Have you ever heard the phrase – by failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail? Well, this isn’t just true when it comes to life. It’s also crucial when it comes to business. You could have the best idea in the world, but if you don’t have a game plan, it’s not going to work out.

After all, a football team doesn’t go into a big game without tactics and an offensive strategy – so why would you attempt to promote your business idea without a plan?

Having a project strategy makes you think out and plan the steps you need to transform your business vision and idea into a reality. Of course, in the business world, you need backing and investment, which is where having a detailed business case comes into play.

A business case is the bread and butter of any successful business venture. Senior managers are always concerned with the stability of their organization and its future success – any new proposal that creates change needs to be examined carefully.

The people at the top always need convincing and you’ve got to show your idea’s potential. Your business case is going to be the powerful selling tool that will put you in the driving seat and show your project is exactly what they need.

Today’s competitive business market calls for good strategy and a persuasive business case to get the ball rolling.

That’s why it’s important to offer employees the chance to learn how they can implement their bright ideas into successful business ventures through project strategy and a business case.

This Project Strategy and Business Case course is all about how you can get your idea off the ground and running and make it stand out from the crowd. 

Project Strategy and Business Case Trailer

The interactive e-learning materials explain how important strategy is and advises how you can plan and implement a business case to secure resources, backing and investment.

The course is delivered through easy to understand video sections:

This section demonstrates the importance of having a game plan, comparing business to a game of chess and poker. It’s all about having a plan that lets the player win the game.

This also applies to managing projects – you need a strategy to plan your actions and deal with any situations that arise in the course of business.

The course highlights how problems and implications can arise at any time, but a strategy will prepare you for handling anything and still let you achieve your goals.

This next topic discusses how your business case will be the key document that senior management looks at to figure out the success of a project.

Your business case is how you persuade everybody about the benefits of your project and how it justifies using precious resources and investment.

This section points out that some organizations have their own template and format for businesses cases and you should check this out before you start yours.

The content details the six important sections of all business cases:

An Executive Summary – this is the quick and snappy abstract of the project, which covers all the main objectives.

The Objectives – this sets out the reasons for the project and what problems it’s setting out to solve.

Possible Options – this is where you lay out all the options for addressing the problems, with benefits, costs and risks, as well as using data to support your answers.

Your Recommendation – here you give your audience the best option you’ve chosen for solving the problem.

Implementation Plan – this is where you’ll share an outline of your project and the resources it needs, with cost and risk analysis, as well as a realistic timescale.

Conclusion – this section will be the last chance to persuade everybody your project is the best.

Project Strategy and Business Case – Summary

This section helps employees digest the information they’ve learned in the course videos, overviewing the importance of using project strategy as a way to communicate your business plan.

Project Strategy and Business Case – Actionable Advice

The material ends with a way to use the knowledge learned in this e-learning course. It advices to start with your own small project to test your skills and build up towards getting ready for larger projects.

This interactive e-learning course boasts animated and colorful videos to portray its message, as well as an engaging voice-over to inspire employees and keep their interest with the content. The slides are also easy to read for understanding information effectively.

Why project strategy and having a business case is important

They say a goal without a plan is just a wish. That’s why you’ve to have a well-planned strategy for your business project, in order for it to work and be successful.

Having a strategy’s important for moving in the right direction and handling any unexpected problems that come your way. After creating your path, you can use your business case to communicate your ideas people further up the chain.

A thorough business case will give your project the best possible start and allow key stakeholders to see your plans clearly. It’s your one chance to sell your project and prove why it should be backed and why it deserves investment.

If you’re employees know the importance of using project strategy and creating a detailed business case, your organization will enjoy an endless supply of new and credible business ventures that might just be the next big thing.

For more insights, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

False

Today’s competitive business market calls for good strategy and a persuasive business case to get the ball rolling. Here's how.

Why it's important to have a project strategy and business case

Today’s competitive business market calls for good strategy and a persuasive business case to get the ball rolling. Here's how. 

If you work in the eLearning industry, you probably hear a lot of talk about automation – a popular eLearning tool that can bring plenty of benefits to online learning.

If you’re already across automation and know all its ins and outs, this article might not be for you. But for anyone new to the world of online learning, and looking to understand the practice of automation, this will tell you what you need to know.

