Are you unsure of how to answer the big question: How long does it take to develop eLearning? As you might expect, there is no one answer because there are multiple factors to consider when estimating eLearning development time. Fortunately, our community has several resources that can help you with an estimate. This article presents and highlights six resources you can use. The first one in the list is the most recent.
Factors to Consider
But before you jump right to those development estimates, analyze your situation, environment and project and consider all the factors. Some of the factors that will influence how long it takes to develop eLearning are listed below.
- Deadline/urgency: If you are working on a tight deadline, you won’t have time for custom media, such as voiceover, video and branching scenarios. Reducing complexity will shorten your development time. The converse is also true.
- Your design and development process model: Some may debate this because it seems unintuitive. I think that a process model that includes iteration will get you to the correct final point more quickly than a waterfall model. With a waterfall model, you just keep moving forward without prototyping, user testing or feedback for guidance.
- Complexity of the content: If you have to decipher complex content and need lots of help from a subject matter expert, it takes longer than when the content is easy to understand.
- Number and complexity of interactions: Simple one-level scenarios or faster to design and develop than involved branching scenarios. You can design and develop straightforward practice activities more quickly than complex interactions or simulations.
- Game-based, branching, linear: Anything involving games, complex animations or branching takes more time than a linear design. A linear design is one where there is only one path to get through a course, even if users have a choice of the order of lessons. If you have templates, that can speed things up.
- Types of media: When you get involved with finding talent, scripting and recording audio and video assets it will take more time than when you use graphics, simple animations and text alone.
- Types of evaluations and assessments: Straightforward self-checks and tests are faster to write than evaluations that simulate a real-world experience. A good compromise is to use questions that test higher-order thinking.
- Hardware/devices: Will your eLearning be responsive? That means it will be accessible on all types of devices. If so, you’ll need to test it thoroughly on computers, digital tablets and phones. Some authoring tools do a better job with responsive output than others.
- Learning strategies: Consider the learning strategies you will use. If you plan on straying from the typical approach, such as using digital curation, you will need to modify the design and development hours accordingly.
Resources Updated
Below are some general resources you can use to do your design and development estimates. Although most of the older resources are based on one hour of development time, the first resources is the only one I’ve seen that uses a 20-minute measure. This may be a better approach for the trend of shorter lessons.
1. How long does it take to develop 20-minutes of training?
Things have changed since researchers first answered, “How long does it take to develop eLearning?” Now that it is more common to develop shorter segments of training, the 1 hour standard may not be relevant for you. If that’s the case, this updated resource from Robyn Defelice and Karl Kapp provides estimates for developing an approximate 20-minute module. This more realistic estimate shows that the question of how long it takes to develop eLearning is changing.
2. How long does it take to develop one-hour of training?
In their previous study, the authors of the above resource researched development time estimates for one-hour of training. This study, from 2017, presents fresh data for estimating training development time. Not only does it provide the detail many are seeking, authors Karl Kapp and Robyn Defelice delve into several of the contributing factors that will affect your time estimate.
3. How long does it take to create a one-hour learning experience?
This well-known survey by Bryan Chapman provides data he collected from 249 organizations. This represents 3,947 learning development professionals. They present the “time to complete” numbers as ratios. Don’t miss the accompanying SlideShare presentation that you can download, which has helpful visuals.
4. How long does it take to develop an eLearning course?
This article by Desiree Pinder discusses a variety of factors you may not think to consider when estimating the time it takes to develop eLearning. She delves into where the project falls on the priority list, how many review cycles you will need and the availability of subject matter experts.
5. Estimating Costs and Time in Instructional Design
Donald Clark provides budgets and cost guidelines in addition to the time estimates. The time estimations are from an older source.
6. Why eLearning Development Ratios Can Be Hazardous to Your Health
The Dashe & Thomson’s Social Learning Blog cautions against blindly using the development ratios. They provide their own list of considerations.
In the Comments section, Peter mentions using the Department of Defense but the link is outdated. Here it is: The Army Distributed Learning (DL) Guide (see page 28 and around those pages).
If you have other solid resources, please list them below in Comments.
Hi David,
You’re right. You need much more time to do a good job. It’s tough when management doesn’t understand. You can only do the best you can do.
That said, perhaps you’ll be able to come up with some interesting scenarios that involve real world problem solving for your exercises and perhaps role plays if it makes sense (not sure of your content). Also, try to vary small group work and discussions with individual work. Remember that people are social creatures. Finally, I am guessing that if you spend 1 hour interviewing a few people (unless you’ve already done this), you will get insight into their world that give you ideas for activities.
Perhaps this podcast interview with Steve Portigal about interviewing users will help you approach it in the most effective way: Best Practices for Interviewing Your Audience. I know you have no time to listen, so it would have to be while doing something else. Good luck. We’re with you in spirit.
Connie
Ha, I have two weeks to prepare 2 weeks of online technical support training that I have to conduct.
I tried to explain to management that it is not possible and that it would take months to put together. They have no clue and said take my best shot anyway.
I plan to create a 3 hour overview and stuff the rest of the time with repetitive time-consuming “exercises’ and “problems” for the trainees to solve. Each trainee will need to work to solve each problem while the others watch.
Muna,
The scale is an 8 hour day, so that is around one week. Many things come into consideration, such as how complex the materials and slides and activities are. So it could be less time (or possibly more).
Connie
For example according to ATD report to develop one hour trainer standup training program will require 43 hours. So if it is 24 hour scale that means almost 2 days.
Is that the calculation
Good to know about the book, Cynthia. Thanks for taking the time to share.
Connie
Hi Connie Great article, as usual. We used the following book in one of my University courses for estimating time and for other project management related items. “Project management for trainers by Lou Russell.
Hi Karen,
I didn’t see Chapman’s original study but I did hear this was updated. I’m glad you moved on to a place that values your work!
Best,
Connie
Connie,
Thanks for always sharing such useful resources. I had to immediately share with my ASTD Atlanta colleagues.
I had seen Chapman’s study a couple of years ago and was shocked at how little my training development time was actually valued. No wonder I am now workingn for another company! I’m glad to see Chapman has updated his info and has some great graphics/stats to share.
Thank you, AJ!
Connie
Thank you, Peter. I was actually trying to find a DOD document but couldn’t. Thank you for adding this.
Connie
Usually, the US military has good resources. Check out the DOD documents on instructional design, for instance. But in this case, the Army has a document available on this site: http://www.tradoc.army.mil/tpubs/pamndx.htm. Look for: 350-70-2 26 June 03 Multimedia Courseware Development Guide
On pages 27-33 are the estimates for determining development time, especially for media-rich content.
Another good resource: http://iconlogic.blogs.com/weblog/2010/03/development_tim.html