Greer’s Michael (2009) in his web
published article, “Estimating Instructional Development time,” identified a
few things that are necessary when estimating time for an instructional
development project. First he warns that the rule of thumb seldom accounts for
the fact that the deliverables that are develop for one hour training session may
differ enormously from one course to another. Therefore one should not trust
the ratio that some IDs apply automatically.
Secondly he claims that if one “carefully
examines his organization’s unique ID project management model and collect his organizational
historical data related to time spent executing various steps to his model,
then with his own historical data he will be able to create some fairly accurate
custom project estimation.” The advantage he says is the individual is allowed to
make detailed easy to negotiate and defend project time /cost. This is truly better than to trust the ratio supplied
which are usually vague.
This is certainly an idea that I
would follow if I were given the opportunity to estimate a project time cost. Creating
my own ratio would add more meaning to what I am doing and I think I would
better be able to explain every detail to my client.
The
URL for Michael Greer’s article is http://michaelgreer.biz/?p=279
As a budding instructional
designer this site has provided estimated rates for doing various tasks for a
project. Such information will certainly help me in the event that I would be
called upon to provide an estimate training cost. Having such information is
also a great asset in preparing the budget for the project. It is not the Bible
and should only be used as a guide. However, I strongly believe while this
estimates are workable one should take the suggestion given by Portny et al
(2008), “experience with similar projects suggests that approximately 40
percent of the total budget should be spent on design.”P.130. Being new I will
certainly compare other sample estimates with that of Clarke.
Reference
Portny,
S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., &
Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling,
and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Hi Ursula,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote "As a budding instructional designer this site has provided estimated rates for doing various tasks for a project. Such information will certainly help me in the event that I would be called upon to provide an estimate training cost. Having such information is also a great asset in preparing the budget for the project. It is not the Bible and should only be used as a guide." I think that you are right with your statement. Clark, 2010 states that "learning activities are budgeted in wide variety of ways, so the degree of estimating the cost will depend upon the organization you are working for. Generally speaking the closer you are to your costumer the less you have to estimate."
The problem is for novice people like me, I am learning a lot of information that hopefully I can apply soon. I think that the range of 40 to 60 % of the time is more likely for me.