Identifying the scope of the educational product

Identifying the scope of an educational product is the most important part of the analysis phase. It is when instructional designers perform research and make decisions regarding the needs, goals, and constraints of the project. By defining the scope of the project, the designers can focus their work and align the project's activities to maximize learning objective attainment.

About this procedure

Defining a project's scope is the primary goal of the analysis phase of the ADDIE model. The project scope will directly define the types of activities, interfaces, technologies, and media that can be designed in the design phase of the instructional design model. It provides appropriate constraints so that the project doesn't overshoot it's goals, miss out on learning objectives, or

Defining the scope of a project is broken up into many sub-steps, including defining the intended learning objectives for the project, identifying the audience and its needs, identifying some of the structural considerations that will influence design, and identifying the constraints that product development, implementation, and evaluation will face. Each of these steps has additional substeps that can be performed to critically analyze and consider the implications for the overall design.

In Figure 1, a model of the four elements of a project's scope is depicted, including learning objectives, audience considerations, structural considerations, and constraints. The elements are all interrelated, meaning that the definitions and decisions of one element will influence the remaining three. The learning objectives of a project are central to the scope of the project, as they are the ultimate goal of the educational process. Defining each of these four elements is one step in defining the scope of the project. Each element has a set of sub-steps that can be followed to help further define the element.

Scope elements can be defined in any order, and you will likely go back and forth between the four elements while you are working on defining the project scope. However, it can help to tackle them in the following sequence, as each step provides information that is useful for the next step:

Step 1: Define learning objectives
Step 2: Define the audience considerations
Step 3: Define the structural considerations
Step 4: Define the project constraints

As an instructional designer, you will likely frequently revisit your project scope during the design and development phases, and that's completely ok! You will find that you may need to refine or further define the scope to maximize the learning potential for participants. Additionally, the design and development phases often reveal new constraints, audience considerations, and structural issues that need to be resolved that were impossible to anticipate during the initial planning phases (which is impossible even for the best of design teams!). The project scope is intended to prevent major waste of effort and resources due to improper planning during design and development that leads to a product not working or not being feasible for the target audience or context.

That is why it is useful to move on from the analysis phase of planning a project as soon as it is reasonable and you have spent adequate time in performing each of the following steps. Because the design and development phases reveal new constraints and considerations for the project, it is important to begin designing as soon as feasible. You can always return to your project scope and revise it!

Note: By completing this set of steps early in your design project, you will be creating an initial project scope. As you move on from planning and start to design and develop the project, you will likely revise the components of your project's scope multiple times, and this is normal! The project scope is not a hard-set, rigid set of rules to follow about design.

Developing a project scope then is always about maintaining a balance between planning and designing. You need a good plan so that you don't waste time and money working on design and development only to find out that it won't work because of structural or audience considerations. So, planning is necessary. But too much planning means that you will never get started on design - and you can only learn some things about the project once you actually start designing and building it. So find a healthy balance!

Instructions

In the following steps, you can find additional links to sub-steps and tasks. The tasks that first-time instructional designers should focus on are marked with the ✳️ green star emoji. An orange star emoji ✴️ is a more advanced task that will give you a more robust plan and consider more of the aspects that will lead to a stronger product, but beginners can pass on the advanced tasks to keep their planning simpler.

Any ❔ Questions to answer sections provide you with prompts and ideas to help you work through and think about each step. If you need inspiration or ideas, consider the questions to answer section and work through each item.

When something says to 📓 Document, be sure to jot down your notes, make lists, and document your work so that you will have a record of your decisions. You will use your notes to specifically develop your design specifications, but the notes may also be useful for any reports, proposals, or other documents that you may need to write that describe your design. Don't forget to include the current date on your notes!

✳️ Step 1: Define the initial learning objectives

Additional sub-steps for determining learning objectives >>

As the goal of any educational product is for the participant to learn, a good starting point for developing the scope of a project is to define the educational objectives of the product.

By defining some initial learning objectives, all of the project's activities, technologies, and interfaces can be best aligned with these goals at the outset to ensure that learning is maximized. Well-defined learning objectives allow the design team to be reminded of the goals of the project and focus their work so that the project does not prioritize things that will not ultimately benefit the defined learning objectives.

➡️ This step is further broken down into sub-steps at the determining learning objectives page. Designers should follow the specific steps for determining learning objectives to create a defined list of appropriate learning objectives.

