Long Story Short: Finding the right training partner means finding a training complany who enhances your industry expertise with their expertise in learning and development, making the whole greater than the sum of the parts—these questions will help you get there.
How to Find the Right Training Partner
So you’re looking for someone to help you develop training (or a training program) or to lighten the load on your existing training staff. What do you need to know? How can you make this process easy? And how can you be sure to get the help you need?
Those are the questions we’d like to address with this guide. We’ve worked with people in your position time and time again and have some guidance that we feel can help make you successful.
The six things to look for in a training partner:
- Have they done this before?
- Can they show you what they’ve done (or something similar)?
- Do they have a strong project management team?
- Do they have processes of their own?
- Can they integrate into your processes?
- Do they ask the right questions?
And you might be thinking—wait, Microassist is a training company. Won’t they try to get our business? Shouldn’t we be looking at this guide skeptically?
Our goal is to help you succeed in your training efforts. We’d love it if that was with us. And you might find, in reading through these ideas, that success for you means looking in other directions. That’s great, too! We’re happy to help you get where you need to be.
(But if you do want to reach out to us, you can email our Learning Development Team to start the conversation.)
Let’s dive in. What should you look for in a trusted training company, vendor, or partner?
What Are You Looking For?
You’ve determined that you need help with training, which is why you’re looking at training vendors, but there are a lot of shades and nuances to what kind of help you might need.
- Are you looking for help creating training based on content you’ve already developed? (Some of our clients have provided a script and want us to bring it to life; we’ve also worked with clients who give us a training manual and ask us to convert it to web-based training.)
- Are you looking for pre-made, plug and play modules that you can provide to your learners with little or no modification?
- Do you have people who need to be able to tackle a new task, perform a new procedure, implement a new process, and would like guidance on everything from that initial need to a trained workforce?
- Do you just have people who “need to be trained”?
A good training vendor—a good training partner—will ask you annoyingly
probing questions about the “why” behind what you’re looking for.
A good training vendor—a good training partner—will ask you annoyingly probing questions about the “why” behind what you’re looking for.
There’s a world of options and approaches to training people to do new things. Many of which you’re likely aware of, and perhaps a few that you aren’t.
One of the key questions that experienced instructional designers (that is, those who help you design and develop training) ask is whether training is actually the solution to the problem. Options might include a structured and effective help chatbot, a set of job aids people can access when they are working on a specific task, or even a full change management approach for significant change.
And instructional designers recognize that if training isn’t the solution to the problem, it might cost them the work. That’s okay. It’s more important to a good training partner that you have an effective solution, even if it’s not training. The alternative might be investing time and energy in a course that just languishes in a learning management system.
On the other hand, you may already know that training is the answer. That works. A good partner will recognize that you’ve already explored the options, that training is the answer, and the partner will focus their attention on how to fulfill the request.
Have They Done This Before?
Generally, previous success breeds future success. If the training vendor has done similar work before—whether it’s standing up a training program, designing a virtual instructor-led class, or developing web-based eLearning, they’ll have institutional experience in knowing what works, what doesn’t, an idea of possible unexpected pitfalls, and a catalog of successful approaches.
This doesn’t mean that the work experience needs to be exactly the same. If you need web-based eLearning, the partner may use a different development tool than you’d like (to get a bit nerdy, they might have experience with Articulate Storyline 360, and you’d like a course created using Adobe Captivate). Another factor might be they lack direct experience in your industry (you’re in health care, but their experience is in oil and gas).
The key is that the prospective training partner can point to work that shows they’ve
helped others achieve similar training goals using similar methods.
The key is that the prospective training partner can point to work that shows they’ve helped others achieve similar training goals using similar methods. They might not know Adobe Captivate, but they’ve used Storyline to achieve similar goals. They might not know health care, but their work in oil and gas shows that they can work with large organizations to empower employees to meet organizational goals.
And there’s something to be said for clicking with a partner. If you sense that you have the same approach, the same values, they seem easy to work with… even if they don’t have experience with your particular topic or training, it might be worth working with them on a (preferably small) project to determine whether there’s potential for the relationship to develop.
Can They Show You What They’ve Done?
Seeing examples of past work is often key to getting a sense of whether a training vendor will be able to meet your needs.
But this can be tricky. It’s not uncommon that training vendors are unable to share the work they’ve done for other clients. Nondisclosure agreements may restrict their ability to discuss their work at all or even to acknowledge that they worked with certain organizations.
That being said, a vendor should be able to share some form of work, either through generic client stories, a client who is comfortable with the vendor sharing the work, or samples or demonstrations that will give you a good idea of their approach.
Even without sharing work, asking questions about instructional design philosophy, project management approaches, how they work with recalcitrant subject matter experts, and similar topics can help you get a sense of the kind and quality of work that they would be providing.
Do They Have a Strong Project Management Team?
A strong project management team is going to help ensure that your training gets done. At its core, project management is about ensuring that projects—including the development of training programs and courses—gets done on time, within scope, and within budget.
