After a long pursuit of understanding this principle, I realised that the issue was not in my belief that writing down goals was uncool. It was in the hidden fear that once I do – I will have to commit to them. Not achieving what I would write down would mean admitting to myself that I have failed. Luckily for me, I eventually understood that the simple act of writing a goal down increases the chances of success by 1000%! (NB. scientifically researched figure of 1000% was discovered after looking out the window for 2 seconds and thinking about it)

Now, before I move on I’d like to clarify something. Just because a couple of sentences back I admitted of being wrong most of the time, does not mean I am wrong most of the time. In fact, it means that I am always right. That’s a special disclaimer for everyone that has met me in person. Don’t forget the great truth.

So, how did I finally break that plateau in self-development and started to use this very awesome technique? Three steps:

1. I researched about goals
2. I discovered Brian Tracy
3. I used the principles in the programme

Truly, if you haven’t heard of Brian Tracy before, it’s time you did. And now you have. So what are you going to do about it? If at this point you’re still skeptical or unsure about all this goal setting business, let me just say this: a whole lot of scientific and academic knowledge and research has proof that this works. There is even a very simple explanation of why it works. But I’ll get to that in another post about another very clever guy who wrote a great book, once, and then wrote a 2nd edition of that same book and released it with a really cool cover which I own.

It amazes me the number of people I meet that say they have goals and desires, but are not prepared to pursue them. Even after they hear all the proven principles and methods to achieve these goals, they do nothing about it. Yes – you! Get going – do something about it! Sheesh, honestly. Nah you’re ok. I like you.

What do goals have to do with learning and development?

So wait – what’s all this goals stuff have to do with putting together a learning and development plan? Well, as it turns out – a learning and development plan is essentially a list of goals – for learning and development! Amazing. If you are a creative or a developer, you understand that continuous learning and development is essential to staying on top of the game and keeping those contracts coming. You do – but I didn’t. Don’t make the same mistake of having to catch up to many new technologies and feeling overwhelmed. But if you don’t know how to set goals – this task will prove to be all the more difficult. But don’t worry – most of us have not been taught to set goals. Schools don’t seem to mind. Neither do most universities. So just like with new technologies, this is one area that we need to catch up on, before moving on.

Resource

Another thing that helps, is having a nice structure – a framework that will help you put everything neatly in boxes and look at it for motivation. I found a document a while back that helped me to achieve just that. There was some (a lot) customisation involved, and after all that – I am sharing it with you – you lucky person. Use it wisely.

Learning and development plan template

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• Transition phase
• Action phase

Transition phase occurs when new teams are established or old teams are re-established, in the case that they never were properly formed. Action phase comes about during team performance, after all the setup and formation tasks have been completed.

Transition phase

It is important to initiate teams correctly using a complete set of steps, to make sure that the basic requirements are covered. For example, if a team does not have a shared mission, it is likely that individual members will define their own mission for their team based on their observations. At the same time, each team member needs to understand what exactly is expected of them and their team. With that in mind, the following leadership functions are defined for the Transition phase:

• Compose team – get the best people on board
• Define mission – determine and communicate what is the purpose of the team, in a broader organizational context
• Establish expectations and goals – performance expectations and goals are created as targets, with the mission directing this effort
• Structure and plan – develop processes for optimal team performance
• Train and develop team – make sure that everyone can perform their task with sufficient competence
• Sensemaking – help the team understand and cope with changes and events that affect its performance (e.g. change in team leadership, changes in team size, etc.)
• Provide feedback – essential to keeping the team aligned and on track

Action phase

During the Action phase, the leadership role is to ensure that the team is performing at their optimum, solve any internal or external issues, get involved with the work of the team, help team members grow and improve, get resources for the team, and foster a positive social climate. The functions that are carried out in this phase are:

• Monitor team – ensure team is performing and following established processes
• Manage team boundaries – manage the relationship between the team and the organization
• Challenge the team – forcing the team to rethink the established ways of doing the work
• Perform team tasks – take a more active role in the work of the team
• Solve problems – help the team overcome obstacles
• Provide resources – get the resources needed to carry out the work. Also indicates that the team is supported.
• Encourage team self-management – help the team manage itself
• Support social climate – it’s not all about the work. Although helping the team members become good friends will improve team performance and collaboration.

Leadership functions are important to ensure that the team is operating under the right conditions which would help the team, and by extension the organization, achieve its goals. There are always many different approaches to establishing and managing teams. These functions provide a good list of steps and functions needed to establish and manage a creative and / or technical team. It would be the team leader’s role to establish and maintain these functions; and all research points to teams and team leaders as the optimal basic structure for a successful operation.

What’s your view?

Do you have a different experience in team building and management? Leave a comment.

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04 Delivery Phase

Delivery phase is pretty straightforward – but very important. After all, there is no point putting all your energy into producing an outstanding multimedia piece that will absolutely stun the world and change our lives forever, if the client can’t see it and comment on it. Yes, there will be changes! Yes, some of them will drive you mad. But it’s ok, it is now time to deliver the version for review.

