ADDIE instructional design model
Following is a high-level quick list of items to consider when starting a new instructional design/course authoring project.
- Target Audience: Language, average reading level, technical aptitude (computer skills)
- Training Modality: Will this be an eLearning course, instructor-led, blended? Why?
- Learning Environment: For e-Learning – do computers have sound cards with speakers or headphones, what’s the average computer resolution, what kind of bandwidth is available. Will learners be using mobile devices? Do you want to encourage or discourage use of phones or tablets (note – smart phones with small screens are not ideal when compared to larger tablets and desktops.)
- Source Content: Are you converting existing content to e-Learning or creating new courses from scratch? What reference/research/source materials will you use? If you are writing content from scratch, you will need to include more time in your project plan. If you are converting existing content, be sure to interview subject matter experts to ensure that changes have not occurred and that your content is still current.
- Learning Objectives: Why is the training needed? What specific skills or knowledge should learners possess upon completion? How will you measure whether or not objectives have been met? Be sure that your learning objectives match either a specific job behavior you are trying to influence and/or map to specific organizational objectives you want to achieve.
- Development Timeline: By what date is this training expected to be ready to deliver to learners? What happens if your project runs late? Be sure that you and the project sponsor are on the same page and have realistic expectations.
- Budget: What financial resources have been set aside for this project? What happens if you run over budget? Be sure that you ask for more budget than you need so you can cover unexpected challenges or land the project under budget and hopefully have funds to apply to additional initiatives.
- Subject Matter Experts: Who are the subject matter experts and what is their contact information? What is their knowledge of the instructional design process? Have they been granted time to dedicate to this project and are they on-board or resistant at all?
- Seat time: How long should it take a learner to complete this course? What is the estimated course runtime and what is the estimated student seat time?
- Technology: What software will likely be used? Simply upgrade PowerPoint with audio lecture and upload to LMS? Custom 3D animations and graphics based in Flash? Computer skills demos with Captivate?