Make vs. Buy Curriculum – How Do You Choose?

For internal training departments, a key question is whether or not to “make” or “buy” curriculum for their internal offerings. There are certainly pros and cons to each decision and the choice you make is depending on a variety of factors including:

• Do you have people who can develop the curriculum?
• Do you have people who can teach the material?
• Will you use the curriculum for an extended period of time or is this a “one time” event?
• Do you have the internal resources overall for such an initiative?

Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of your options.

For some training, such Six Sigma certification, you’ll likely want to partner with an expert in the area who can offer both the curriculum and, in this case, the certification process. For other training – such as how to use internal processes – you’ll likely want to develop something in-house since it is so customized specifically to the organization. There are also situations where you may look to “buy” curriculum from an outside resource and then purchase that curriculum – or license it – to customize it as you desire for your specific needs.

Let’s look at an example. We will assume that you have been charged with improving the negotiation skills of the procurement department. There are renegotiations of contracts coming due beginning in the next two months for some big vendors of the company, and the CFO wants the procurement department to be prepared for those negotiations. While you do have an in-house courseware development team, given the very short timeline, you won’t be able to develop this course in-house.  However, you feel it is important to customize it to ensure that the training “sticks.”  After some research, here is the path you take:

• Buy one-day negotiating courseware from a vendor who specializes in this type of content. The content is focused on a negotiating model and the vendor will deliver the content themselves.
• Add (make) a second day on that is led by your own facilitators to practice what they learned in day one. This will be a practical, hands-on session role playing and feedback.

This provides you with the flexibility you need but also enables you to meet a very tight deadline to meet the CFO’s expectations for the procurement department.

Summary

There isn’t necessary a right or wrong answer to the question of “buy or make” courseware.  Think specifically about what you needs are and whether there exists curriculum to meet those needs.  Be creative – combining “off the shelf” (buy) curriculum with some components, such as role playing, team exercises, etc. (make) that is unique to your specific needs.