The items that we would need to capture here are mostly related to FTP access, if delivery is online. Otherwise, if you are still using CDs or other primitive old skool media, you may want to capture the delivery address. I did say simple – but important.

Two supporting document that should cover all delivery details:

• 04-01 Delivery Details – FTP details
• 04-02 Delivery Details – Delivery Specifications

05 Project Closure

So it all went incredibly well, client is happy, invoice has been paid and it’s time to party. Before you kill all those precious braincells of experience, perhaps you should document what you’ve learned working on this project. Capturing those precious experiences will help you in resolving similar situations and issues in the future, which in turn will help you deliver consistently great projects. Not good. Great. Get it? Ahhh never mind.

One support document for this phase to help you stay focused on the task:

• 05-01 Project Closure – Lessons Learned

Download all at once!

Get all the process documents in Word 2007 format, and a supporting interactive pdf technical specification file, as one zip file: multimedia development process (~1 Mb).

That concludes the multimedia development process series. Please let me know if you find it useful or if you have any suggestions for improvement.

What other steps would you list?

Do you have a process you use for your interactive / multimedia development? Have insights to share? Post a comment and let me know!

Related posts:

1. Multimedia Development Process – Part 1 of 3
2. Multimedia Development Process – Part 2 of 3

02 Design Phase

During the design phase we work to produce three deliverables:

• Course / Presentation map
• Wireframes
• Prototype

Coursemap / Presentation map

Same thing as a sitemap for a website. Create a diagram to capture the flow and interactions between all pages, applications, etc. Make sure that all pages have a unique id that can be used as a reference in communication for change requests (e.g. mod010_sub060_p140).

Wireframes

A lot has been said about wireframing over the last decade. But in short, it is the de-facto standard for creating user interfaces for web and multimedia. If you are not using wireframes to layout the logical structure of the user interface you are working on, you are probably not outputting the best result. Wireframes are the blueprints of a UI – and here’s a unique analogy – building a user interface without a wireframe is the equivalent to building a house without a blueprint(!). And we all know that’s just mad. Mad!

Unfortunately, wireframes have their background in IT, while a lot of graphic designers are asked to design the whole user interface for a multimedia project. Most graphic designers don’t have IT training, so it all gets lost in translation. We have to distinguish here between user interface design and visual design. User interface design is mostly scientific and is linked to psychology and usability. Visual design is mostly talent and trend watching mixed together skillfully. Following that, the development of a UI should not be assigned to a graphic designer – ideally. The visual design that is built on top of the UI wireframe is the area where a graphic designer will shine. You’ve been warned so you know what to do.

Wireframing resources will be added soon…

Prototype

Goes without saying, to create a prototype you ideally need some sort of content to use as a base. But as we all know, clients want to see the house built before they have decided how many rooms, bathrooms, floors, and where the house is to be located. Sometimes there is content, sometimes there isn’t. In which case we make up dummy content as placeholders. I hate dummy content with a vengeance, but such is life.

And there you have it. You have magically produced a well-planned prototype that conforms to requirements and does what the client wants. Celebrate with these two supporting documents:

• 02-01 Wireframing Checklist
• 02-02 Prototype Checklist

03 Development Phase

So you’ve survived this far. And you’re still here? I admire your commitment…and madness. But I like you – you remind me of myself. And that’s always a good thing.

Anyway, in this part we get down to what is sometimes referred to as integration - but I prefer the term build. You’ve made the plans, you’ve built the logic, during development you only repeat, tweak functionality, and add all the content and interactions.

Another couple of documents to support and guide your well-organised effort:

• 03-01 Build Checklist
• 03-02 Page Breakdown Sheet

In the next part I will discuss the delivery and project closure phases. See you then.

What other steps would you list?

Do you have a process you use for your interactive / multimedia development? Have insights to share? Post a comment and let me know!

Related posts:

1. Multimedia Development Process – Part 1 of 3
2. Multimedia Development Process – Part 3 of 3

So, what are the benefits of having a process:

1. identify unnecessary steps
2. streamline and compress delivery timelines
3. standardise output
4. maintain quality

All of this translates to: save time, make more money, be happier. And who doesn’t want to have more time, make more money, or be happier?

The Big Picture

I put together this process in a couple of days, along with all of the associated documentation. It comes largely from experience and answers questions such as “where do I start?” and “what am I forgetting to ask?”. Hopefully, nothing – forgetting to ask the right questions from the client at the very beginning of a project can lead to costs blowing up, delivery being delayed, and another client that wonders why is this all so complicated.

What are the steps in a multimedia development process?

The process consists of 6 phases:

1. Setup Phase
2. Requirements Phase
3. Design Phase
4. Development Phase
5. Delivery Phase
6. Project Closure Phase

These 6 phases are supported by a set of documents:

• Wireframe & Site-map templates
• Technical Specification Interactive PDF template
• Weekly Individual Progress reports (for teams)

It’s important to note that this process is related to development only. If you or your team are a part of a larger process, you need to ensure that some of the Setup, Requirements, and Design phases are completed together with your sales and design teams (depending on the type of your organisation, “design” team can be: Information Architects, Instructional Designers, etc.).

