A "mini" strategy to guide the design and development of Web-based instruction for a geographically dispersed sales organization

A global pharmaceutical training team presents an instructional design and development strategy that guides the creation of internally developed Web-based lessons for a geographically dispersed sales force. Challenges addressed include the impact and influence of the learning environment as well as technical limitations and various production restrictions. The approach adopted focuses on minimizing the lesson file size to ease accessibility over the internet, chunking the content into "micro," "mini," or "macro" size units of instruction to maximize relevance and applicability for the user, and identifying content that lends itself to being modularized and delivered via the Web. Questions raised include whether the "mini" approach to lesson design will enhance learning retention and transfer to improved performance, as well as whether learners feel positive about the experience.