One page of Don Clark”s site on the history of “ADDIE”
(http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/history_isd/addie.html) actually shows graphics from 1975 military sources–sources at the early end of the ones Molenda cites. At least one of the articles Clark cites at the link above were provided to students at the UMBC graduate program in ISD in the 1986-87 timeframe as a quick reference to ISD history. Ms. Grafinger (now Ms. Hacker), the author of the ISD Infoline from which Molenda reproduces a graphic representation of the ADDIE model, attended the UMBC graduate ISD program (as did I). Fond memories of Dr. J. Marvin Cook, and greetings to Deb, if she happens to read this.

But Clark traces ISD back to the 1930’s and 1940’s in the many pages of the site:
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/history_isd/isdhistory.html

Florida Staters probably have some very interesting stories about early ISD!

The military is systematic because they’re mass-training constantly, and because they have to have some model for accountability. They do a lot of contracting! Milestones such as those in a design document can be your friend!

I recall reading aticles in the ISD trade publications in the 1980s about ADDIE–”accountability” was a big buzzword in the ’80s. Clients had begun to see through flashy instructional designs that did not produce results. Some of us ISDers thus referred to ourselves as “developers” rather than “designers” to differentiate our approach. I still do, even though these days “developer” confuses clients who, because e-learning has begun to occupy people’s minds as Cathy’s graphs show, think I am a programmer.

“Internalization” was another buzzword in the 1980s–ISDers were being exhorted to “internalize” all phases of the ADDIE model. ISD models were proliferating. Romisowsky published a very detailed model. With a common uber-model that captured the essence of a systematic approach to training, writers argued, it was easier for ISD practitioners to engage in discussions. It was also easier to turn faces outward and engage with clients when ISDers referred to the same model.

Once the profession achieved internalization, the discussion gradually shifted to ADDIE versus RID (ADDIE with some flexibility–like “agile” and “scrum” techniques versus waterfall in software development).

Now, 30 years later, the discussion is about getting the SMEs to internalize ADDIE. Each SME discipline (science, health, IT, business, marketing) has its own “system” model, going back to some time around WW II. Business types, for instance, tend to respond to PMBOK models (project management). You can usually appeal to the SME’s discipline-specific model and crosswalk it to ADDIE if you have to discuss your mental model with them. ASTD’s new Sales Training model, I think, could be thought of as a kind of preemtive strike–an example of giving the SMEs a validated, topic-specific topology, if not model.

Very interesting discussion, all.

Recently, I was researching on ADDIE – just wanted to know how and where it emerged. Interestingly, it seems it is just a colloquial term. That is what Michael Molenda, Professor of Instructional Technology, Indiana University says.

http://www.indiana.edu/~molpage/In%20Search%20of%20Elusive%20ADDIE.pdf

Can’t suppress the urge to add a comment as well. Like others who have added their POVs, I’ve also been on both sides of projects — as a PM, ID, and ID manager for a Web company specializing in elearning AND as an education director for a national association who hired a vendor company to develop an asynchronous, custom course.

I can tell you that many client representatives — especially in the association world — couldn’t define “instructional design” for you if you asked. I can also tell you that associations are swarming to elearning in greater numbers. These two factors aren’t strong enough correlates to explain your opening question, Cathy, but I think they are factors. Like others, I didn’t discuss ID with my association volunteer SMEs (unless I suddenly had a need to fling out the term to remind them why they hired me – for an expertise they didn’t have), but I did with my vendor.

ID isn’t dead. We shouldn’t pronounce it so, either. We should just keep doing our jobs as best we can, which is to find out what our clients need, and help them understand why paying for what they want but don’t need is a waste and potentially damaging.

As for formative evaluations: why not put the onus back on the client? Are they willing to risk launching something that could fail without evaluation and testing? What risks are they willing to accept? Why are they willing to accept them?

And why would a company want to separate out any of these costs, anyway? I don’t understand the “But the client won’t pay for this” argument. why not include it in the price as a non-negotiable part of the project? Don’t you want your clients’ projects to succeed? Why not prove that to them?

Okay, I’m sure I’m missing something here… but many of the comments seem to be directed inward to the development team and the effects of client decisions on the project and development company. Many clients will always look to their vendors for guidance and expertise — after all, they hired you because they can’t do the work themselves. Why let them tell you how to do your job?

