You are the project manager for a small eLearning company: Acme eLearning Co. Acme has been in business for ten years and has a staff of five including you. The owner of the company, Shelly M., does all of the marketing and the selling; you and the other four staff build and host the eLearning for your clients.

As mentioned, you are the project manager for Acme and are responsible for delivering ALL projects on budget and on time for your clients. Luckily you are also usually involved in negotiations with new clients about what the eLearning deliverable might consist of, and of what the hosting requirements will be. You are also responsible for designing and implementing the hosting solution.

The other staff all have development roles:

Marion is responsible for building the eLearning. She uses software called Storyline 360, sold by Articulate.com. Marion’s responsibilities also include the construction of all interactive elements in the eLearning

Varinder is responsible for all audio in the eLearning module: narration, sound effects, music, background audio and intros / outros. This includes arranging for translation and language voice recording when required

Ali is responsible for all imagery: photographs, video, illustrations, animations, stock and original graphics and overall design. When necessary this can include 3d modeling and other sophisticated visual assets

Sami is responsible for writing and overall module design. Sami also does the assessments and defines the audio, imagery and interactivity requirements. When necessary Sami will call for the use of AI driven avatars

If and when required outside vendors will be used – this occurs when the required skillset is not available in-house at Acme.

Today

Shelly just got a phone call from Lindsay, who works at Stellar Products Inc. They have a need for some eLearning (it’s a compliance project) and they would like Acme to do the work… that’s the good news. The not-as-good news is that Lindsay needs a timing and cost estimate before the work can proceed. Shelly agrees that Acme will do the analysis and asks you to project manage this work.

Next steps

1)You arrange for a meeting with Lindsay in order to learn more about the project. After that meeting you review your notes and summarize what you’ve learned as follows:

The eLearning has to do with AODA content and it is required by law that Stellar do the training.

2)Stellar doesn’t have the capacity to host the eLearning so they want Acme to do it… Stellar has 5,000 employees, want employees to be able to earn a certificate of completion and need hosting for at least a year.

3)The training must be in English and French.

4)Stellar wants the training to be casual and fun – lots of movement, interactive activities, sound and music, assessments for all users, including a final test with a 60% pass requirement and animated characters driven by AI so they can answer user questions. First idea is for two animated characters; one acting as the learner and the other acting as the trainer.

5)The training content is mostly far transfer soft skills and they need an Instructional Design plan that suits that need.

Now what?