When we talk with organizations that are having difficulties meeting their eLearning goals, it always seems to me that they are missing a key ingredient for success: a talented juggler. By this, I mean there doesn’t seem to be someone on hand who can bring all the disparate elements together – organizational goals, learning design, program development, learning technologies, IT support, budgets, project plans, evaluation plans, etc. – to make it all work. There is no eLearning management generalist, who knows a little about all aspects of eLearning, and can orchestrate people and resources toward common objectives. I call this person “the juggler” – the one who can keep all the eLearning project management “balls” in the air and ensure they all fall into place when and as needed.

We had the eLearning project juggler in mind many years ago when we designed our online Certificate in eLearning Management. Sure, individuals can, and do, take individual courses to meet specific needs, but our vision was that there would be many aspiring eLearning leaders who would complete the entire program in order to position themselves to be the overall project managers for eLearning initiatives. In completing the entire program, someone proves that they can do the 19 key competency tasks that we think are essential for any eLearning project.

Using the “5-E” framework for effective eLearning that I talked about last week, these competency tasks are as follows:

Establish Value

• Business Needs Analysis
• First-Order Business Case
• Principles of eLearning Statement
• eLearning Project Budget
• Request for Proposal (RFP)
• Projected Return-on-Investment (ROI)

Effect Change

• eLearning Project Plan

Engage Stakeholders and Learners

• Organizational Cultural Assessment
• eLearner Profile
• Technology Audit
• Technology Choices Matrix
• My ISD Team Template
• Kickoff Project Meeting Agenda
• eLearning Lesson Plan
• eLearning Design Concept
• eLearning Facilitation Best Practices Checklist

Experiment

• eLearning Application Project

Evaluate Results

• Metrics Analysis
• eLearning Evaluation Plan

Our courses do not merely “teach” about these competencies, participants actually do these competency tasks and receive feedback. This is in line with our belief in active learning (learning-by-doing). Whenever possible, we have learners use their own workplace situations when completing these tasks. This makes the learning real, contextual and applied.

Do you aspire to be an eLearning juggler? They are needed out there.