The Association for Talent Development's members know good educational programs from bad ones.

"They're talent developers. They're deliverers of learning experiences," says ATD Senior Director of Education Courtney Vital Kriebs, CPLP.

Which is why, when the organization set out to bolster its educational offerings a couple of years ago, it had to be careful—or at least thoughtful—about the creation of that content.

In the end, ATD staffers decided to complement their existing roster of face-to-face as well as digital workshops and programs with ones centered around online, self-paced, bite-sized courses. Specifically, the final product, an Adult Learning Certificate program which launched in the fall of 2015, combines of a slew of interactive learning techniques, including animations, articles, blog posts, case studies, expert videos, "reflection activities," and a variety of downloadable templates and tools.

A long lecture delivered through a video can be far less compelling than the same content 'chunked' into consumable pieces and delivered in a variety of formats.—Courtney Vital Kriebs, CPLP, Association for Talent Development

Members are free to tackle the program's eight courses, each of which can be completed in 60 to 90 minutes, in whatever order they choose.

Why an Online, On-Demand Program?

One reason ATD took the on-demand route, according to Kriebs: Its members are "comfortable learning across various modalities."

A related reason is that, while the association has offered virtual, instructor-led courses for years, they aren't without their drawbacks. "A long lecture delivered through a video can be far less compelling than the same content 'chunked' into consumable pieces and delivered in a variety of formats," Kriebs says.

Adds Tina Turner, vice president of organizational learning and development at YourMembership, which assisted ATD's efforts: "Many times, e-learning courses are just a modern version of the traditional content lecture. With this program, we really questioned, what do we need to tell and when?" One result of that self-examination: "We learned that we need to 'tell' a lot less than we think we do."

ATD also wanted to "find a way for people outside of the U.S. to be able to take advantage of our educational programming," she adds, giving a nod to the organization's international membership.

And then there's the fact that "our customers were asking for it," Kriebs says. "Often, when we would ask them about the ways in which they wanted to learn, they'd tell us a self-paced offering would be very convenient."

Want to Do Something Similar?

Kriebs and her ATD colleagues didn't head down this path on a whim, of course. They devoted a lot of time, money, and mental energy to the resulting product.

If you're thinking of following in their footsteps, here are a few things to consider before you make your first move:

Involve your members. Not only did the staff at ATD in charge of this project reach out to members for feedback about how, where, and when they prefer to learn; they also asked some of them to participate in focus groups.

"We did that at the beginning of the process as well as during the prototype phase," Kriebs says. "And we've gone back to them at various other points in time to get specific feedback from them about how things are shaping up or going."

If needed, seek out other assistance, too. The association also involved others in the creation of this certificate program. Among them: thought leaders, subject-matter experts, suppliers, and other partners in the field.

To succeed with such an effort, Kriebs says it's vital you "have the right players and skill sets on your team to help map it all out." That may require pulling in people from outside the organization, as was the case in ATD's situation.

Spend plenty of time planning. "I don't think I can emphasize enough how critical the planning phase is to something like this," Kriebs says. Specifically, she suggests gathering data on the content your members want, the format in which they'd prefer to consume it, and their desired course length.

Do that and you'll "understand the professional development needs of your members and customers and how they want to consume learning."

Simple is better. "We really wanted the content to be at the center of the user experience," Turner says. To accomplish that, she and her YourMembership colleagues "kept the template design of each segment as simple, consistent, and clean as possible." They also did away with or only revealed buttons when they were needed. And they used a lot of white space and standardized color design.

As a result, "the user can focus on the experience and the content and not on figuring out where to click or how an exercise will work," Turner says.