Learning opportunities are valuable. Attention is fleeting. Participants’ work time is expensive.

This reality can make it worthwhile to invest in customizing a learning experience – and to engage the best resources available to build it.

Pro tip: Ask your prospective resources a few questions.

“It’s a significant investment. What will we own?”

The best answer is a simple one: Your company will own the customized end-product that it has paid for, including rights to reproduce the material.

“How will you challenge us to clarify what is really needed?”

Milo Paich was once brought in to lead the design of a process improvement simulation. In a facilitated discussion with executives, it emerged that process improvement knowledge was there in abundance. The real need was to prepare executives to choose which processes to improve first.

“Will you do or delegate our custom project?”

Every phase of your project will be in the hands of 20+ year experienced business people. When the unexpected happens, this can be important.

For example, when late in the design of a business learning simulation a new CFO entered the review process and said, “This isn’t the pricing message I want delivered,” Milo was able to calibrate the issue in 15 minutes, then make immediate revisions to keep the project on track.