Tips for blends 1: Don’t jump to solutions – start with a sound analysis

This one’s a bit obvious, but it needs saying. It’s oh so tempting when confronted with a new project to jump straight into the creative process of selecting the ingredients for your blend without a clear understanding of what it is that you’re required to achieve. There will be plenty of room for creativity later on in the design process, although you may find that the ‘how’ becomes all too obvious once you have answered the questions ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘who for’, ‘by when’ and ‘for how much’.

To conduct a thorough analysis you need to be systematic and persistent; systematic to make sure you fully explore all aspects of the learning, the learners and the logistics, and persistent, because project sponsors may be reluctant to answer so many questions. A good test is how clearly you feel you could articulate the requirement to a third party; if you cannot explain it properly, then you don’t understand it well enough.

Next: Try to stop the subject expert and the client dictating the solution