So let’s get started, with some insight into how automation works and the ways it can benefit the eLearning process – for both you and your learners.

What’s Automation in eLearning All About? 

Think about what the word itself means – automation is a process that minimises or eliminates human interaction. And that’s exactly what automation is used for in eLearning, helping to make your work life much easier.

Do you regularly create online learning courses in your role? It can be a very time-consuming, and often tricky, process. In the same way that you use eLearning templates or online libraries to develop an online course, automation helps to simplify online course creation.

If you’re someone who creates online courses, but isn’t involved in coding or programming, you probably think of automation as something that happens behind the scenes. And that’s correct – automation works in the background of your online learning course.

Essentially, automation uses algorithms, a set of computer codes and instructions, to generate eLearning content. These algorithms control what eLearning content is displayed, being triggered by the actions of individual learners – they work as a response on command, set in motion by the person completing the online course.

Christoforos Pappas, of eLearning Industry, gives a good example of automation in eLearning, where “a particular piece of eLearning content displays when an online learner passes the eLearning assessment. If they don't meet the minimum requirements, the code may generate a resource list they can use to improve.”

In this way, your online course is perfectly meeting the needs of your learners, at every step of the way. And it’s automation that is helping you do that.

As Pappas says, “think of eLearning automation as a robot who can help you with rudimentary tasks around the house … making your life easier in many respects.”

Personalising eLearning Content for Users 

In the example above, you can see how automation has the potential to change the process of eLearning, personalising learning content for users.

You could use automation to develop a short online quiz that employees take before launching into a course. This would help determine the subject matter relevant to their position, and areas they may need (or want) to work on. Automation will then adjust the course content to suit, dropping or adding modules to match the learner’s needs and objectives.

Automation can also be used to create an online quiz at the end of a course, to assess learner knowledge and identify any skill or knowledge gaps. You can even keep track of individual learners throughout the course, monitoring their progress.

Helping You to Improve Your eLearning Content

Automation also helps you to make improvements to your online course, to make it more effective for learners.

With automation, you can see which parts of your course need more detail and which teaching methods are working best for learners. In this way, automation in eLearning can work as a feedback loop to test and measure knowledge and, in turn, create effective and relevant new content for learners.

Can you see how useful this tool can be for both content creators and learners?

eLearning automation allows you to automatically generate online assessments and content for your course, saving you time and effort, while providing a much better learning experience for users.

Want to stay up-to-date with eLearning trends? Learn more about another important eLearning trend, Top eLearning Trends: Using Gamification in the Workplace.


Automation is increasingly changing eLearning and the way in which we create educational content for learners. It can help you to develop more personalised, tailored content, leading to higher engagement, more effective learning materials and better results.

Top eLearning trends: what you need to know about automation

Automation is increasingly changing eLearning and the way in which we create educational content for learners. It can help you to develop more personalised, tailored content, leading to higher engagement, more effective learning materials and better results. 

When we read about e-learning, ‘xAPI’ is a buzzword that pops up all the time. So, what exactly is it?

Well, first it’s important to recognize that in today’s world, learning happens everywhere. We absorb information from interactions with people, educational textbooks and e-learning programs. The possibilities are endless.

Yet, this has meant that employers using SCORM for their Learning Management Systems (LMS) simply can’t keep up with tracking employee development; or at least, accurately. This is where xAPI comes into play.

xAPI, Tin Can and Experience API are all synonymous with one software specification that has the ability to let different programs speak to each other. It allows organizations to collect and track all of the experiences of learning that matter in the 21st century.

xAPI opens up a new world of learning that benefits employees and organizations.

xAPI is a revolutionary open source application programming interface (API), which records employee activities from a variety of programs and software.

Unlike SCORM, this software specification tracks all kinds of activities from inside and outside the LMS. It adds a beneficial communicative layer to your system, connecting the employee and the organization.

This means trackable learning is no longer confined to what happens on the LMS. xAPI lets you track employee development online and offline, as well as from other mobile devices.

From online quizzes and webinars to reading a textbook and playing educational games, xAPI captures it all and you can see everything.

xAPI works by producing simple statements, consisting of a noun, verb and object. For example, Jack has completed Basic Business Math.

