Most folks begin planning a course by listing what they want to teach — and that’s totally fair, because every course needs something to stand on.
The challenge is that, when you focus only on the content, it gets tricky to figure out how much to include, what shape the course should take, and how to pace it.
Often, trainers cause cognitive overload not on purpose, but because they feel they must cover every detail of the topic. So the session gets rushed, important topics fall through the cracks, and people lose interest.
That’s why the first step is to map out:
Who is going to be trained?
There are many ways to map this out, depending on how deep you want to go. But the minimum you need to know is: how this person will use that knowledge, what their motivation to be a part of this course and what they already are already experts in their fields know about this subject.
Getting to know a few characteristics of your audience's personality - — like values, interests, and personal beliefs — can guide your choice of tools and strategies. But that only makes sense after you’ve mapped out how the content applies to their lives, what drives them, and what they already bring to the table.
What core problem are your participants trying to solve?
It should be basic — but most people who design training sessions forget to map out the core problem participants face. Or that the problem is different from applied knowledge and motivation even if they might be correlated.
If the problem is the lack of knowledge,the teaching strategies and the content itself will be filtered in a completely different way than if the problem were lack of skill.Trying to deliver information to someone who just needs a safe space to practice what they’ve already studied, for example, is simply a waste of resources.
Extra credit if you’ve got insight into what they’ve already tried — and what went wrong.
What's the next step?
In addition to the content and the solution itself, what is expected to happen after the training?
Let’s say the goal is to get students interested in the topic and keep them motivated to dive deeper to dive deeper into advanced training. In this case, the course closing might leave a gap — a sort of teaser that sparks participants’ interest in continuing.
If the goal is that put into practice what they've learned, to drive meaningful change in the organization or their business, the training plan should include additional support — like a follow-up session, an implementation checklist, or similar solutions.
But if the main goal is creat impact in interpersonal relationships and inspire participants to spark new conversations within their companies (something much more subjective), then different strategies will need to be considered.
Figuring out where the training fits — in terms of day-to-day work and company culture — makes it way easier to choose the right content and format. So don’t leave this step out!