Remember, you will likely refine this list of learning objectives as you work through the defining the other elements of the project's scope. However, starting with some objectives in mind is a good place to start.

✳️ Step 2: Consider the project's audience

Additional sub-steps for determining audience considerations >>

After defining some preliminary learning objectives, you will find that determining the audience and its needs is a useful step toward understanding who will use the project and what their unique needs are that will have to be addressed within the design.

Your project will work with audiences who have different needs, which should all be accounted for to maximize participation, accessibility, and learning. It is in this step of defining the project scope that you will figure out who will use the educational product, identify their backgrounds and prior experiences, and understand the contexts in which they will participate in your educational product or experience.

➡️ This step is further defined on the determining audience considerations page. To consider some of the important aspects of your audience, follow the steps on this page so that you gain a valuable understanding of your audience.

Similar to the other steps in this process, you will likely revise your understandings and scope of the audiences that you serve as you reveal additional information about the constraints of the project, the project's structure and setting, and even as you design the activities and technologies of the product.

✳️ Step 3: Consider the project's structure

Additional sub-steps for determining structural considerations >>

The structural considerations of design are the "big picture" settings and structures that determine what activities are possible within an educational product. These structural considerations include (1) the duration of the experience, (2) the setting of learning, be it face-to-face, online, or a hybrid mix of the two, and (3) the timing of when people are expected to participate, either live/real-time or asynchronous.

The structural considerations are pretty easy to define once you have determined your audience and some of their needs. The core structural decisions of your product will determine what kinds of activities, technologies, and interfaces that you will design for learners to interact with.

➡️ This step is further defined on the determining structural considerations page. By making some structural and contextual decisions about your project early on, you make it easier to design engaging learning activities that align with a viable and feasible structure.

For instance, if it is difficult for participants to meet in a physical space for a learning activity, it is most likely that an online setting would be useful, and perhaps self-paced or asynchronous learning interactions - both of which are structural considerations of design.

✴️ Step 4: Identify the constraints with the design

Additional sub-steps for identifying project constraints >>

The constraints of a project are important to consider, as they can directly determine the ability of the instructional design team in completing their design and development tasks to get the project off the ground and deployed. Things such as the required skills of the design team based on the audience and structural considerations, the financial requirements of your project during its design and development phases, and the specific requirements for the contexts and industries in which you are deploying the project will all contribute toward defining the scope of the project and determining what activities and technologies will be feasible.

Common constraints include (1) the amount of money available for design and development work (including art and actual building of technologies and products); (2) the skills of the design team, (3) adequate representation of ideas, perspectives, and backgrounds on the deisgn team; (4) the context and industry in which the product will be used; and (5) constraints raised by the structural and audience considerations that require the design to be made in a certain way.

Many constraints will be raised and documented while determining the learning objectives, audience considerations, and structural considerations that were defined in previous steps. That is why considering, identifying, and documenting the constraints of the scope of the project is a useful step to complete toward the end of the procedure to define the initial scope of the project.

➡️ This step is further defined on the determining initial project constraints page. By taking into account the constraints, challenges, and available resources that are facing the design team, you can get a better idea of what kinds of things may make design and development difficult, identify the budget and available resources for design, and determine the feasibility of deploying your educational product.

✴️ Step 5: Revisit and revise each component regularly

Each step in this process reveals information, insights, and ideas about the other steps. As you can see in Figure 2, each of the project scope's elements informs the other elements. As you define the learning objectives for your project, you will also gain insights on your audience, the structural considerations, and constraints facing your design team.

Revision of the project scope is a completely normal and necessary thing to do - especially if you discover things about the product that will not work as you move into the design and development phases. What is important is that everything remains balanced - that the activities and evaluations remain balanced within the scope of the project.

Identifying the scope of the project is also a useful tool for designers so that they do not overcommit resources or design an infeasible product that promises too much without results.

Feel free to revise your project scope as you discover new challenges that need to be addressed, but also lean on your project scope as your blueprint for pushing forward with design and staying within the planned bounds of the project! It's too easy as designers to get new ideas and let things creep in past the initial scope, which complicates projects and pushes back development deadlines.

So, revise your scope and pivot the plan when you see opportunity - but let it also guide you so that you finish your project on time and within the project's constraints, budget, and available team.

Examples

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External Resources