How to Choose the Best Training Planning Tools
Planning and scheduling training courses requires a balance between the big picture that considers corporate objectives and the close-up snapshot that manages the details of who, what, when, where and how. Current best practices encourage a funnel approach to planning that starts broad and then narrows as you learn where the skill and knowledge gaps […]
Conducting an L&D Audit: Assessing and Calculating Team Capacity
In this installment of our L&D Audit series, you’ll learn how to calculate and audit your training team’s capacity. In a recent update to an ongoing ATD study on the time it takes to create training, the researchers added some survey questions to the study. They asked respondents to name the top barriers to faster […]
Why Subject Matter Experts Need to be Part of Your Capacity Planning
When learning leaders are analyzing their plans for training projects and whether their team has the capacity to fulfill the demand for training, it’s imperative to include more peripheral training project team members in the equation. Subject matter experts (SMEs) are essential to the creation of effective training solutions. In a time of increasingly high […]
How to Optimize Capacity Planning for Stronger Learning Outcomes
We’ve written previously about capacity planning as it relates to L&D. From strategic planning to cost reduction to skills management, benefits abound. However, capacity planning is certainly not without its challenges. Many L&D teams have become overwhelmed recently with sudden business disruptions and shifting business priorities. Below are a few suggestions to help learning leaders […]
Why Strengthening Your Training Intake System Leads to Better Planning for L&D
Productivity and how to maximize it is top of mind for many L&D leaders right now. With the demand for training skyrocketing due to unforeseen world events in 2020, training teams have had to quickly pivot with shifting priorities. Not only that, but they’re often having to manage these challenges with frozen budgets and staff […]
How to Leverage Capacity Planning to Build a Flexible Training Team Schedule
Making the most out of your resources is a challenge faced by all teams, departments, and organizations. Reducing waste (whether that be budgetary or otherwise) helps to ensure the organization is doing all it can to meet performance objectives. In increasingly fast-paced markets where organizations need to be highly adaptable to survive, it’s more important […]
What is Rough Cut Capacity Planning?
Capacity planning is the process of weighing supply (availability and skillsets of project contributors) against demand (how many projects you plan to undertake in a given timeframe). Capacity planning is a higher level task that assesses demand and helps you understand how much work your team should be taking on over a given time period. […]
The 8 Secrets of Effective Resource Management in L&D
Effective resource management in learning and development is one of the most important elements in delivering training projects on time, on budget, and to the expected quality. But resource management takes a little bit more expertise than blindly assigning instructional designers and SMEs to whatever training project comes up next. Making the most out of […]
4 Capacity Planning Challenges in L&D (And How to Overcome Them)
Capacity planning may exist for your L&D team or it might be something you’ve never really considered. Either way, most training teams are estimating their availability to fulfill training requests with a quick mental calculation to see if they have room for more work. But guessing your team’s capacity only leads to frustration for all. […]
L&D Capacity Planning Checklist: 5 Steps to Effective Resource Management
When your L&D team is under pressure to deliver on a mounting pile of training requests, the knee jerk reaction is to look at hiring extra resources to pick up the load. But justifying those extra resources sometimes takes some convincing and some hard data to prove the need for a few extra pairs of […]
