Course Design—and My Housecleaner

How My Housecleaner Demonstrated that We Can’t Deliver the Same Amount of Training Content in Less Time

Have you ever hired a housecleaner?

I am lucky enough to have one, and I’ve been very pleased with her work for many years now. I was recently thinking about how I got started with her when a client made an unrealistic request of me.

Our client had engaged us to develop a custom class for them. As usual, we started with an analysis to understand the audience’s capabilities and needs. Then we recommended a set of learning objectives with key topics and activities, and a six-hour course length based on achieving those objectives. We set expectations about what was possible to achieve in a given amount of time (and cost).

Our primary contact pushed back. “We don’t want to spend more than four hours in training,” she told us. After some discussion, we asked her to review the list of topics with us to decide what was a lower priority, and thus could be cut out.

How does this relate to my housecleaner? When I first hired my housecleaner, she examined my home (yikes!) and told me what she could clean for a given price (which equates to her time). Thus, she set expectations with me.

Once she started work, I was hoping my housecleaner would also clean the inside of my fridge as well as vacuum the back porch. Would it be reasonable for me to ask her to add that work for the same price? Of course, I knew that would mean other things—dusting, mopping, wiping the stove top—would not be as done as thoroughly. I’d need to cut a service or add time and expense. I knew I shouldn’t expect more could be fit in once we agreed on time, cost, and resources.

Often, instructional designers are asked to “fit more” content into the same amount of class time or, as in this case, fit the same amount of content into less class time. This practice would compromise overall program effectiveness, just as my housecleaner request would impact the overall cleanliness of my home. The inside of my fridge might be spotless, but who cares about that if there are cobwebs in every nook and cranny?

As for our client, we stuck with the original design plans. We agreed to revisit the course design (including the length) after delivering it the first time and evaluating the value of each topic to the learners.