How Long Does it Take? 
Estimation Methods for Developing E-Learning
By Karl M. Kapp          

Over the years, vendors and clients have struggled to find an effective method for estimating the amount of time it takes to develop e-learning. Here are four methods for developing estimations.

Since the days of laser disks, the age-old question, “How long does it take to develop on-line learning?” has plagued vendors and clients. The tongue-cheek-answer—always given with a smirk—is, “It depends.”

In fact, determining the amount of time it takes to develop e-learning does depend on a large number of variables, including type of media used (streaming video, audio, still photos, line drawings), client experience with e-learning, complexity of the topic, number of interactions, desired quality level, instructional strategies, development team, and a dozen others. Fortunately, the online learning industry has matured over the years, as have the methods for estimating development time. Currently, there are many variations and techniques for developing a time estimate, but most of the methods revolve around four basic techniques. While none of these methods are flawless, they each contain strengths for developing an accurate estimate.

Perhaps the simplest estimation method is to compare the current e-learning project with past projects—Project X had 10 objectives and it took 200 hours to develop and Project Y has five objectives so it should take only 100 hours to develop. This is known in project management jargon as analogous estimating.

Analogous estimating means that you use the actual time frame from a pervious, similar project as the basis for estimating the time frame for the current project. The underlying premise is that this project is analogous to that project. Because we know how long that project took, we can estimate how long this project will take. Analogous estimating is used when little information is known about the current e-learning project or when two projects appear similar. Of course, if they appear similar but, in fact, are not, the estimate is inaccurate. Analogous estimation is good for ball-park figures but not for precise estimations of a project or timeline development.

The problem with using analogous estimations is that one e-learning project is rarely exactly like another. Even when projects are similar to each other, the clients (internal or external) usually vary in substantial ways. Because so much time is spent working with clients attempting to understand content and determining how to communicate with stakeholders, it’s difficult to use analogous estimating. 

The best time to use this type of estimation is with the same client on a similar project or when you need a quick “guestimation” of how long an e-learning development project may take.

A more accurate method is to use a pre-established formula. Formulas are most effective when certain variables of the e-learning project are known. The official term for this is parametric modeling.

Parametric modeling involves using variables from the e-learning project description in a mathematical formula to develop an estimate. For example, if you know the number of screens that will be involved and how long it takes for your developers to create one screen of instruction, you can estimate the amount of time it takes to create the e-learning course. If it takes your developers 10 minutes a screen and you have 1000 screens then it will take 10,000 minutes, which is 167 hours or a little over four weeks for development. The formula is simple—the number of screens multiplied by the amount of time each screen takes to create equals the total amount of effort needed for development. 

In the book, Project Management for Trainers, Lou Russell provides numbers for formulas to determine the work effort for certain types of training projects. First, Russell identifies three variables that must be considered when estimating a project:

Each factor is assigned a weight. Then the numbers are multiplied to determine an estimation of time to complete the task. The first step is to determine how long you think a particular task will take to complete. For example, writing objectives for an e-learning module on machine safety might require an average of 27 hours. Once you have that estimate, you add certain variables until you arrive at an actual project time.

For the expertise variable, Russell created two factors: an instructional design expertise factor and a content knowledge factor.  For the instructional design expertise factor, she assigns a weighted percent of between 0.5 and 1.5. If the person performing the work is a real expert, they get a percentage of 0.5; if they aren’t an expert the percentage is closer to 1.5. The more experienced the developer, the less time needs to be added onto the estimate. For the content knowledge expertise factor she assigns values between 0.75 and 4.0, with 0.75 being someone with a lot of content knowledge and 4.0 being a person with little content knowledge. If you have less knowledge of the content, it will take longer to develop the instruction. If our developer has no knowledge of machine safety, he or she may get a content matter expertise factor of 4.0. If the expert worked a few years in a factory and understands something about machine safety, he or she might get a factor of 3.0. If the expert wrote a book on machine safety, the expertise factor is closer to 0.75.

Russell’s formula calls for first applying the instructional design expertise factor by multiplying the estimated time for an activity by a number between 0.5 and 1.5 and then multiplying that number by the content expertise factor which is between 0.75 and 4.0. The result would work as follows:

The next general factor is project-related work. This is the amount of time added to an activity, including the number of people working on the project and the time it takes for them to accurately communicate with one another to successfully complete the task. When more people work on a task, the level of difficulty raises. Russell’s numbers range from a factor of .10 for a few people to a factor of .20 for more people.

The final factor mentioned by Russell is the environmental factor. This factor is for non-project activities, such as checking email, instant messaging, answering phone calls, attending meetings, breaks and other non-value-added tasks. It also considers illness and other non-scheduled events. The environmental factor can range from a low of .25 to a high of .35—depending on the type of work environment. A more chaotic work environment will mean that team members are juggling multiple tasks, which equates to a higher number.

