Toyota and Lexus Engine Controls Technical Training

Challenge:
Create eight technical training courses — and streamline the process

The Engine Controls technical training is among the most advanced technical training offered by Toyota and Lexus. Not surprisingly, it's also the most complex to produce, sometimes taking years to complete. We were asked to simultaneously produce two levels of live training for both Toyota and Lexus, each with its own Pre-work Web Module, for a total of eight courses.

We were also tasked with helping reduce the complexity of the development process. Each of the instructor-led courses required an Instructor Guide, PowerPoint presentation, Technical Handbook, and participant worksheets. All of these components typically meant that there were about a dozen documents used in production, and maintaining consistency among them had been a major hurdle. Our client wanted to try a new method: use the PowerPoint presentation as a cornerstone for the project, and once it was approved, develop the remaining materials from it.

With so many variables — and a tight timeframe — maintaining control over Engine Controls was a formidable challenge.

Solution:
More power to the PowerPoint

Since the PowerPoint presentation is the focal point of the instructor-led courses, it made sense to focus our development efforts there. The sequential nature of a presentation required that the content be logically structured. It ensured the information stayed relevant to the visuals and was chunked appropriately, making it easier to assimilate.

Keeping tight control on our content created a tighter presentation. It also allowed us to make revisions on one central resource, which helped reduce the number of meetings and back-and-forth approvals.

Book it

Once the PowerPoint presentations were finished and approved, we used the presenter notes as the foundations for the Instructor Guides, Technical Handbooks, and participant worksheets. Gone were the headaches of discrepancies in the course materials, since they were all generated from a single source.

Pre-work comes post-work

Having tamed the content of the instructor-led courses, we turned our attention to the e-learning modules. The pre-work course goals were easily defined in comparison to the live training, and production was more efficient since we were able to leverage visual assets used in the PowerPoint presentations.

Engine Controls under control

The process we used yielded several positive benefits. The new approach helped to create an easy-to-use, highly relevant Instructor Guide and Technical Handbook. We saved money in the development and created a more effective resource.

For the Toyota and Lexus Engine Controls Technical Training, we helped to develop:

• Four PowerPoint presentations
• Four Instructor Guides
• Four Technical Handbooks
• Four sets of participant worksheets
• Four Pre-work Web Modules

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