Let’s face it; the business environment isn’t slowing down. If anything, it’s speeding up. Clients want information more quickly. Product is due yesterday. Employees everywhere send even the most mundane letters via overnight mail. As I heard someone once say, "We live in an age where we place instant coffee into the microwave and then yell, ‘HURRY UP!’"

As learning professionals, this type of mentality carries an expectation of "shazaming" content to the desktops of learners within minutes of discovering the need. We are constantly being asked to rapidly design, develop, and deliver content. The sooner we deliver the content, the better. In fact, instant content would delight many a business unit manger. Oh, by-the-way, the content must be accurate and improve employee performance by 50 to 60 percent.

Our challenge as designers and developers of e-learning is to quickly fill the learning need within the organization while simultaneously meeting the needs of the learner who demands an interactive and engaging experience. Otherwise, learners drop out.

While a difficult situation lies ahead, there are a number of techniques learning and development departments can use to fulfill organizational and individual learning needs. Two of these methods include thinking outside of the learning profession and adopting practices of other industries. The two industries are NASCAR racing and television news shows.

It typically takes a person 20 to 30 minutes to change a flat tire. It takes a NASCAR pit crew about 20 seconds to change four. The difference? The pit crew practices the maneuver over and over, has specialized equipment, and has analyzed the process completely to eliminate wasted time. To rapidly develop and deploy e-learning, you need to do the same.

Practice rapidly developing and deploying the e-learning. Many organizations purchase rapid e-learning software and then don’t use it until they’re forced to develop instruction to meet a pressing need. This leads to problems.

Instead, use rapid e-learning software to create practice pieces that have reasonable delivery dates. Also, create lessons using a rapid approach that don’t need to be done rapidly. This provides the development team with practice and a chance to hone techniques prior to an actual need.

When the team practices, they learn the nuances of the software. Every software application has different capabilities and functionality. Practicing helps the team to learn how to best use the features of the software. Practice also helps with some of the more mundane elements of developing rapid e-learning, such as

• locating an appropriate company logo
• using the clip art program
• announcing the learning item’s availability to the organization.

Employ specialized equipment and software. In the e-learning world, our equipment is the software we use to develop instruction. Also included are stock paragraphs or learning objects. We need to make sure we have the right equipment in place.

For example, the marketing department will gladly provide a corporate logo, sometimes even at the last minute. The problem is that the logo might be at a resolution appropriate for print media rather than web delivery. Get the corporate logo and any other graphical or text information from the marketing department before you need them. This is especially true when matching corporate colors developed in print to the same color hue and tone online.

You can purchase clip art libraries for health, banking, or whatever profession is appropriate for your organization. However, you need to do this before you have the need for 30 images of doctors by tomorrow morning. When you first get the clip art disk, take some time to learn how to locate images and how they can be exported into other programs. This will save valuable time later.

Think through the different e-learning programs you may need to produce ahead of time. It may even make sense to write some standard text paragraphs, such as introductions to e-learning lessons, help screens, and instructions for completing the end of module evaluation.

Analyze your internal processes to eliminate wasted time. This entails focusing on streamlining your development process. One method of doing this is to question your current processes.

• Do you have templates for gathering information from subject matter experts?
• Do you have a list of experts within your organization so you know who is a subject matter expert?
• Have you developed a quality assurance checklist for rapid e-learning modules?
• Do you have a list of technical specifications for development and for image sizes?
• Is there a central location for all graphical images?
• Do you conduct monthly rehearsals for rapid e-learning development?
• Do you have monthly meetings with the IT department to review current state of your corporate intranet?

Answering these questions will help you to develop internal processes that reduce waste and time inefficiencies.

The news shows that are on television 24/7 need to get information to people as quickly and accurately as possible. The formats that are used can be adapted to rapid e-learning. The news shows use several of the following techniques:

• on-location reporting
• interviewing a panel of experts
• interviewing other reporters

On-location reports. For breaking news, the major networks send a reporter to the scene. The same can be done in a corporation. If a new product is being launched, send someone to interview the vice president of sales or interview them online using such software as Macromedia’s Breeze Live or Interwise. If you’re actually at the scene, record it on a hand-held digital recorder and save it as an MP3 for download by learners.

If your organization is launching a new lean manufacturing program, send someone to interview the director of operations. Have them take a digital camera and photograph the lean techniques being applied. A series of photographs can provide a great how-to visual aid for the next shift in terms of loading a die or calibrating equipment.

The trick to on-location rapid e-learning is to have a template of questions that you are going to ask the people or have a template for digitally recording a procedure. Know what you will do before arriving at the scene.

Expert panels. Another good technique for developing instruction quickly is to gather a group of people who know about the topic. Then ask the panel questions. Record the responses. Depending upon the amount of bandwidth within your organization, you can make the results available as an audio or video track or just plain old text. Again, have a set of questions already developed that focus on the learning you want to transfer to the audience.

Additional interviews. This happens all the time within modern news organizations. They seek and interview someone who is familiar with the information or a story but who is not the main source. You will constantly hear, "Tonight we have with us a reporter who has been covering this story for the past few months…."

Apply the same technique to rapid e-learning. If you need to provide the entire organization with information in a short period of time and the person who the most knowledge is busy, which is typically the case in these situations, set up an interview with someone else who is close to the information or trusted by employees. This way the critical information will get to the organization’s employees in a timely manner. It might not be the entire picture but it is still better than not providing any information.

The need for speed is not going to go away. As learning and development professions, we need to constantly develop new and innovative methods of providing rapid learning opportunities. Borrowing ideas from other industries like NASCAR and news organizations is just one way of developing innovative ideas for the creation and deployment of rapid e-learning solutions.