Identifying Desired Outcomes and Required Content

Sometimes we joke with our clients and say that converting your instructor led training into an online format is a lot like the process someone goes through when they’re using the tidying up method with Marie Kondo, the KonMari method.

The first thing you need to do is you need to just recognize that the instructor led course, as you have it right now, will not be the same. You are going to have to change and it’s going to be different when you’re converting it to an online format, because it’s just a different mode of delivery.

Ask yourself, why don’t you have the course in the first place? What’s its purpose? What are the desired outcomes? What are the specific skills or behaviors you want employees to exhibit after they finish the course? Make sure those are clear and written down so that you can look at them as your guiding posts in terms of what to keep and what to not keep in the course.

Pull up your course outline — this is where the process becomes very similar to the KonMari method where you would look at an object and ask, does this spark joy? If so, you keep it. If not, you take it and you put it aside. You’re going to do the same thing for your course outline. You’re going to look at every slide, every activity, exercise, every element, and ask yourself, does this item spark results? Is it tied to the desired outcome or behavior or skill development that you need to have for employees? If yes, then great, we keep it and we figure out where to categorize and put it into your online course later. If not, you’re going to take it and say it was great for the instructor led course, but I’m going to put it aside because it’s not relevant for my online course.