Life of the Content as a Guideline for Development

In a discussion with a client the other day, we brought up the topic of how to decide whether or not training should be considered formal or informal which branched into some thinking about maybe using the volitily of the training as a guideline for which technology to use to develop the content with.

For example, a training program that includes content that might change rather frequently, may be better served as a more informal platform or something easy to update such as a podcast/vodcast, reference document or wiki.  Content that won't be changing frequently such as compliance content could then be build with more stable content tools such as an eLearning course, scripted video etc.

In our past experience, the standard question to ask is "what is the shelf-life" of the content.  If it's going to change frequently, you have to consider the costs of upgrading and modifying compared to the selection of technolgy used to create, distribute and measure the learning.  Here is a chart you may want to use as a guide to help you determin which type of delivery platform should be considered by the frequency of content changes.