The statement that’s produced lets you know what e-learning Jack has accessed and exactly when it was completed. This information is stored in the Learning Record Store (LRS). An organization can then use analytic tools to evaluate their future employee development.

All you need for xAPI to function is sources for the statements, such as an e-learning course or application. In addition, somewhere for the LRS.

xAPI has a variety of uses that’s made it a huge asset to businesses and organizations of all sizes.

While it doesn’t change the design or content of courses and materials, xAPI transforms the way learning experiences can be seen; data becomes knowledge that’s quantifiable and learning becomes more effective.

Using xAPI for your LMS allows you to connect all programs and software that employees can learn from into one place. It solves the headache of disjointed data and captures everything that’s fueling development in the modern workplace.

It doesn’t matter whether the user is online or using a mobile device, organizations can track all learning and see a richer and bigger picture of employee training.

In addition, xAPI isn’t just beneficial for organizations - employees can learn anywhere and at any time, on whatever interface they choose. Flexibility in learning encourages the user to engage, allowing an employee to choose a time and location that suits them best.

The ability to track everything from attendance at a webinar to playing in a virtual world means an increased interest and engagement with learning content.

After all, there’s no doubt employees would rather play an educational game than read an e-book with the same information!

Since xAPI collects and tracks all learning into one place, this allows an organization to understand data in a way SCORM never could.

Firstly, you can now see how individual employees are learning; whether they are completing that mandatory Team Working program you set or achieving satisfactory scores on the compulsory training exams.

In addition, you can see how teams and groups are working. You can see if training is effective for achieving business goals and whether employees are responding to the targets you set on the LMS.

 xAPI gives organizations the power to understand learning behavior and performance like never before. xAPI data is produced in a simple way that allows you to analyze the results.

This software specification acts as your own scientific experiment that produces quantifiable results and this means xAPI allows you to make conclusions and business decisions for the future.

With a deeper insight into employee development, organizations can now implement changes to enhance training and upgrade the support open to users.

The experiences that xAPI tracks and stores is the holy grail for future employee development and achieving overall business objectives.

For example, you notice that your business has dropped in sales this month, despite the launch of a new product. Instead of assuming that customers just don’t want to buy this month, you can use xAPI data to understand why this might be happening.

Your xAPI data may find that employees haven’t been scoring well on their customer service training. You can then draw conclusions on what the problems are before it’s too late.

xAPI data doesn’t just let you understand what’s happening within your organization, but it also lets you do something about it. You can use this information to introduce a new course focusing on How To Understand Customer Needs or prioritize a Persuasion Skills e-learning course, for example.

In addition, you can introduce feedback on the LMS to hear directly from employees and how you can improve the support open to them.

Thus, the recorded and tracked xAPI data provides you with the information your organization needs to make decisions. It lets you find effective learning solutions and improve training open to your employees to achieve overall business success.

It’s important to recognize that in today’s world, learning happens everywhere. We absorb information from interactions with people, educational textbooks and e-learning programs. The possibilities are endless.

What is xAPI and how do we use it?

Below are types of inexpensive small business growth hacking tools you can use. They are divided into five categories. Check out each section to learn more about the small business tool and how it can make your business more efficient and better positioned to grow.

All businesses must do accounting. It’s how you can compare what your business is earning to what it’s spending. 

You could hire someone to do the accounting for you. But, you might not have the budget to bring someone on full time. Accounting software is a great low-cost alternative, especially if your accounting books aren’t complex. 

Accounting software will create reports for you, saving you time. The reports can help you get a better idea of your cash flow. You can see where your money is coming from and where you are losing it. 

If you know how to choose accounting software that is tailored to your needs, you could save a considerable amount of time and money. You can find simple accounting systems, meaning you don’t need to be an expert to use it. And, if you purchase software with fewer features, it’s cheaper than a bigger software program. 

For your business to grow, people need to know about it. Otherwise, you’ll never have customers. You need to be easily visible online. 

When people search for your business or similar businesses, your business should show up in the search results. You should claim your business in search results to make sure information is accurate and displayed the best way possible. For example, you will use Google My Business to update your business information for Google search results. This is a free service.

You should also list your business on business directories. You can list on online Yellow Pages, local business directories, and review sites. 

