. It’ll help them see clearly which resources can be improved, which new pieces need to be made and what works effectively just as it is.

6. How do you deliver this content?

Each organisation has a team of professionals delivering training to learners, but how they do this can vary greatly between businesses. By getting to know your delivery methods, your L&D lead can suggest ways to improve the learner experience and provide your team with resources to support their employees, which adds up to a greater likelihood of learner success.

7. What are your challenges?

Any L&D lead will know that you, your team and your learners will be struggling with specific challenges in your delivery programme. It might be time, cost, location or something completely unique to your organisation. So, prepare to explain why what you’re doing now isn’t working, that way they can help you overcome the hurdles and make it work.

8. How do you like to work?

We know from our own experience how vital the success of the relationship is when developing training solutions, and how important it is that they are built on mutual respect and effective ways of working. If your L&D lead understands how you like to work from the start of the project (and you understand their ways of working too), then you can develop together and create the best possible outcome for your learners and your organisation.

Looking for some ready-to-go content that brings new life to a tired training programme? Check out our Build Your Own Package offering. Or, if you are looking for a training provider to help you steer your way toward a bespoke training programme that meets your needs, then contact us, or email us directly at hello@virtual-college.co.uk.