Nov 26 2021

Engineering/Architecting L&D Content

In the early 1980s I started thinking about modules, and designing modules, of Content that soon went from Modules to Modular. To improve the ability to share Content from one audience to another – either “AS IS” or “AFTER MODIFICATION” by creating derivatives that would/could/should improve maintainability via a numbering scheme.

I had been inspired by what I had learned at Motorola in 1981-1982 about MRP which begat MRP II which begat ERP.

As in: Materials Requirements Planning that led to Manufacturing Requirements Planning that led to Enterprise Requirements Planning.

The first reference I can find to my Inventory Scheme (or framework as some client didn’t like the term scheme)… was from my Summer 1993 newsletter … page 7.

But soon thereafter I expanded to a 5 Tier Framework – by adding in a new Tier 4 to address that sharability opportunity – as, quite frankly, LOs – Learning Objects – missed the boat by doing that sharing at the Lesson level – making Lessons too generic so as to appeal to a broader audience – and being shareable – but worthless IMO because they never got specific about HOW TO apply in the audiences’ Processes/WorkFlows. So LOs remained more educational, IMO, than Training.

I don’t have a complete set of Quarterly Newsletters – which was complicated by the fact that we too often didn’t produce one until I took that over at SWI (Svenson & Wallace Inc.) and made that a priority.

As consultants, one often has their nose on the grindstone, so to speak, and then neglects Marketing & Sales.

In my 1999 book, lean-ISD, I documented the 5 Tier Module Inventory – that for simplicities sake – didn’t go into the nuances that Lessons and Instructional Activities would be housed (so to speak) in this framework. And the delta between “Modules and Modular” might be too much – one of my 3 editors of this book (MaryBeth O’Hara, Make Bade, and Jim Russell) probably warned me.