Potential customers should be able to see all important information about your business, such as your hours, location, and website. You might also include pictures and reviews to further convince people to choose you. 

Once you establish your business online, more people will find it, you will gain more customers, and your business will grow.

If you have employees, you must run payroll. You have to pay employees and handle payroll taxes correctly. If you don’t, you can face penalties, fines, and even jail time. 

Payroll can take a lot of time and money to run. Fortunately, online payroll software can reduce the amount of each. 

Payroll software will do all payroll calculations for you. You simply enter employee time and let the software do the math. You can even pay employees through the software if you use direct deposit. You don’t have to do anything by hand or hire a specialist. Some payroll software companies will even file and remit payroll taxes for you, saving you even more time. When you use online payroll software, you can finish payroll in minutes. 

Payroll software isn’t free, but you can reduce the amount you spend on it. Look for software that is designed for small businesses. Small business payroll software doesn’t come with big-business bells and whistles, making it cheaper. 

When you start using payroll software, you save both time and money. You can invest those into your business to grow even more. 

You can grow and improve your business through your employees. You can help them develop their skills, which will help them become better at their jobs. 

But, what if you don’t have the time or knowledge to train your employees? You can use online courses and learning resources.

When you use an online learning platform, you have access to hundreds of courses. And, you can add your own material to easily share the same information with several employees. You can assign training to your employees, make assessments, and track results. 

You can incorporate training during onboarding. Or, you can add training at any time based on your business’s needs and your employee’s skills. When you use business tools and resources to better equip your employees, your business is better able to grow. 

If you have employees, you need to set up effective methods of communication. And if some of your team is remote, communication tools are even more important. 

The communication tools you need will depend on your team. You might need a simple email system. You might need a chat messaging, document sharing, and video conferencing. 

Many online communication tools are free. Everyone just needs an internet connection. You can pay to get premium features, but you might be able to make do with the free options. 

When your employees can better communicate, things will get done faster and with fewer mistakes. Workers can stay up to date even if they work remotely. When your team is better connected, your business is more efficient.

Kaylee Riley is a writer for Patriot Software, LLC and Top Echelon, LLC. Kaylee writes about payroll, accounting, recruiting systems, and other small business topics.

Wouldn’t you love to grow your business fast but without spending a ton of money? Lucky for you, there are thousands of free and low-cost small business tools and resources available online that can help.

5 small business tools and resources to fuel growth

Wouldn’t you love to grow your business fast but without spending a ton of money? Lucky for you, there are thousands of free and low-cost small business tools and resources available online that can help. 

As with any industry, it’s important for Learning Managers to stay in the loop with current trends and practices.

The eLearning environment is constantly growing and changing, so it’s vital to keep up-to-date with the learning landscape. Whether you’re an LMS Administrator, or Chief Learning Officer, you’ll want to know the best ways to engage with your learners to meet their training and development needs.

A 2016 report by Degreed surveyed more than five hundred workers, from a range of roles and functions, across multiple industries. This report resulted in plenty of interesting data on how employees are learning – both at work, and in their own spare time – and what steps they’re taking to fuel their careers.

Today, we’ll look at five statistics from the Degreed report that will provide Learning Managers and L&D professionals with an insight into how today's workers really learn:

According to the report, modern workers are spending up to five times more learning on their own each week than from employers. This means many employees are taking the initiative to learn in their own time, away from the office or job site.

With so many industries moving at a rapid pace, particularly IT and the creative industries, employees feel the need to stay up-to-date with industry news and developments. And when faced with such a competitive job market, workers also know how important ongoing professional development is to their career.

75% of workers invested their own money in career development 

Following on from that, we’re also seeing a huge amount of employees using their own money for professional development.

As the report shows, in 2015, three quarters of employees invested their own money in career development. What does this tell us? It tells us that employers aren’t providing sufficient professional development for their staff.

Employees are actively looking for learning and development opportunities to help them on their career path and need to feel that their employer is invested in their career development. There is a clear drive for employers to start investing more resources into employee training, which is important for Learning Managers to know. This will help you talk to senior leaders about the importance of investing in staff L&D.

77% of employees believe their own self-directed learning is more effective than their employer’s training 

Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of quality in the training programs being provided by employers, with a huge percentage of staff rating their own learning methods higher than those provided by their employer.

