Tips for Selecting Your Work Product

A question came in from a CPLP candidate this morning on how to go about selecting a project for your work product submission and what, exactly, is involved.

The larger question is -- which area of expertise (AOE) should you submit for?

The answer is - the one where you have the best work product that meets all of that AOE's criteria and requirements.

Let me start with the basics.

There are three areas of expertise one can select from: Designing Learning, Delivering Training, or Measuring & Evaluating.

CPLP candidates choose only one area to submit for.

All areas of expertise (AOE) are equal -- no brownie points for picking one AOE over another - CPLP certification is CPLP certification - there isn't any designation on your certificate (just got mine yesterday!) to say which AOE you submitted for.

All AOEs are also evaluated in the same categories -- Project Relationships, Inputs, Outputs, and Outcomes.

What's required to prove competence in each of the four categories, however, changes from AOE to AOE.

Also, actual work product evidence -- the actual examples of your work that you submit --changes from AOE to AOE.

And this leads directly into Whitney's question from this morning (thanks, Whitney!).

What evidence must I provide? And what forms are acceptable?

Here's a quick list of what's *basically* required for each:

• Designing Learning - Hardcopy ONLY of an analysis document, design document, and actual curriculum or representative material (e.g. trainer/facilitator guide or student manual) for a 90 minute segment of a learning event. You also need the signatures of the people involved with the project.

'90 minute segment' means a course with running time of 90 minutes, or 90 minutes pulled from a larger/longer course (e.g. two day classroom training).

'Learning event' means instructor-led -- online or classroom. 'Learning segment' could also mean CBT, WBT, e-Learning, or any other technology-based training delivery.

The bottom line is -- hardcopy only. You must be able to print a paper copy of ALL evidence. You cannot send in a CD, or DVD, or link to online learning. Hardcopy. Only.

The thing to remember is - you are not submitting the actual delivery of the course, regardless if the delivery was in-person or electronic -- just the elements you used to design it.

• Delivering Training - a 20 minute recording (submitted on VHS or CD) of a synchronous instructor-led learning event delivered in-person or online, plus a copy of the student or facilitator guide that speaks to only those 20 minutes of footage. You also need signatures from ALL participants in your class.

'20 minute recording' means -- (Good grief, Trish! How am I going to meet all 14 points of criteria in 20 minutes?!) -- getting creative with when you turn on/off the camera during the training session. Your best bet is to have someone run the camera for you and turn it on/off just to capture key points (e.g. building rapport, stating course objectives, starting an exercise, etc) for the final 20 minute submission.

'Synchronous' means synchronous -- no asynchronous learning allowed for the Delivering Training AOE.

'Plus a copy of the student or facilitator guide' means HARDCOPY. Do not send an electronic copy of the guide. Also keep in mind... if you're submitting a 20 minute recording of what is, ultimately, a longer class, then you only need to submit the portion of the guide that contains material relevant to what's shown in your recording. For example, if you take 20 minutes from a two day class, then only submit the portion of the guide that pertains to those 20 minutes and not the whole guide covering the two day class.

Signatures -- one of the most challenging aspects of this whole phase is gaining the signatures of the required people. 'Required people' in the case of Delivering Training includes ALL participants. Definitely something to consider as you decide which AOE to submit for.

• Measuring & Evaluating - as of today, 8/1/06, this AOE is back under construction by ASTD CI. There were less than 30 submittals for this area during the pilot, and it was probably the hardest area to submit for. Reason being -- it was the toughest AOE to figure out what ASTD CI was looking for. I'm guessing that's why its details are not currently listed on the CPLP site (but should reappear later this summer).

Chapter 8 of the CPLP Candidate Bulletin is KEY to understanding what's required. Parts of it are still under development and due for release in August.

LOL Those are the basics. :)

Keep watching this blog for more information on submission requirements, the evaluation process, etc. We'll also run a post focused on how to deal with those notorious follow-on questions!

~ Trish Uhl, PMP, CPLP
Owl's Ledge LLC
www.cplpstudyprep.com

Submitted August 1st, 2006 11:36am Central