Estimating and Project Management.

Two very practical aspects of being an instructional designer are estimating the time and money required to produce an instructional product and the management and control of the project that develops an instructional product. A methodology, such as the IPISD, should be the basis for both of these activities.

Estimating is one of the critical things that make a difference between survival and starvation for contracting instructional designers. And poor estimating will lead to a poor reputation if you work as an instructional designer within an organisation.

I believe the first step in estimating is knowing a few things about what you are trying to produce. This will enable you to determine the methodology steps required to produce the product.

You should first determine:
What is the function of your instructional product? Is it guaranteed learning or general education? Is it job related or not?

Once you know the function of the product, you can then determine what features that instructional product must have and the methodology steps that are required. You can estimate each step and you can manage the project against the completion of those steps and the estimated budget for each step.

For example, if your product iis job related, it should have examples, practice items and test items that are drawn from real-life situations on the job. Examples, scenarios, practice items and test items should be estimated carefully as they are usually require more time to develop than straight content.

If you are required to publish all instructional materials on a company network for individual access, then an esssential feature may be that the product will probably be developed to stand alone without an instructor. Also time must be included in estimates to prepare the product according to the network standards, and new development software may be required. The product will also require on-line system testing. All these things should be included in your estimates and may affect the timing of events in your project management plan.

You must also determine the quality standards for the product.
Does it have to ensure learning - then it must have at least one practice and test item for each objective. Perhaps an additional set of practice and test items are required so that the learner is presented with something different if they retake the lesson or module? The initial practice and test item are required as a quality standard. The additional items can be considered features that enhance the instruction, but each item requires time to develop and must be included in estimates and checked off during project managment.

One set of standards should specify the presentation quality of the instructional materials. This set of standards involve acceptable levels of typographical errors (usually no errors), the amount of information presented on a single page or screen, and other typical format and useability requirements.

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