Zenith Performance Solutions

If you are a team of one producing video content without a production team, I want to name something. What you're doing is harder than it looks from the outside. You are doing the SME coordination, the storyboarding, the design, the recording, the captioning, the edit, and the delivery into whatever LMS your organization uses. And somewhere in there, you are also managing a stakeholder who wants it done by Friday. The fact that you're doing it is not a small thing. And the fact that you're looking for workflows that help you do it better means you care about the quality of what you're producing, not just the delivery date. That is worth saying out loud. The workflow I use right now, Canva for design and visual planning, ScreenPal for recording and production, is specifically built for this situation. Not ideal conditions. Real ones. You don't need a video team to produce polished, deployable learning content. You need a process that holds up under deadline pressure. What does your current video production process look like, and what part of it is costing you the most time? #InHouseLandD #InstructionalDesign #LearningDevelopment #SoloID #eLearning

Here's the thing nobody talks about when they say "just add screen recording to your course." You don't have a large scale ID team. You have a deadline, one SME who's already overbooked, and a stakeholder who wants it to look polished. That's the version I design for too. This Thursday I'm walking through the exact four-phase workflow I use with real clients: Plan It, Record It, Design It, Launch It. Live demos in ScreenPal and Canva. Real output. No production team required. If you've been meaning to build screen recordings or more video into your workflow but haven't found a process that actually fits how you work, this one is worth an hour of your time. Register here: bit.ly/screenpal-zps1

I want to be honest about something. I care about the quality of what I produce. Genuinely. Not just about whether it gets delivered on time. And for a long time, I thought those two things were in tension: quality vs. the reality of tight timelines and no video team. This workflow changed that for me. Using Canva for design and storyboarding, ScreenPal for recording and production: the output actually looks intentional. The branded intro card, the section dividers, the on-screen visuals. All of it is built into the recording from the start, not layered on at the end when I'm out of time. That matters more than I usually say out loud. We got into this field because we care about creating learning that is good. Not just delivered. Good. The right workflow doesn't make you faster at doing mediocre work. It makes good work possible inside the constraints you actually have. What tools have you found that genuinely help you close the gap between the quality you want and the timeline you get? #InstructionalDesign #LearningDesign #CanvaForEducation #ScreenPal #InHouseLandD

Here's the thing nobody talks about when L&D professionals learn new video tools: The recording is not where projects go wrong. The revision is. Most of the re-records I've seen, and done, happen because the storyboard wasn't approved before anyone touched the record button. Someone assumed everyone was aligned. Then the SME watched the finished video and said "oh, that process changed three months ago." Back to square one. The storyboard review is not a formality. It is your protection. When stakeholders can see the visual structure instead of reading a script, they catch things they would miss in a document. The feedback is faster and more specific. Fix it on paper. Not in post. What does your pre-production process look like before you hit record? #InstructionalDesign #eLearningDevelopment #VideoProduction #InHouseLandD #LearningDesign

Something shifted for me last weekend, and I want to tell you about it before I get to the L&D stuff, because they are more connected than they might seem.

I moved my training storyboards from Word documents to Canva a few years ago. Here is what actually changed. My SMEs stopped approving things they did not understand. Not because they got better at reading storyboards. Because I stopped asking them to. A Canva storyboard is a visual they can actually engage with. The layout. The text density. The flow from screen to screen. When they see the thing, they give feedback on the thing. Not on a description of the thing. The side effects: · Comments land on the specific frame, not in a vague email · Brand Kit means the visual design is correct before I build a single slide · Links open in any browser, no software required · Revisions are fast because there is no table to reformat Every minute I used to spend rebuilding post-prototype? I get some of that back now. If you have been meaning to try visual storyboarding and keep pushing it to the next project, this week is a good time to start. What tool are you using for storyboards right now? #InstructionalDesign #Canva #eLearning #vILT #LearningDesign

Your SME is not bad at giving feedback. They are bad at giving feedback on abstractions. When you share a text-based storyboard, you ask a non-designer to imagine what the finished product looks like from a table of words. That is not a skill most people have. And when they approve something they did not fully understand, the revision cycles you face are not their fault. They are a design flaw in your process. A visual storyboard changes the conversation. When stakeholders can see the layout, the text density, the relationship between what is on screen and what the narrator says, they give you real feedback. Specific feedback. The kind you can actually act on before you have built anything. The visual storyboard is not an extra step. It is the step that eliminates multiple steps later. Where are you building your storyboards right now? #InstructionalDesign #eLearningDevelopment #InHouseLAndD #LearningAndDevelopment

Most subject matter experts are not bad at giving feedback. They are bad at giving feedback on abstractions. When your storyboard is a table of text, you are asking them to visualize what the finished product will look like from words on a page.

Stop building training materials like one-off projects. Every time you create a good slide layout, a job aid structure that works, or a storyboard format your SMEs can actually navigate, you have a choice. You can close the file and move on. Or you can save it as a template and make it the starting point for the next thing you build. The second option takes thirty seconds. Over the course of a year, the difference between those two choices is dozens of hours, a more consistent body of work, and a lot less staring at a blank file at 8am on a Monday. You're already doing the hard work of figuring out what works. Make sure future-you gets to benefit from it. #InstructionalDesign #LandDtips #Canva #WorkflowEfficiency #InHouseLandD

I've been presenting virtually for a long time. I know how to manage a lot of things at once. But every live session has a setup tax. Screen share this, pull up that, find a way to see your notes without your audience seeing them too. Canva's Presenter Mode didn't change my facilitation. It just removed one thing I was managing in the background. That's actually what most of the best tool features do. They don't make you better at the work. They free you up to be better at the work. One less technical problem to solve means a little more attention available for the thing that actually matters: being present with your learners, or reading the room in a stakeholder meeting. The best tools are the ones you stop noticing. What's one tool change that freed you up to be more present in your work? #VirtualFacilitation #LearningAndDevelopment #InstructionalDesign #vILT #PracticalLandD