Instructional Design

Great and enduring leaders are also great and enduring teachers. In organizations, the function is usually called learning, training, development, or some combination of the three. In short, the idea is to equip the team with the knowledge to make both the team and the individual successful.

Delivering quality training is more than simply telling the team to “do what I do and you'll pick it up.” It requires a thoughtful design process that develops the content necessary to make the team successful.
That process is called “instructional design.” Some other terms (fungible for this conversation) are “instructional system design,” “training design,” “learning design process....” You get the idea.

The design process has some straightforward steps:

1. Needs:  why are we training?  is this the right approach?


2. Readiness:  is the team motivated to learn, and are they able to learn?


3. Environment:  where, when, and in what environment will teammates learn? (includes the delivery channel:  online, in person, etc.)


4. Application:  how does the training apply to the task?  what are we trying to change?


5. Evaluation Plan:  what is success?  how do we measure it?


6. Method:  how will we deliver (online, in-person, etc.)?


7. Evaluation:  did this work?  what will we change?  what to we need to adjust in flight?

By the way, these steps are only roughly sequential - you will be evaluating throughout the process, will learn more about needs and readiness as the training is implemented, and may find that cost constraints change your method.  As a framework, however, the model works very well.

Too hard to remember these, and want an acronym instead?  Acronym, thy name is ADDIE. :)  It's been around for years, and most ISD (instructional systems design) processes are some iteration of ADDIE.

A-D-D-I-E stands for (with the design process steps in parentheses)

• Analysis (needs, readiness)


• Design (environment, application, evaluation plan)


• Development


• Implementation (method)


• Evaluation (evaluation)

Aconsistent theme you'll see in my writing is the value proposition.  The complexity of your process should reflect the expected return you're going to get - a value proposition.  If you're spending a month developing a training program that doesn't change your bottom line, increase customer satisfaction, or make your organization more successful, then you've wasted your time.  There is always a return on your investment, and the give should always be less than the get.

Regards,Bryan