Cooking for a Dinner Party

You’ve been hired by a party planner to do some cooking for a dinner event. Being a great chef, you begin to ask those all important questions prior to preparing the menu:

• Who am I cooking for/what do they want to eat?
  
• Will I be meeting with the hostess prior to the party?
  
• Will I be able to work with the hostess on the menu?
  
• What is the theme?
  
• How is the event being decorated?
  
• How much time do I have for prep?
  
• Will I be preparing all foods at the location?
  
• Has the facility been inspected/does it meet food preparation code or do I need to make changes?
  

These are just some of the things that are running through your mind right now! The same is true with instructional design. In order to design training (cook for a dinner party), you have to:

• Obtain the project and training plans
  
• Work with the Subject Matter Expert
  
• Write and design the content
  
• Work with the developer
  
• Correct any errors or quality issues

When cooking for a dinner party you get much of your administrative direction and guidance from the planner (i.e., the Project Manager), the Host provides the specific details (i.e., the Subject Matter Expert), the decorator (i.e., the Developer) adds the right ambience to go with the meal, and the Health Inspector (i.e., the Quality Assurance Specialist) ensures the standards are met so that the meal can be served.

Your awareness of how these team members aide your ability to prepare the menu and final meal (complete the instruction) is vital to the success of not only your work but the overall dinner party (project). I addition you, as the ID through your provision of role responsibilities and key information with each of the team members impacts the overall project outcome. The shared awareness of the menu (parameters of the project) helps keep the project fluid, organized, within the bounds of the original project description without scope creep.


If this is your first time cooking for a big event or if you want to improve the odds of the project’s success use the following table to help you prepare.

Role	What information you need to discuss/obtain
Project Manager (Party Planner)	Project plan (project requirements, timeline, method of communication, etc.) Training plan (target audience, delivery method(s), style guide, etc.) What are the budgeted hours (both for your role and for each respective team member that has responsibilities that impact your work) SME contact information Are all stakeholders (external and integral to the success of the project) on board?
Subject Matter Expert (Host)*	Comprehension of Role/Responsibilities ( see SME Guidance template from Making the SME a Master Chef in your ID Kitchen) Method of communication (for discussions and tracking changes) Formulate and validate objectives
Multimedia Designer/Graphic Artist (Party Decorator)	Will special media be incorporated in training? Will we be working with a template? (Does training need to take place on the template?) Who and how will graphics be located? Is this project media/graphics heavy, requiring additional time and/or resources? Will testing be conducted?
QA Specialist (Health Inspector)	What are the QA requirements? What is the turnaround time? Is the QA team aware of your project/timeline/needs?

*Though a SME is the one who typically reviews content, at times, there will be additional reviewers. Keep in mind these reviewers will also impact the timeline. If you are not working as closely with these reviewers as you are with the SME, you may need to ensure that they have the same level of knowledge about the project and their responsibilities. Also make sure you are familiar with their review cycles and the communication methods that will be used for discussion purposes and for tracking changes.

Getting Everyone to Read from the Same Recipe

Department X assumes that Department Y is doing Z to make sure that the project achieves A. Department Y expects Department X to be doing Z to make sure that the project achieves A. This all ready is starting to sound like a recipe for disaster.

It’s not uncommon to have a chocolate chip cookie recipe that varies in ingredients, amounts, mixing methods, cooking temperature and time; much like it’s not uncommon to have two different departments in a company wanting the same end result but having different requirements, assumptions, and expectations.

More commonly our understanding of what a requirement, an assumption, and an expectation to a project are invariably different. So let’s look at a recipe from the aspects of requirements, assumptions, and expectations.

Requirements – Recipes require specific ingredients in certain amounts. The recipe also has instructions for how to mix together the ingredients. Recipes also require a specific cooking temperature and time.

Assumption – We assume that the recipe is written accurately from the amounts, the instructions, and the cooking time and temperature. We assume that if we if we follow the recipe it will result in the dish we were expecting.

Expectations – Our expectation that we will achieve the dish we set out to make is based on the requirements and the assumptions. Assuming that we followed the requirements we expect our dish to be a certain way.

Below is a list of times when a conversation around requirements, assumptions, and expectations may be needed:

• When fleshing out a training goal.



• When creating a training plan.



• When writing a Request for Proposal (RFP).



• When kicking off a project with a vendor.



• When discussing a goal with your team.



• When discussing a goal that will be shared by multiple departments/divisions.

The unspoken word here is risk. Risk inevitably follows these three words when they are not communicated to achieve a common understanding. Risk is the cookie that is too hard to eat or over-cooked. Mitigate risk and have a perfect batch of project success more often by discussing requirements, assumptions, and expectations as part of the project kick-off (if not during project development).

Below are examples of requirements, assumptions, and expectations as they relate to a project.

Web-based training that is 508 compliant for ABC Company

Requirement	The training module must be compatible with Flash 6.0.
Assumption	Everyone has Flash 6.0 (or compatible version) on their computers.
Expectation	The piece of training runs on everyone’s computer.

Web-based training that is 508 compliant for ABC Company

Requirement	All training for ABC Company must comply with section 508 standards.
Assumption	The multimedia developer is familiar with the company’s 508 compliance standards and will create alt text and d-links as required.
Expectation	The training is delivered with all interactions and graphics containing alt text and d-links.