Our Agile Process: The SAM Model

Your team leads and your dedicated Project Manager (PM) at ApexID align on timelines, availability, expectations, and deliverables. Our PM integrates our process with yours, handling all scheduling, communication, approvals, and risk management—keeping you updated, not overwhelmed.

Your Subject Matter Expert (SME) and our Instructional Design Manager (IDM) define learning objectives, the course outline, and the learner’s journey. We match your project with an IDM experienced in your specific industry, subject matter, or academic discipline for authentic alignment. If you have existing materials (outcomes, syllabus, content), this workshop reviews and suggests improvements. We also mirror your voice, tone, and messaging using brand guides, sample content, and feedback loops to get every screen just right.

Everything beyond the initial workshops follows SAM – weekly cycles of short SME/IDM meetings and our development sprints. The SME and IDM determine how each module needs to be developed, including its learning outcomes, assessment, learning content (including lectures, demos, videos, readings, case studies, visuals and diagrams), and our signature interactive learning activities.

Each meeting is followed by a week-long development sprint where we author all content and develop a prototype of the entire module for review and editing before the next meeting. You receive a finished and polished module at the end of every week.

This iterative approach means that even with the toughest timelines, we can implement parallel development and delivery cycles, allowing a course to run live while subsequent parts are being developed just in time.

Our development sprints break projects into parallel workstreams (design, writing, media, build) to work faster while maintaining tight quality control. This covers all aspects of accessible design (compliance with WCAG 2.1 and ADA), academic standards and accreditation requirements.

Our team handles content sourcing, licensing, and permissions for third-party assets, or provides safe and secure alternatives to eliminate risk.

Before any handoff, we conduct a thorough review using a standardized QA checklist covering functionality, accessibility, spelling and grammar, design consistency, and mobile optimization.

Once all course content is prepared, we deploy it on your LMS. We then stay informed with analytics and feedback to evaluate the course and support you with rapid amendments wherever they are needed.

We deliver all editable source files along with comprehensive documentation and guidelines. This ensures that your team has full ownership and the autonomy to manage, update, and adapt the content freely as your needs evolve.