I agree that the question has no simple answer, but there is no excuse for plain, old rudeness.

STOP - if you have nothing constructive to add to a discussion, then please refrain from the snide comments.

By the way - the name of this board is "Training Fundamentals". Keep that in mind before we rub our experience and credentials in the faces of others.

Thanks, Amy and Travelerjjm...

What you both say definitely fits in with my own experience. I am curious if anyone has attempted to design a tool - maybe even as simple as a checklist - based on criteria like what you have mentioned to try to somewhat formalize the decision making process rather than approaching every single project with a blank sheet of paper. Do you (or anyone else) know of any such a tool?

What would the tool do?

You could use a traditional day planner format to lay out start, stop, break, activity and lecture times.

I like to use a mind-mapping tool to decide on instruction and activity mix, which then outputs an outline. Freemind doesn't do a good job of output to OpenOffice Impressr, yet (AFAIK), so I use an old copy MindManager sometimes. For some design tasks I use CourseBuilder.

What I do for the estimating time is to make a spreadsheet (OO Calc or Excel) to add the times. I then place these in a spreadsheet that looks like the day planner I mentioned. A good tool would be a tool that blocks out time and then does the additions (I guess I could write a macro for this if I needed to). If I have a preset delivery time (e.g. four hours or three days), I then remove material until I fit within the time limit. (I don't recall having to add any I generally estimate the time required for topics pretty accurately after having done this for a long time.

If there is a good commercial tool to do the mindmapping, outline and time management, I have not seen it. And besides, I prefer to use free stuff (MindManager is not free, but I usually use freemind).

It's nothing personal. It's a commentary on the overall state of affairs that this would even be a question. How does one estimate time needed for *any* project? Via experience, good analysis, and planning.
I'm sorry if you took it personally - I can see how it might be taken that way and I do apologize for that.

It's difficult for many people to hear it but the longer people pretend like it's normal for things like this to be posed by people who are professionals in the field to a group of other professionals, the longer we will never get any progress towards respect of this field.

My emotional reaction to questions like these stems from my passion for this profession slowly being painfully picked away piece by piece because even after all these years, there are still gaping holes of understanding within the profession about what the profession is and ought to be.

As others have said - there is no basic simple answer. There is no magic formula. There is no magic bullet. Why anybody would think there is one is the reason I feel a need to weep.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: StopSpoonFeedingNow,

StopSpoonFeedingNow...

The thing is...what if I were a student and just learning the craft? While you may have a great desire for the profession to move forward, there are some who will always be just starting out, and will ask questions like this. And besides, I would argue that there are multiple tools out there to help people organize their thoughts around projects in general, and I don't see why there couldn't be the same for training professionals as they plan for delivery of training. For example...

I believe there is a way to develop a customized tool for a company's own unique purposes to get a general sense of whether the training delivery would need to be shorter or longer. As there are multiple criteria that can be examined to make a judgment about training delivery time, these criteria can be listed and a sliding scale could be placed to the right of each criteria that would identify the degree or amount specific to the criteria (small to large, low to high, none to many, etc.). These sliding scales should be arranged so that the left side of the scale indicates the response that would require the least amount of time, and the right side indicates the response that would require the most amount of time.

Here are just some of the criteria that could impact the length of time of any training delivery:

Number of people in class
The more people you have, the greater the chance the training will take longer because of increased number of questions, time to get them focused, etc.

Learner experience level
The more the learners are already experienced in the basic topic area or technology fundamentals, the quicker they may get through the training.

Skills or knowledge-based training
If the training is more skills based, it may take more time than if it is more knowledge based.

Amount of practice needed
If the new system or process requires practice, the amount of practice needed will impact delivery time.

Mastery level needed
Does the new system or process requires simple awareness? full mastery? This will impact the delivery time.

Complexity level of topic
If the topic (process, system) is extremely complex, this will take more time than if it is simple.

Amount of discussion or experience sharing needed or desired
If discussion or experience sharing among learners is key to enhancing the understanding of the topic, then this will add time to the delivery

Rollout deadline
If there is a rollout deadline looming, this may require the shortening of delivery time.

Time learners can take away from work
If the learners are not allowed to take much time away from work (manager decision, busy time of year, etc.), this may require the shortening of delivery time.

Once the list is built and the sliding scales lined up, for each new system or process the trainer puts a hash mark at the point in each sliding scale down the list. He/she should be able to eyeball the list to determine if the training will require less time or more time. It doesn’t identify exactly how many hours specifically, but he/she would at least get an idea of whether it will be a shorter training or a longer training. The exact number of hours would have to be a judgment call.

Anyway, while you might find this kind of tool basic and unnecessary, it could be extremely useful to many people - especially those who are just starting out as trainers.

My two cents.