Planning considerations and resource management

Understanding context and needs, defining goals and identifying the target audience are the first steps in developing a training course and provide the basis for planning, organising the event and resource management. This includes setting timelines for developing training materials and resources, preparing the learners by providing pre-training exercises or technical set-up instructions, logistical and infrastructural arrangements. Using project management tools it is possible to keep track of progress and manage timelines effectively.

Additional considerations include:

• Venue, infrastructural needs and appropriate equipment
• Health and safety especially for laboratory-based experiments
• Reagents and consumables
• Software and internet connectivity
• Human resources (apart from trainers and for some types of training)
• Technical support and system administrations
• Administrative requirements and organisational policies
• Trainer limitations and solutions
• Alignment with programme goals and budgets

Things to consider when developing training for healthcare professionals

Healthcare professionals have unique challenges in that they have to plan and prioritise their work and professional development training to keep up to date with new methods and technologies. In particular, genomics and data science skills are becoming essential for healthcare staff to some extent. Therefore, as training developers, understanding the factors influencing the availability and capacity of your target audiences is important. The format and style of learning requires adjustment of content and collaboration with committed clinical experts to ensure its relevance and practicality. This is highlighted in the blog article: Training healthcare workers during a pandemic (There is a PDF version of this article in the Downloads area.)

Discussion task

What challenges did you face with a specific target audience that you have developed training for? Or when you were a learner, did you wish the trainers had considered some specific characteristics of the target audience better (which characteristics)? Please share and discuss with other learners