That said, you’re right that I did rather assume the classic “narrate an expert’s powerpoint” as my definition of rapid elearning. But I also think that there are times when all you need is information, and yes it should be properly designed, and it can be quick and meet the need. I was distinguishing between that case and when there’s a major skill shift needed, and that’s the case where you’d have a harder time convincing me it can be designed and developed quickly.

But this is one on which I’m willing to be wrong ;).

One, by a corner stone tenet of project management if you are at a zero sum game situation you can still hold to quality (scope) and time, if you can add resources. At a company I’ve worked with, I saw a project’s budget jump 10 fold when key executives finally understood the threat to quality and time.

Two, in order to assume that we are at a true zero sum game situation you would have to maintain that needs analysis, design, development and implementation have been squeezed dry of any waste in time or effort. You’d have to maintain that all learning professionals have perfect knowledge of all options available. As you point out, we’d also have all possible solutions freely available for our use. I believe that we’ve proven over the past decade that we can do alot more, with alot less if we accept that as our challenge.