00 Setup Phase

Setup phase commences once a project contract has been signed. In this phase all the documents are printed out and a project diary is put together. At this stage we don’t know much about the project, but we do know that we have the contract and at some time in the future we will need to commence the next phase.

The Setup Phase contains two documents:

• 00-01 Project Notebook Cover Page
• 00-02 Project Notebook Contents

01 Requirements Phase

Requirements phase starts when either the client or your design team have the specifics of the business requirement. We are interested in capturing and understanding those to the best of our ability so that we can translate those requirements into a creative and technical solution.

This phase is supported by two documents:

• 01-01 Project Setup Checklist
• 01-02 Requirements Gathering Interview document

In the next part I will look at the design and development phases in more detail.

What other steps would you list?

Do you have a process you use for your interactive / multimedia development? Have insights to share? Post a comment and let me know!

Related posts:

1. Multimedia Development Process – Part 3 of 3
2. Multimedia Development Process – Part 2 of 3

The Challenge: Creating a database-driven Flash application that is completely integrated with another application, interacts and retrieves data from the host application, and interacts with another (non-standardised) system for getting user credentials required some planning. At the same time, the sub-project had to be carefully co-ordinated with the rest of the development effort.

Another competing requirement was coming from the vendor (RWD) as they wanted to be able to reuse the application on other projects, so re-usability and quick integration into other projects had to be considered at the same time. And finally, the current skill-set of the development team had to be considered as well, since they were comfortable with Actionscript 2 only.

The Solution: All the requirements were met after many revisions, and the result was a Flash-based, database-driven application that is integrated with the Healthy Thinking course. The application is made of a user interface for input and retrieval of data; a php middleware that transfers data between the application and the database; and a MySQL database that resides on the client’s servers. Application can be easily re-used and deployed in other courses quickly and with minimal effort. The logic being completely separate from the data, changing the user interface of the diary application should only take the effort of creating a new interface design. Overall, a relatively complex application with many competing requirements deployed successfully.

Services Provided:

• RIA Development
• UI analysis, design, and development
• Requirements Analysis and Design
• Production Management

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1. eLearning: Rocla

The Challenge: The old website did not fully capture the ambiance of the restaurant, and the owners wanted to create a website that better reflected the mood of being in the restaurant, to better mirror the changes that were being made and to strengthen and communicate the new brand positioning. At the same time, the menu had been updated often and the owners found the process of updating through a third party to be a tedious and lengthy one. Because of irregularities and differences between the menus online and in the restaurant, on occasion they had to lower the prices of the meals for the customers who were confused with the price disparities.

The Solution: A beautifully presented website that captures the mood of the restaurant through photography. I spent a day in the restaurant capturing the ambiance of the whole location, including the kitchen and staff, the tables, and the food. Da Sette Soldi is a great little restaurant with a lot of history and an incredibly loyal clientele. It is a true landmark as it is one of the first Italian restaurants in the area, and it has grown from a small takeaway shop to an informal trattoria, to a more elegant location. I wanted to capture as much of that as possible in as few photos as permissible with the constraints of space and bandwidth in mind.

To solve the updating issue, the content sections of the website were linked to a very simple online content management system (CMS) that allows the quick and easy change of content by a non-technical user.

The Result: TBC

Services Provided:

• Pre-packaged Large Website

Related posts:

1. Website: Karin Ruppeldt, PhDr
2. Website: Warooy.com

Related posts:

1. Website: Da Sette Soldi Restaurant
2. Website: Warooy.com
3. Website: Golem Productions

The Challenge: This was a relatively simple project and the client allowed a lot of freedom. There were no technical complexities and the only specific requirement (aside from the content) was to make it pleasing, interesting, and engaging.

The Solution: A simple clean and modern look that is familiar to the audience, supported by simple animations and screencasts guiding the user. We also developed a few diagrams for the new phone systems as the client wasn’t happy with the original manufacturer diagrams. Overall, a successful project, happy client and users, and a successful launch. This is usually the result of a hand-off approach by clients.

Services Provided:

• Interactive Multimedia Development
• eLearning Framework customisation
• Art Direction
• Graphic Design
• InDesign work
• UI analysis, design, and development
• Requirements Analysis and Design
• Production Management

Related posts:

1. eLearning: Rocla

The Challenge: The client wanted to create a very simple one-page website outlining the business and the services that they provide. There was not much content, and the requirement was that photos of airplane cargo and Prague / Bratislava are incorporated in the design. Another important element was the high visibility of the contact details.

The Solution: I selected a very simple design that uses a rotation of images as was the requirement, and incorporated clearly visible contact details to help visitors enquire about the services offered.

The Result: TBC

Services Provided:

• Pre-packaged Small Website

Related posts:

1. Website: Karin Ruppeldt, PhDr
2. Website: Da Sette Soldi Restaurant
3. Website: Golem Productions