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What Makes Great eLearning Content? On-target Questions!
In our fast-moving world, asking targeted questions iscritical to our success as learning and development professionals.
Questions reflect the knowledgeand skills of the questioner. Jack Welch once said that leaders accuratelyassess an employee’s passion “by the intensity of their questions. If theirquestions are thoughtful, then they are the right person for the job.” NelsonMandela never asked a question for the sake of small talk; he always askedquestions with the goal of eliciting information.
As aninstructional designer and technical writer, I have spent the last 15 years drawingout information from a wide variety of subject matter experts (SMEs), rangingfrom engineers to chefs. At different times,I received blank stares, went on a wild-goose chase, or received an answer thatcontradicted another SME’s response.
Hitting the target
Why isit necessary to make your questions matter?
Instructional designers ask questions toelicit information. Essentially, our role is to take information and make itmeaningful for our learners—in an online learning module, mobile learninglesson, workshop, or performance support tool—so they can work effectively.
Anyone can ask random questions, but targeted questions help learningprofessionals achieve their goals more effectively and benefit the entireorganization.
Targetedquestions need to have:
- An endgoal in mind.
- Considerationfor the audience. What do they know or need to know?
- Relevanceto the source, which may include SMEs, web resources, and performance supportdatabases.
Consider your end goal
Know yourend goal. Think of a bull’s-eye as your goal and the darts as questions. Theright questions will help you hit the target.
Let’s look at the most important end goalsfor our questions (Figure 1):
- Strategic: Determine the ideal future state for employeeperformance.
- Performance:Discover the knowledge andskills required to perform a specific task, or project.
- Descriptive:Elicit nuanced informationto help the learner understand and apply ideas, steps, guidelines, and the “bigpicture.”
- Data:Find key facts and figures.
Figure 1: To target your questions, consider the end goals
Target your questions
Let’s look at questions best suited for each goal. How should youask these questions and who should answer them? Sometimesyou may need to use a combination of questions to get the answers you need.
Strategic questions
How toask: Thesequestions address a range of goals, challenges, and gaps. They should be open-endedto encourage brainstorming and creative responses. Examples: “What skills do youwant to impact, in one, five, or ten years, and how will this new process, product,tool, or initiative impact our business on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis?”
Who to ask: For strategic questions, get different perspective by askingdifferent executives, key players, and employees. If the answers to yourquestions align, then you know you are on the right track. If they do notalign, ask a second set of questions to probe into the specific areas wherethere are discrepancies.
Performance questions
How to ask: These questions typically occur during the analysis phase. Your goalis to discover the “what” and the “who” for the performance and on-the-jobbehavior. Examples: “Who will be taking the training?” and, “What do they needto know or do to be successful for a specifictask, responsibility, or project?”
Who to ask: For performance questions, ask supervisors and key executives for boththe ideal and the current performance. If the gap is a knowledge or skill, thencontinue asking supervisors and employees questions to specify which gaps arebest suited to training or performance support. Calibrate your results andshare them with all the SMEs.
Descriptive questions
How to ask: Descriptive questions are typically part of thedesign and development phase of instructional design. By now, you know theskills and/or knowledge gap you need to address.
Descriptive questionshelp make information meaningful by:
- Providing a visual “big picture”: Thebig picture helps learners understand how different roles and processesconnect. It helps give perspective and provides the WIIFM (what’s in it for me).
To understandthe big picture, visual answers are a key. Ask the SME to draw you a picture soyou have a holistic understanding of how everything fits together. Usefulvisual tools including Venn diagrams, process or journey maps, or before and aftercharts.
For example,in a recent training initiative, our audience needed to know how financialapplications maximize profit. We provided a visual map of both the key functionof each tool and how they work together.
- Making abstract concepts concrete: An abstractconcept is an idea that you can apply to many differentsituations or objects. Take the concept of “customer service excellence.” This may mean differentthings to different organizations. To understand the true meaning of this term,ask, “What do you mean by customer service excellence?”,“What is an example of customer service excellence?”, and, “What is not anexample?”
- Explaining the steps in a procedure: Ask SMEs to give you a demonstration online or in person. Ifdocumentation exists, check each step to make sure it is correct. Talkingthrough each step helps SMEs recall what they may have missed if they wrote outthe answers.
- Specifying a rule of thumb for success and soliciting scenarios toapply these rules: You can use rules of thumb or heuristics topredict an outcome. For example, guidelines for a performance review orincluding interactivity in eLearning. To translate these guidelines intomeaningful information, first uncover the guidelines. You may need to useoutside literature or work with a group of SMEs to specify the details.
Then, ask forexamples of how these guidelines apply. Ask for diverse and difficultsituations to apply the rules and/or best practices. Keep asking forapplications until you can no longer ask: “But what if…”
Who to ask: To answer descriptive questions,a personal connection is best, either in person or online. Make sure you areapproaching the right SME. Always check with your project’s stakeholders about whothe best SMEs to answer your questions are. If you are unsure, send out a“feeler” email describing your goal and asking if they will be able to providethe needed answers, or if not, asking them to refer you to an alternative resource.
Data questions
How to ask: Data questions answer “how much,” “how often,” “where,” and “when.”These are known as closed-ended questions.Online tools like Google, Twitter, Wikipedia discussion forums, and troubleshootingsites can provide immediate answers to simple questions on general topics.
Who to ask: As with descriptive questions, make sure you approach the appropriateSME or use the correct resource. Simplequestions should require no more than a sentence to answer. Make sure yourquestion does not result in a lengthy answer. If so, then you are really askinga probing question.
Also, stateyour question clearly to avoid confusion. Sometimes, I include a definition, orreference to a previous email or document in my question to make sure thateveryone is on the same page.
Summary
By asking thetargeted questions and the right questions from the right sources, training anddevelopment professionals can make information relevant and meaningful for ourlearners. This translates to successful on-the-job performance.
