Big Picture

Instructional Design is like being an Architect.

If you want to build a house, you don't just show up on an empty lot and start nailing boards together. If you do, the house will collapse. Instead, you follow a deliberate, phased approach:

Survey the land: Who is living here? What is the soil like? (Analysis)

Draw the blueprint: Where do the walls go? (Design)

Build the frame: Pour the concrete and raise the roof. (Development)

Hand over the keys: Let the family move in. (Implementation)

Check for leaks: Did the roof hold up during the first storm? (Evaluation)

As an Instructional Designer, your courses are the buildings. You are the architect.

If architecture is the metaphor, what is our actual blueprint?

In Instructional Design, our foundational structure is called the ADDIE model.

ADDIE model

While the day-to-day job can get incredibly detailed, every successful project follows this exact, simplified sequence. This is the absolute core of what we do:

Diagnose the real problem: Is this a knowledge gap, or a motivation gap?

Decide if training is warranted: Sometimes, a job aid or a better tool is the answer, not a course.

Define the learning goal: What exact behavior needs to change and how?

Extract expert performance: Figure out how the masters actually do the job.

Decompose into teachable parts: Break that mastery down into digestible chunks.

Choose the right learning blocks: Select the best format (video, simulation, text) for each chunk.

Orchestrate for motivation, flow, and context: Arrange the blocks so the learner stays engaged and challenged.

Verify transfer: Prove that the learner can actually do the task in the real world.

The ADDIE process makes it look like training happens in a straight line. But in reality, training does not happen in a vacuum.

A beautifully designed course is just one gear inside a massive, moving machine called the Performance Ecosystem.

To be a truly effective Instructional Designer, you must look at all the moving pieces at the exact same time and understand their relationships.

When you drop a learner back into the real world, your training will collide with:

Multiple Stakeholders: Managers, peers, and executives who all have different expectations.

Conflicting Elements: Company culture, broken software tools, bad incentives, and high-stress environments.

If you design a perfect course, but the learner's manager actively discourages them from using the new skills, your training will fail.

To succeed, we have to look beyond the classroom and design for the whole ecosystem.

Evolution

Analysis