Great post! Really got me thinking about the relationship between what the client wants and what the vendor knows is most important, and bridging the gap between them.

Its a bit of a chicken and egg story, but the software development world has its own ADDIE. The waterfall approach to running projects. To think that Winston Royce, who originated this model, thought it was flawed an vowed never to use it again, would amaze you when you see how many people actually follow this process.

There’s an obvious need to make lightweight instructional design methods more explicit. There’s also a need to change the ADDIE “mindset”. I agree that these steps could be iterative, small, light or heavy. That said, there’s a very strong need to explicitly recognize that.

I can understand that you may be at a level of experience where you have a model that you know, understand and practice. For others though, its important to reemphasize succesful models for Instructional Design.

Some belated thoughts arising from the post and some of the comments:

ADDIE isn’t a model or a method, it’s an acronym.

It’s a sequence of tasks involved in problem-solving approaches that resonate throughout engineering, project management, industrial design, architecture, advertising and numerous other disciplines.

Call it what you will – Action Mapping, Instructional Design, whatever – re-badging it doesn’t change it substantively.

Perhaps “Instructional Design” has become something of a damaged brand – tarnished by the less-than-happy experiences of clients and suppliers who made the mistake of embracing it as a recipe to be followed to the letter, rather than an adaptable toolbox that should be used with discretion. Or it’s been wielded by some as an expert and specialist discipline that will be applied to the client, rather than a collaborative, iterative process.

Anecdotally, I’ve noticed fewer clients understand what’s required to buy and/or build effective learning materials, and are unaware of how they could reduce the risk of investing in bad training – perhaps an increasing level of unconscious incompetence. Maybe the Google data has some relationship to this.

Clients won’t simply agree to buying A, D, D, I or E unless you can convince them of the value of whatever you’re proposing to do in those spaces. If it’s explained and applied effectively, I’ve found that clients become advocates for it. If not, they have little or no patience for it.

ADDIE can be applied in minutes, days or months. It’s ponderous if you make it so, or nimble. Depends on the requirements of the project and you and your client’s risk profiles. Less rigour in the application generally leads to an increased risk of not meeting the project requirements, but if you and the client are aware of what that means and what may be required to mitigate the risk, it’s often OK.

Regards from rainy Melbourne,

Greg Evans

I can’t help being critical of closed door Instructional Design, where we come up with imaginary constraints and design restrictions. The key is simplicity — what’s the simplest way to get the learning across?

If nothing, we should release that simple output to a small group of pilot learners and gauge their reaction to the content. That feedback either confirms or negates our assumptions. I have a strong objection to executing projects on plain hypotheses. And with creative stuff like elearning, the best way of testing your hypothesis is to release the module — at least to a small, test audience.

Customers/ business units have no intention to be difficult or perceive someone as difficult. In a lot of cases, we as designers fail to articulate the value of one approach over another. This is an area of a designer’s skill set which is often ignored — consulting. Its important that designers know how to negotiate, influence, communicate. A lot of the work we do is around creating change, and change is never easy!

I’ve found the book “Fearless Change” by Linda Rising, an amazing resource for patterns to changing mindsets and influencing. I think its a must for every designer; internal or external.

Another trend I’m seeing is business units going to non-training people to get projects developed. Justifications such as “She doesn’t write as well as the IDs, but she’s so much faster and isn’t as difficult”. And by “difficult” we know what they really mean.

Compound that with corporate merging and downsizing and you find people are becoming less “difficult” all the time. Fast forward a couple quarters when the next round of downsizing comes and the same IDs who stopped being difficult are now asked to explain their shoddy work:-/

We need to rely on SMEs to provide us with what we need and SMEs need to allow us to do our jobs. Too often the instructional designer is overruled. I always say that we don’t need to teach everything related to a topic, but we need to provide enough and give the learners the resources (or follow-up courses) to deliver the rest.

Like everyone here, I’ve seen projects in which the instructional designer talked with the client briefly, then retreated with a pile of content to write the entire design document in total isolation. The next thing the client saw was a fat document detailing practically every minute of the course (and showing none of it).

It seems like instructional design has been positioned as an orderly science that must be performed by experts working alone, not as a messy, collaborative process that should include learners as well as client stakeholders. Some of the backlash against ADDIE could be an understandable backlash against this “expert” stance, but unfortunately the effect can be to throw out all useful ID practices entirely.

Steve, what are those 6 magic questions? We all want to ask them now!