Instructional Design

Methodology

As an Instructional Designer, I have used the ADDIE and Agile methodologies, along with others preferred by a client or a consulting firm with which I engaged. I find ADDIE good for large new programs and first implementations. For smaller projects, small project teams, and for live programs, I find Agile more efficient. Below are parts of an Agile methodology that I developed for the design service at Northwestern.

AgileMethdologyTemplate.xlsx

Agile for Design and Development

Front end analysis is crucially important in any approach to instructional design, including Agile. If the analysis produces a recommendation that includes learning, a learning analysis comes next, followed by a series of essential (and some optional) deliverables with approval gates that lead to a finished product. In my practice, with many standards in place, the minimum essential deliverables were:

  1. A learning inventory with an outline of objectives and/or topics in sequence.

  2. A strategic plan, or curriculum plan.

  3. Design sprints with demos.

  4. Detailed design documents.

  5. Development sprints with demos.

  6. Deployment sprint with demo.

Design Sprints

The purpose of a design sprint is to present a vivid design idea for a digital media deliverable. The sprint contains no finished copy and no finished layout, as sophistication or polish would actually inhibit client feedback. The sprint demo takes place in a meeting, and the presentation is conducted within a design conversation, with ideas presented in the spirit of "what if?" Frequent pauses for questions ensure that I ask what's missing, what's too much, what's wrong, and what's working? After approval, development begins. Examples below are from Staff eRecruit, the same project I display in eLearning.

050417SprintDemoCJO.pdf

Create Job Openings

The design showed an approach to integrated business process and system training, using the labels Show Me and Try It to launch system demos and hands-on simulations.

051917SprintDemoMA.pdf

Manage Applicants

The design showed several instructional methods intended to enable learners to imagine, empathize, and deal effectively with large numbers of applicants. They learn the purpose, to create a great experience for candidates, while at the same time, learning to comply with regulations.

062217SprintDemoMO.pdf

Make an Offer

The designs showed an approach to using storylines for meaning and context. The approach necessitated the involvement of colleagues in HRIT to populate a training environment with fictional characters whose stories generated the opportunities to learn.

Detailed Design Documents

As designer/developer/owner, I realized that there can only be one source document for instructional content and that attempts to create separate versions of the content for for client review, for media developers, and for the transcript would increase risk and be unmaintainable over time. To solve the problem, I wrote one document in polished format ready for publication as a transcript. Instructions for graphics, audio, and interaction design, were in hidden text. Documents below are from three projects that I describe in eLearning, Staff eRecruit, Safe Campus, and COVID-19: Returning to Campus.

1-CreatingJobOpeningsV1.pdf

Create Job Opening

The detailed design document and its approval precede the majority of development. Having said that, the tasks have an "end" dependency: development cannot finish until design finishes. If the designer and developer are different people, the developer can proceed with some tasks in parallel.

safe-campus-course-transcript.pdf

Safe Campus

The Safe Campus transcript ensured the entire contents were available to learners for reference after the learning experience and to learners who opted out of watching the graphic violence depicted in the "Run. Hide. Fight." video.

rmcrtc-course-transcript.pdf

COVID-19 Returning to Campus

Transcripts ensure accessibility and reference for learners. For course owners, they ensure maintainability and reproducibility in the future. For the legal department, they serve as proofs of training content. And for the client, they are a convenient way to review course content for changes offline.

Storyboards

AT&T in the 2006-8 timeframe had a very templated learning content management system. In these circumstances, I was able to present a high fidelity design storyboard that reproduced the learner's UI exactly. Detailed storyboards worked because much of the visual design was prescribed. They made the client review and approval a breeze. Surprisingly, I was the first designer in my cohort to use the approach.

01.ppt

IPL Business Process Overview

New and incumbent Service Order Administrators (SOAs) learned about the International Private Line (IPL) product and the processes that support it. Tactically, process learning was supported with diagrams, elaborated in layers to arrive at the required level of detail.

07.ppt

Completing Orders

This lesson introduced learners to the completion process. It led learners through demos and hands-on simulations of system tasks. It used a storyline with fictional clients and job artifacts to generate meaningful scenarios for learning.

08.ppt

Other Order Types

This lesson was about handling change requests for existing customers. Tasks were simpler than those for establishing new service. So the instructional pace was faster. Storylines were brief and used real-world job artifacts to generate scenarios and the context for each hands-on simulation.