In our most recent post, we looked at the pros and cons of outsourcing your e-learning development. In this post, we take a look at the pros and cons of keeping your development in-house...
Internal development: Pros
Total control over development
Unlike an outsourced team, you will have complete control over an in-house team and can manage the development process to a much greater degree, if you desire.
Organisational culture, content and processes
Members of an in-house team (assuming time served in the organisation) will have a much deeper understanding of all aspects of the organisation's culture, content and processes.
Less need for SME involvement
Building on the previous point, you may not need to involve SMEs at all.
Internal development: Cons
Hiring and training team members
If you are creating a team from scratch or building on a small existing team, the time and costs involved in hiring new people, getting them trained and ready to go can be huge.
Team members leave
Even with a good team in place, people can leave, go sick or otherwise leave you in the lurch just at a critical moment in the development process. You might find yourself repeating some of the activities and spending just outlined in the previous point.
Buying development software
As well as the cost of hiring and training, new software will have to be assessed, selected and bought. More time and money.
Speed of development
It may be that a small team simply can't go as fast as you would like, whereas an external supplier can scale a development team up or down according to need.
Keeping team members fully occupied
On a similar point, if you are spending money to create a new team, will there be a sufficient supply of work to keep them occupied and to justify the cost of hiring and training?
If you are just getting started with e-learning or thinking about using e-learning for the first time, check out our E-Learning Getting Started Guide.