Another factor often included in parametric modeling for e-learning is the amount of interactivity. Although Russell doesn’t factor interactivity for instructor-led training into her equation, it’s essential for e-learning. Interactivity is the number and types of interaction that the learner has with the program. You can have no interactions—the learner simply reads information from the screen. Or you can have complete interaction, with a simulation in which every move the learner makes interacts and influences the e-learning environment. I would give this factor a range from a low of 1.0 to a high of 4.0. If e-learning isn’t very interactive, it would be 1.0. A 4.0 would be for a highly interactive simulation.

Parametric modeling provides an effective method of determining the amount of work effort needed for a project. Unfortunately, it also gives a false sense of precision. The method still requires a great deal of guessing. The multiplication factors are a guess (educated albeit, but still a guess). When these numbers are used, keep in mind that some of the underlying factors are less than 100 percent accurate. 

For example, what’s the difference between a 2.0 and a 3.0 content knowledge expertise factor. How is that difference measured? Is an experienced instructional designer with no expertise in a subject area given a higher or lower factor than an average instructional designer with superior knowledge of a subject area? These are guesses, and the formulas get you close but are by no means an exact science.

Another shortcoming is that it’s nearly impossible to predict every single variable that has an impact on the development of e-learning. It’s difficult to accurately predict the level of interactivity, the level of developer experience, and the level of effort needed to extract the necessary knowledge from the subject matter experts.

More important, it’s easy to get too carried away with variables. You could create a variable to indicate whether or not a client company has had experience with e-learning, a variable for the number of animations required, a variable for the number of people on the project, a variable for the number of delivery platforms, and so on. To make sense of all the possible variables, choose ones that are meaningful and accurately predict the amount of work effort within your organization.

Bottom-up estimating is a process by which the major deliverables of the project are broken down into smaller tasks until each task can be easily assigned a time value. This is sometimes called work breakdown structure (WBS). The idea is that if you can break down every activity into a definable task and assign an estimated time to each task, you can roll up all the tasks to determine the total amount of effort it will take for the entire project.

Following is an example of a preliminary bottom up estimation for a project involving a needs analysis and the subsequent development of a fifteen minute e-learning piece in HTML. Using the bottom up approach, list each task that needs to be completed was developed, along with an estimated time for each task.

The process of determining the smaller tasks of a project is known as decomposition. These smaller components (tasks) can then be given time estimates more easily and precisely than larger chunks of tasks.  For instance, it’s easer to estimate the time for creating a template in HTML then to estimate how long it will take to create an entire e-learning lesson. The smaller and more tangible a task, the easier it is to create an accurate estimate.

The bottom-up calculation is most accurate for forecasting time requirements, but it’s time consuming. One shortcut with this method is to determine an estimate for one lesson and then use that estimate as a multiplier for the total number of lessons you need to develop. So if you estimated that one lesson will take 100 hours to develop, you can multiple the number of lessons you need by 100 to determine the total number of hours for all the lessons.

Although this method can be effective, it’s not perfect. Often a project team forgets to include certain tasks or will severely over or underestimate a task. Once that task is incorrectly estimated, it can influence results for the entire project. The team also needs to take into account that some tasks can be done in parallel. So the actual completed calendar time for the project needs to be examined to ensure that any parallel processes are accurately reflected in the delivery date.

Another method of e-learning project estimation is to get some type of benchmark within the industry for the amount of development effort required per hour of e-learning. For example, if you knew that most organizations took 100 hours to develop one hour of e-learning, you would then know approximately how long your firm should estimate to develop an hour of e-learning—approximately 100 hours. Unfortunately, the e-learning industry doesn’t have a universally agreed upon set of standards for predicting the number of hours for developing one hour of e-learning.

While a single standard hasn’t been agreed upon by an international standards group, the ratios in the table below provide some degree of standardization concerning development times. These estimations are based on interviews with several e-learning development firms, internal e-learning developers, and a careful review of literature concerning the topic. The numbers are displayed as a range to account for the variability within the industry concerning development times. The amount of work effort for many e-learning projects will comfortably fit within these ranges; however, there will also be projects that will not fit within the ranges. Use these numbers as a frame of reference and strive to develop a similar set of numbers for your own internal development efforts.

Bottom line

To be sure, the methods for estimating development time and resources of an e-learning project vary and each has advantages and disadvantages. One way to check on e-learning development time is to use a couple of the estimation methods and then develop a range of time for developing e-learning at your organization. With a little up-front work and effort, you can usually develop a range that helps you answer the age old question, “How long does it take to develop online learning?”

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Published: July 14, 2003