Take a hard look at your own training and development programs. One of the biggest barriers to employee learning is that it fails to be ongoing.

Professional development training needs to be continual – it’s not just something that you should tick off once a year to satisfy HR. It requires ongoing investment of your time, focus and energy, to get the best results.

 69% of workers ask a boss or mentor for direction to learn something new

This statistic shows us the importance of mentoring within organisations. Do you have an official mentoring program in place? Mentoring isn’t just beneficial for the staff being mentored – it has broader advantages for the whole organisation.

Through mentoring programs, employees have the opportunity to meet or talk regularly with their mentors to exchange ideas, discuss work progress and set goals for professional development, facilitating increased knowledge sharing across the organisation.

Staff involved in mentoring programs offer companies improved skill sets, real world knowledge and experience, and greater confidence and motivation to succeed. Which contributes to greater productivity and profits for the business.

70% of workers learn from sharing blogs and articles with their peers

With the ever-rising presence of technology and social media in our lives, communication and knowledge sharing has never been so easy, accessible and instant. In fact, over 70% of learning on the job occurs informally, so it’s important to make sure you’re using informal learning in conjunction with more formal modes of training.

Employees have more opportunity to learn from one another than ever before, and when harnessed effectively, this can help to build a more collaborative work culture.

If you’re in a management or leadership role, you have the exciting opportunity to drive collaboration in your organisation. Building a culture of collaboration has great benefits for your business, increasing cooperation and promoting teamwork and positive working relationships across the organisation.

The Take Away from these Stats and Figures

So what can Learning Managers take away from the statistics in this report?

While it’s great for employees to be sharing with peers and working on professional development in their own time, it’s imperative that this is in addition to the training programs provided by their employers.

How do you provide learning and development to staff that’s engaging, effective, continual and collaborative? Many organisations have found the answer to this question by turning to eLearning courses and online training. Online learning offers both employers and employees the perfect solution for their training needs, being flexible, engaging and cost-effective, while helping learners achieve their professional development and career goals.

Having up-to-date and relevant learning tools and technology solutions is important to workers. When your organisation shows a willingness to invest in the right learning technology for staff, you’re showing your commitment to their professional development. This will help attract good candidates to your company and encourage high performers to stay with your business, providing a win-win solution for both staff and employers.

Keen to check out eLearning and online training for your staff? Be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Stats all learning managers need to know

Online assessments are designed to test and evaluate the skills and knowledge of users that have completed e-learning courses.

Using different types of assessments is a great way for employers to increase the performance and productivity of employees.

E-learning has always been viewed as important for employee development, offering independent study and materials on demand.

Yet, every person learns differently and at a different pace; some employees are able to memorize and retain information easily, while others work as a slower and more methodical way.

That’s why it’s essential to find the most effective online learning assessment type that will suit everybody and allow everyone to grow as employees. In addition, this will also achieve an organization’s goals and objectives.

Online learning assessments can be conducted during each course, which is known as formative assessments, or at the end of the course, which is called a summative assessment.

It is important to understand the differences between formative and summative assessments in order to choose the most effective system for your organization’s employee development.

 The intention of formative assessments is to provide employees and trainees with regular feedback during their engagement with e-learning courses.

This system has the overall objective of allowing employees to learn from feedback and implement the advice into making future learning better.

The feedback provided from the formative assessment can highlight any weaknesses in particular topics and areas of learning, such as the Bribery Act and Data Protection.

It can also pinpoint a user’s strengths, helping to build confidence. Knowing what topics need further work before the end of a course allows employees to address problems during study and enhance their future skills and knowledge.

Indeed, an academic study found that for online assessments to be effective for its learners, they should incorporate a variety of assignments with feedback available on a regular basis.

Thus, formative assessments allow employees to learn and improve as they go. Without the focus on an overall grade, they can work on problems before it’s too late and ensure they are confident when the end of the course is reached.

In addition, formative assessment results mean that an employer can modify e-learning to meet the needs of the individual employee immediately, in order to allow them develop in a way that if better for them.

This customization of activities and assessments allows employers and their employees to progress together, instead of there being a distance between learning development and management.

