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ATP Exclusive: Developing Successful and Impactful Assessment Products

September 14, 2020

How many times have you asked your psychometrician, market researcher, or consultant how quickly a product can be developed? The cost of development? When you have these questions, how deeply defined is your product definition? Did you have a complex assessment design with an amorphous market definition and limited market research on your target audience?

Developing Successful and Impactful Assessment ProductsFrequently, credential product owners come to psychometricians with questions about cost, speed of development, and assessment design with grand product designs and attributes. At times, these forces of business/product requirements and financial, schedule, and quality attributes set certification managers at odds with those tasked to deliver such products for them. This is the topic of our Association of Test Publishers (ATP) conference session this week, “Developing Successful and Impactful Assessment Products – Balancing Research and Business Considerations.” This workshop will occur on Tuesday, September 15, from 12:20 p.m. – 1:20 p.m ET. I will be joining an esteemed panel, including Amy Schmidt, Christine Mills, and Ye Tong to examine these forces by presenting several case studies where these forces may run at odds…or be balanced.

In particular, we will examine some of the classic issues faced in certification organizations, including:

  • How the need to meet certain quality factors and accreditation standards runs at odds with the schedule set forth for the product development and launch.

  • Instances where product definitions or target audiences are unclear, including those cases where market research has not been performed or does not support the product being developed.

  • Cases where a credential product owner comes with an extensive list of requirements for the certification, yet does not provide the funds or sufficient schedule to support product development.

While these circumstances are becoming more infrequent as organizations continue to better understand how to balance these forces, I hope that this session will help attendees examine how they have approached new credential development previously and provide lessons for future experiences. By understanding product definition requirements, financial considerations, market research needs, potential liability areas, assessment stakes and complexities, and many other product attributes, credential owners can be better prepared for these development paths and difficult conversations on balancing these factors.

If you are attending the ATP Global Virtual Conference this week, join and quiz us on some of the questions above and offer your own perspective on our case studies!

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Rory McCorkle, PhD. Rory McCorkle, PhD. is the Senior Vice President, Certification & Admissions at PSI Services LLC. He has extensive experience both managing and consulting for credentialing programs, specializing in the strategic organization of these programs, their design and development. During his career, Rory has worked with over 350 associations and IT credentialing organizations, including well-known licensure programs and globally renowned certifications. Rory received his PhD in Organizational Leadership from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, as well as his MBA from Drexel University’s College of Business.