Training projects can be especially susceptible to going awry. Developing training is (unfortunately) rarely on the top of the to-do lists of key stakeholders (especially those in that need to provide feedback or approvals), leading to delays. Subject matter experts love their subject—which is both why they are experts and why they are a joy (and occasionally a challenge) to work with—which makes it sometimes challenging for the project to stay in scope. Project managers help keep busy stakeholders and subject matter experts focused on their responsibilities to keep the project moving forward.
Whether the specific approach is waterfall (do one thing, get approval, do the next) or Agile (work continuously, delivering incremental improvements along the way), some combination of the two, or something completely different, is less important than there is an organized effort to keep the project on track and to adapt as needed.
A couple of notes. One, you may have a project management team of your own. That’s super. Seriously great. If the training partner has a project management approach as well, it will help keep them on track internally.
Second, a project management team can be effective even if it doesn’t have a discrete project manager (although it almost always helps). In many cases, project management is part of the instructional designer’s toolkit. Instructional designers can be, in effect, their own project management team.
Do They Have Processes of Their Own?
The key here isn’t that a training vendor has one process that they never veer away from. Different projects, different goals, different ideas of success, different organizations may need different processes. One size doesn’t fit all.
But it can be helpful if a training vendor is able to outline their general approach. Do they start with a kick-off? How many review cycles do they have? When is a project complete, and what happens then?
If a provider is able to outline their general process, it shows that they have given thought—ideally
based on experience—about how training projects get completed and achieve success.
If a provider is able to outline their general process, it shows that they have given thought—ideally based on experience—about how training projects get completed and achieve success.
It also lets you know when and how you might need to structure your end of the work. As a project manager I enjoy working with often says a client has to own their part of the solution. Are there checkpoints in the process where you can provide feedback? Who are all the stakeholders and when are they available to review the course? What kinds of approvals are you allowed to give and who does the rest? For example, you may be authorized to approve the course objectives, but are you also authorized to sign off on the visual design or the narrators?
And what are the billing points? At which points in the process will you be comfortable distributing funds? From your perspective, the preference might be to pay only upon final delivery and approval. From the vendor’s standpoint, they might prefer to have the entire payment up front. Knowing the training vendor’s process can inform a billing framework where both you and the vendor have a good level of comfort.
Can They Integrate into Your Processes?
You may have processes of your own, in terms of which milestones you typically approve project stages, who gets to approve milestones, and how long stakeholders get to review milestone deliverables.
The key here is that, if you only need them for one specific part of your
project, the training vendor should be able to step in and fill that role.
You may need a training partner who only focuses on a specific stage of your overall training design and development process. You might just need a storyboard, with your internal developers creating the final course. You might have all the elements of a course and just need a programmer to bring it to life. You might have a complete, functional, approved course, and just need it audited and remediated for accessibility.
The key here is that, if you only need them for one specific part of your project, the training vendor should be able to step in and fill that role.
At the same time, your training partner may have a few ideas about more effective ways to achieve your goals. Training likely occupies 100% of their time, and instructional designers have opinions, sometimes strong ones. You might find that some of those ideas help you achieve your goal in a way that’s more effective than the original vision.
At the same time, you have reasons why you are approaching the problem and pursuing the solution in the manner that you are. A good training partner will identify this and structure their feedback, thoughts, ideas, and proposals to help you achieve your goal within your framework.
Do They Ask the Right Questions?
Everyone will have their own list of questions. However, we’ve found that if a training partner asks you questions similar to these, it’s an indication that there’s a good foundation whereupon you can build an effective and collaborative relationship together.
If you’re looking for a training partner, make sure to ask the right questions:
- Why are you doing this project?
- Who’s the audience?
- How will you know if this project is successful?
- How will you know when the project is complete?
- What happens after the project is complete?
- Are there any stakeholders that need to approve the course that haven’t been mentioned?
- What’s driving the timeline?
- Does your industry require training materials to meet accessibility standards?
Why Are You Doing This Project?
This is one of the questions asked by the famous architect Frank Gehry. The “why” behind the project structures everything else. Sometimes people need training because a new system is going into effect. Sometimes it’s about meeting legal compliance requirements. Maybe people need continuing education units to meet professional certification requirements. Asking about the “why” helps the training partner make sure that they are able to use the most effective approach to meet those goals (an approach which may not, as mentioned above, actually involve formal training).
Who’s the Audience?
Is there a more important question? (Well, other than the “why.”) You may be developing a new course on a system that’s being rolled out. The audience might be obvious to you. But from a training company’s standpoint, there are countless possible audiences. Is it the people who must use the system? Maybe it’s the people who need to monitor the help line? Perhaps the audience is the leadership that needs to persuade people to use the new system?
Each of these audiences requires different approaches to maximize the effectiveness of the training (and the approach gets complicated if the answer is “all of these”). If a training company is designing training for the wrong audience, it might completely misfire and fail to achieve its goal. Or it might mean a late project rewrite/redesign, which would mean additional time and effort (and likely also funds).
