This is where it all begins! First you tell us about your project by completing our intake form. Then we set up a time to discuss:

• Project needs
• Output formats and deliverables
• Budget and timelines
• Roles and responsibilities
• What happens throughout the process
• Any questions you might have

Your responsibilities:

• Complete intake form

Our responsibilities:

• Review intake form
• Set up first meeting

Here we formalise things by assigning a project manager and sending you a Project Proposal. In the proposal we detail our understanding of the project as well as a budget and timeline to complete the first phase of the project (Discover).

After your review, our revisions, and mutual approval, we’ll create a contract to undertake the work, typically a memorandum of understanding (MOU).

Our responsibilities:

• Create the proposal
• Create contract

Your responsibilities:

• Review/approve proposal
• Review/approve contract

Planning is where we get into the details to come up with a strategy to meet project needs. This typically involves a series of meetings (we call them planning sessions) with you and your team, as well as other contributors such as subject matter experts and writer.

We’ll work together to define the project’s:

• Audience
• Learning needs and objectives
• Structure and format
• Content (text, assessments, images, video, interactives, etc.)
• Delivery platform
• Technical processes for access, registration, and hosting

Our responsibilities:

• Schedule and facilitate planning sessions

Your responsibilities:

• Attend planning sessions with relevant team members

What format your project takes and where it will live are important considerations. We have experience developing for our own hosting solutions as well as for others. If you choose to host with us, we’ll start discussions around costs and options here.

Ideas, decisions, and details from the planning sessions are assembled to create the Instructional Design (ID) plan. This is the blueprint for what we’ll be building and includes:

• Details on the end-user (learner)
• What learners will achieve (learning objectives)
• How to know if objectives have been achieved (assessment)
• Details on content (text, video, images, interactive media, etc.)
• How the project will be structured and delivered (website, learning management system, etc.)

Our responsibilities:

• Create the ID Plan

Your responsibilities:

• Review/approve ID Plan

The charter lays out the what, when, who, and how much of building the project. This includes a workplan, timeline, and estimated cost for all the steps involved. Once the charter is approved, we’ll amend the contract/MOU to fund the work.

Approving the charter and funding completes Discover and moves the project into Phase 2: Design, Develop, Test.

Our responsibilities:

• Create the charter
• Create contract amendment

Your responsibilities:

• Review/approve charter
• Review/approve contract amendment

Using the Instructional Design Plan as a guide, this phase begins the iterative cycle of design, review, revise, approve for the content that makes up the project. Content is more than the written word, it’s also audio, video, image, and interactive media.

What you’ll typically see at this stage:

• Written copy
• Visual design concept showing colour palette and other features
• Mock-ups showing how parts of the project might look
• Storyboards describing interactive media
• Art roughs for custom illustrations
• Scripts or interview questions for video shoots

Our responsibilities:

• Create
• Revise

Your responsibilities:

• Review/approve

This is a busy time where things begin to come to life. Copy is edited, images are drawn, videos are shot, interactive activities are produced, and pages are built. Specialized processes such as access, registration, and sales begin to take shape too. Our internal team will be reviewing and revising as content is created. Then we’ll pass onto you for review and approval.

Our responsibilities:

• Create
• Revise

Your responsibilities:

• Review
• Approve

All through this phase we’ll be checking for quality, accessibility, and technical issues to make sure everything looks great and works well. Checks are done on the content and delivery platform as well as any specialized process such as access, registration, and shopping cart sales. When the project is near completion, we’ll do a full quality assurance review and then pass it onto you to do the same.

Our responsibilities:

• Test
• Revise

Your responsibilities:

• Review
• Approve

We highly recommend doing a test run (pilot) with a group of typical end users to check the project works well for its intended audience. Participants are given access to the project for a limited time. After working though, they fill in a survey to tell us about their learning experience; what worked well and what could be improved. Survey responses are reviewed, and appropriate revisions made.

Our responsibilities:

• Host project for pilot participants
• Create survey
• Help with review of responses
• Revise

Your responsibilities:

• Recruit pilot participants
• Review/approve survey
• Review responses
• Review/approve revisions

After the last revisions are complete, there is one final client review before project launch. This ends the bulk of the work and Phase 2 (hooray!).

If the project is being hosted though us, we’ll set up the hosting agreement here too (usually an MOU) that covers all the technical aspects of delivering your project.

Our responsibilities:

• Final review/revisions
• Hosting agreement (optional)

Your responsibilities:

• Final review/approval
• Sign hosting agreement (optional)

This is where we release the project for end-users. What this looks like varies, depending on project format and delivery platform.

Here are some possibilities:

• A website is moved from development to a live server
• A course in a learning management system goes live along with its registration system and purchasing process (shopping cart)
• A print manual is ready for distribution

Our responsibilities:

• Review of live product

Your responsibilities:

• Review/approval of live product

Once a project is out in the world, little things may come up such as policy updates, referenced websites disappearing, or an organization changing its name. Having a maintenance agreement in place allows us to make these sorts of little changes to keep content up to date.

The last step in a project is reflecting on how everything went. We’ll meet with you to discuss what worked well and areas we could improve in. We’ll have a similar meeting with our internal project team. From our findings, we’ll provide you with an evaluation report (and a thank you for working with us!).

Our responsibilities:

• Facilitate debrief meetings
• Write evaluation report

Your responsibilities:

• Attend project debrief meeting