Frequent quizzes during e-learning courses and study materials are an effective assessment type, which provides a way of reinforcing the topics being examined.

In particular, short answers or multiple choice can help employees test their skills and knowledge.

Quizzes during learning will allow an employer to track each employee’s individual progress and provide feedback on any shortcomings that require more work to better future learning.

Personal learning logs are also a credible way to assess online study.

By providing employees with an outlet for their thoughts, feelings and ideas about an e-learning course, they can reflect on what they have learned and highlight their own strengths and weaknesses.

As an employer you can analyze the self-assessment information from the personal learning logs and use it to track progress and provide helpful feedback for future improvement.

In contrast to formative assessments, summative assessments aim to evaluate an employee’s learning at the end of the course.

This will allow an employer to examine whether the employee or trainee has achieved the desired learning objectives after study.

This normally includes a final grade and can even allow progress onto the next stage of an e-learning course.

Summative assessments allow an employee to monitor their achievements and it can be a big confidence boost to see you have passed your e-learning course and mastered the content.

As an employer, you can analyze the results of their individual assessment and see their strengths and areas for improvement.

In addition, employers can examine trends from the results of all employees to improve future training programs and increase employee development on important topics, such as Worksite Safety and Pricing Strategy.

Scenario or multiple-choice exams are an effective online summative assessment that will challenge a user’s skills and knowledge acquired from e-learning courses.

This will test whether their own learning has been effective and if there are any topics that could benefit from further training.

Another successful way to test employee learning is by using online presentations as a summative assessment.

Having them create content on a topic they have studied and share their findings with their colleagues, makes them put information into their own words and communicate it effectively to others.

Employers will be able to evaluate whether the employee has understood the content and if they have achieved the main learning objectives by the results of their presentation.

 It is important to remember that every employee learns differently and responds differently to various assessment types. What will benefit one employee’s skills may not help another.

That is why the most effective online learning system can be a mixture of formative assessments throughout e-learning with helping feedback, as well as summative assessments to cement knowledge at the end of a course.

This way an employee can learn progressively and hopefully retain more information from e-learning. In the long run, this will also help the employer and organization in terms of performance, productivity and training effectiveness.


Online assessments are designed to evaluate users that have completed e-learning courses. Yet, every person learns differently; some are able to memorize and retain information easily, while others work in a slower and more methodical way.

The most effective online learning assessment types

How much attention are you paying to leadership training within your organisation? In many companies, managers learn a lot of what they need to know while on the job. But if you want to encourage great leadership, you need to provide effective leadership training. In this way, you can help empower managers with the tools they need to succeed in today’s complex business environments.

Ray Carvey, Executive VP of Corporate Learning at Harvard Business Publishing, says that the focus of leadership training now must be on “preparing leaders to anticipate what’s coming next so they are ready to act. They must be plugged into their customers, competitors and markets, and be comfortable making decisions, even in the face of ambiguity.”

Here are five things you need to include in your leadership training, to encourage strong and positive leadership in your organisation.

Kathy Caprino, writing for Forbes, believes that developing a leadership mindset must be the first step in any leadership training.

Caprino says that “to evolve as leaders, managers have to internalize the idea that leadership is fundamentally different from managing tasks.” While being an effective manager certainly involves managing tasks and duties well, being a great leader requires an understanding of how to behave and “show up.”

A truly great leader is someone who is “capable of articulating a powerful, positive and compelling vision for organizational and individual growth, and who can generate the trust and support needed to execute on this vision,” she says.

Make sure your leadership training program focuses on helping managers to achieve that shift in mindset, allowing them to bring those elements to their role.

Leadership training within the context of your organisation

To be effective, leadership training needs to focus on real business outcomes, within the context of your organisation.

Leadership training shouldn’t look the same in every organisation. When it comes to learning, “getting it right in the context of your organization’s needs is what makes it relevant, meaningful and sticky,” Caprino says.

For example, the way in which managers make decisions at a startup in a high-growth industry is going to be quite different from decision-making at a 100-year-old organisation in an established market.

Look at your own leadership training program. Is it relevant to the context of your own business needs and outcomes?

How much attention are you paying to leadership training within your organisation? In many companies, managers learn a lot of what they need to know while on the job. But if you want to encourage great leadership, you need to provide effective leadership training