How Will You Know If This Project Is Successful?
This is a key question—rarely is the answer “it’s success if we have a lot of people completing the course” (although that might be the case for courses required for legal compliance).
Other ways to answer this question might be “we’ll have fewer novices asking experts for advice” or “we’ll have fewer calls to the customer hotline.”
Much in the same way as asking why a project is being pursued, defining your
particular version of success will help the training partner ensure that the
solutions they provide will actually meet the need.
Much in the same way as asking why a project is being pursued, defining your particular version of success will help the training partner ensure that the solutions they provide will actually meet the need.
How Will You Know When the Project Is Complete?
Much of the time, the project is complete when the final training files are delivered to you. But it could be when you send a notification of approval. Having a forthright discussion about project completion can prevent disagreements about whether or not the final payment (should there be one) is due.
What Happens After the Project Is Complete?
If the project is a course or a series of courses, the project may end with the delivery of the final course files. Other projects, like hosting or running a learning management system, may have a longer (or ongoing) timeframe.
But training doesn’t usually end with a delivery of the course. The goal, after all, is for people to take the course. After which, there might be feedback to be addressed. In addition, standards and policies change and need to be updated. Has ongoing maintenance been considered? Is it budgeted for?
Are There Any Stakeholders That Need to Approve the Course That Haven’t Been Mentioned?
A training company will work with your company, but they aren’t part of your company. There are things that they don’t know and can’t know. Who is the ultimate authority for approving the training? Is there anyone who doesn’t formally approve the training but has informal input that needs to be addressed before training is accepted? There may be hidden stakeholders who could have a negative impact on the project.
What’s Driving the Timeline?
Sometimes there’s flexibility in the timeline, and sometimes there’s not. A good partner will ensure that they meet their deadlines. But getting the project done on time will also happen because of why you need it done when you say you need it done.
There can be times when the deadline’s soft. This can happen when the funds have to be invoiced (even if the training isn’t complete), or when a team requesting the training doesn’t have anything pushing the project to completion. Or if it turns out that ensuring the training is exact and of impeccable quality is more important than the timeline.
If you have a hard deadline—there’s a product release scheduled or a conference where the training will need to be shared, there’s a new orientation class coming in—bringing that into the open will help everyone to understand why these milestones need to be met when they do. This keeps everyone focused, helps ensure that stakeholders meet their milestones, and lets people know whether and where compromises might need to be made should the timeline be endangered.
Does Your Industry Require Training Materials to Meet Accessibility Standards?
This can be a tricky one. Meeting accessibility standards, that is, ensuring that training is designed so that people with disabilities can have equal access, is essential for some but less relevant to others. Most government agencies in the United States (whether they’re at the federal, state, or local level) are required to ensure that their training (mainly digital materials) is compliant with relevant accessibility standards. Several industries (such as health care and banking) are as well. Yet for some industries, such as energy, accessibility isn’t currently relevant (although it might become so, especially if they are sued for sharing non-accessible materials).
If you are required to meet accessibility standards in your training material, it’s essential
that the training company ask, and know, ahead of time.
If you are required to meet accessibility standards in your training material, it’s essential that the training company ask, and know, ahead of time. While accessible training can be every bit as interactive and engaging as training that doesn’t meet the standards, there are elements of the training (like keyboard navigation or screen reader access) that will need to be addressed for the training as a whole.
And it’s best that accessibility is addressed during development. Going back and remediating training to meet standards after the fact takes substantially more time and effort than building it in from the start.
Some Other Questions You Might Expect to Get
Don’t be surprised to get questions like these, even if they might seem intrusive. Often they cover information that training companies need to properly scope the project. And you can always answer “No, I don’t think so.”
- Do you have a budget in mind for this project?
- Can I speak to the people who will be (or currently are) taking the training?
- Do you have any materials related to the training (slide decks, manuals, video recordings)?
- If you do, can we have access to them before we respond with a proposal?
- Do you have any examples of training in this area (whether it’s eLearning, instructor-led, blended) that you particularly like/would suggest as a model?
- Will you provide the subject matter experts, or should we?
- Which learning management system (LMS) are you using (if you’re using one)? Can we get access to the LMS?
- Do you have a preferred development tool (PPT, Word, Articulate Storyline, ELB Learning Lectora, Adobe Captivate)?
Wrapping up
Workplaces are changing faster, it seems, than ever before. New roles, new skills, new technologies; public and private enterprises are reacting to an ever-changing environment.
Training is essential in helping people adapt to the changing environment and become the best they can be at what they do. You may be in a position to meet these needs without hesitation. You may find that a little help would be useful, and, on occasion, you might find it productive to seek assistance in developing a full program.
Partnering with a training company may be able to help, and we hope the considerations discussed above can make the process easier. If we can be of any help in getting you where you need to be, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Contact our Learning Developers
Need to discuss developing e-learning? Creating curriculum for classroom training? Auditing and remediating e-learning for accessibility? Our learning developers would be glad to help.