Planning Training with a Bias Toward Scarcity

Shirley J. Caruso

When planning training, the relationship between resources (people, time, and money) and budget can become rather complicated. This relationship can become even more complicated when resources are scarce. It is logical to assume that increased money resources enable investment of more people and time to the training project. Conversely, a limited budget seems to imply that less people and less time can be allocated to the project (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012).

In a corporate training environment, the supply of resources is usually limited or scarce and must be considered carefully because it is likely to have an effect on the planning of the training (a determination of “nice to know” versus “need to know”, for example).

Scarcity tends to be the normal state of things because corporations typically have limited resources (people, time, and/or budget) available to meet the objective of the training, and therefore, it is safe to assume that resources will be limited. With this assumption, the goal when planning training is to assure that just the right amount of resources are applied to meet the need – nothing more, nothing less. This is a challenging task, though, because the need and the ability to meet the need are likely to vary in different training scenarios. This is why it is important to have a bias toward scarcity rather than abundance when planning training.

If you can postpone or avoid adding resources in uncertain times, you will be better positioned to avoid staffing entanglements, budget shortfalls, and other problems (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012).

References

Reiser, R. A. & Dempsey, J. V. (2012). Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (3^rd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon/Pearson.