Why reviews are your project's biggest risk

The two-week illusion

Give someone two weeks to review a document, and they'll start looking at it on day 13.

It's not malice. It's human nature. Two weeks feels like plenty of time, so the review gets mentally filed under "I'll get to that later." Other urgent tasks take priority. Emails pile up. Meetings fill the calendar. Before they know it, the deadline is tomorrow, and they're speed-reading a 40-page storyboard while responding to emails.

This is when one of two things happens:

Option A: They do a rushed, superficial review, skim for obvious errors, leave a few token comments, and approve it. Then they read it properly once you've built the course and realise all the problems they missed.

Option B: They panic, realise they can't possibly review it properly in the time remaining, and ask for an extension. Your timeline slides. Your launch date moves. Your project is already behind schedule, and you haven't even started building yet.

Neither option is good.

Why reviewers underestimate review time

Here's what typically happens when you send a storyboard for review:

You think: "This is 30 pages. Should take an hour, maybe two to read through carefully."

They think: "30 pages? I'll knock that out in 20 minutes during lunch."

Reviewers chronically underestimate how long proper review takes because they don't understand what "proper review" means for instructional design documents.

They're not just reading for typos. They need to:

• Verify that the content is accurate and up-to-date
• Check that the examples and scenarios reflect real-world practice
• Ensure the level of detail is appropriate for the audience
• Confirm that nothing critical is missing
• Evaluate whether the instructional approach will work
• Consider how this fits with other training or resources
• Think about potential questions or confusion from learners

That's not a 20-minute task. For a substantial storyboard, that's hours of focused attention. And most SMEs and stakeholders don't have hours of uninterrupted time sitting around waiting to be used.

So they skim. They miss things. And those missed things become expensive problems later.

The real cost of poor reviews

When reviewers don't properly review design documents, you end up with changes during development. And changes during development are exponentially more expensive than changes during design.

Changing a storyboard: Edit some text in a Word document. Takes minutes.

Changing developed eLearning: Rebuild interactions, re-record audio, update navigation logic, revise assessments, re-export and re-test. Takes hours or days.

I've seen projects where:

• An entire module had to be rebuilt because the SME finally read the storyboard after development and realised the process had changed six months ago
• Weeks of development were scrapped because stakeholders decided they didn't like the instructional approach once they saw it in action
• Budgets were exceeded by 50% because "small changes" during development turned into major rework

Every single one of these situations could have been prevented by thorough review at the design stage. But the review didn't happen properly because reviewers didn't take it seriously until they saw the finished product.

Why development suddenly gets everyone's attention

Here's the frustrating part: once you build the course, everyone suddenly has time to review it carefully. They click through every screen. They scrutinise every interaction. They have detailed feedback on things they completely missed in the storyboard.

Why? Because it's real now. It's visual. It looks like something that might be used. The storyboard was abstract, just text on a page. The developed course is concrete, and suddenly the stakes feel real.

But by this point, you've already invested significant time and resources building something based on their approved design. Going back to fix fundamental issues isn't a quick edit, it's rework that eats your timeline and budget.

Getting SMEs on board early

The solution isn't to skip reviews, it's to make sure reviews actually happen, and happen properly.

This starts with getting your subject matter experts and stakeholders genuinely engaged from the beginning of the project, not just copied on emails.

Involve them in the analysis phase. When SMEs contribute to understanding the problem and defining success, they're invested in the solution. They understand the decisions you're making because they were part of making them.

Make the review process collaborative, not transactional. Don't just send documents into the void and wait for comments to come back. Schedule review meetings. Walk through the design together. Ask questions. Get their input in real time.

Be clear about what you need from them. Most SMEs don't know how to review a storyboard. Tell them explicitly what to look for. Provide a checklist. Give them specific questions to answer. Make it easier for them to give you useful feedback.

Set realistic deadlines. If a proper review takes three hours, and your SME has full-time job responsibilities, give them more than two days. But don't give them two weeks either,that just invites procrastination. One week with a scheduled review meeting at the end often works better than two weeks with an open deadline.

Explain the cost of changes. Make sure reviewers understand that this is their opportunity to catch problems cheaply. Changes now are easy. Changes later are expensive. This isn't meant to intimidate them, it's meant to help them understand why their attention matters now.

The review checkpoint strategy

One approach that works well: break reviews into checkpoints rather than sending everything at once.

Don't send a complete 50-page storyboard and ask for review. Send:

• The structure and flow of Module 1 (5 pages)
• Wait for feedback and make adjustments
• Then send the detailed storyboard for Module 1 (15 pages)
• Wait for feedback and make adjustments
• Then move to Module 2

Yes, this takes longer than sending everything at once. But it saves time because:

• Smaller chunks are less intimidating and more likely to get reviewed properly
• You catch structural issues early before building on a flawed foundation
• Reviewers can focus their attention instead of being overwhelmed
• You're getting continuous feedback rather than waiting weeks for a single review

It's the difference between course-correcting as you go versus building an entire course and then discovering you were heading in the wrong direction.

Protecting your timeline and budget

Reviews are where projects go to die. Not because reviews are bad, but because reviews done badly create cascading problems that affect everything downstream.

A project timeline that doesn't account for realistic review time is a fantasy. A budget that assumes reviews will happen on schedule and changes will be minimal is setting itself up to be exceeded.

If you want your eLearning projects to hit their deadlines and stay within budget, you need to:

• Build in adequate review time (and then add buffer)
• Get SMEs and stakeholders engaged from day one, not just at review points
• Make reviews collaborative and structured, not just document dumps
• Be explicit about what you need and why it matters
• Expect that you'll need to guide reviewers through the process

The review phase isn't a formality. It's a critical checkpoint that determines whether you build the right thing or waste time and money building the wrong thing.

Reviews are where success is decided

You can have perfect analysis, brilliant design, and flawless development. But if your reviews don't happen properly, your project will still fail to meet its timeline and budget.

The review phase is where theoretical design becomes validated direction. It's where you catch the disconnects between what you understood and what stakeholders expected. It's where you get to the information that somehow didn't come up in analysis.

Treat reviews as the critical checkpoints they are. Get your SMEs involved early. Make review expectations clear. Don't assume people will prioritise your project just because you gave them a deadline.

Because the biggest risk to your eLearning project isn't that you'll design it wrong, it's that you won't find out you designed it wrong until after you've built it.

And by then, it's too late to fix it cheaply.

Struggling to keep eLearning projects on track and within budget? My Instructional Designer's Starter Pack includes analysis, high-level design and storyboard templates for getting stakeholder buy-in from day one. Stop letting review delays derail your projects.

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