By Clark Quinn

I’ve been against ADDIE, for a variety of reasons. However, as I think through what matters for designing learning, I realize that there’s a real benefit to ADDIE (as intended). And I’m wondering if I need to rethink whether it’s worthwhile or not.

ADDIE, of course, is a model for design process. It stands for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. Now, I’m a design geek, and I looked at design across practices, including software engineering, architecture, graphic design, industrial design, game design, and more. I’ve found three step models, and four step models, and of course a five step model.

What I didn’t like about ADDIE was twofold. For one, it seemed a bit inane to separate out development from implementation. Since I’ve mostly been about elearning, the development in many cases was the implementation as well. Also, I found when talking (learning) game design in particular, where I’m talking not just to instructional designers, but software developers, and artists and the like, that a four step model for design of analysis, specification, implementation and evaluation worked well.

Another more common complaint about ADDIE was that it made it too easy to consider a ‘waterfall’ process, where you go linearly through the steps. There have been attempts to remedy this, including redefining ADDIE through diagrams that put evaluation in the middle. Still, it’s too often the case that we see waterfall approaches to learning design. As a result, we’ve seen replacement approaches such as Michael Allen’s Successive Approximation Model (SAM), Megan Torrance’s Lot Like Agile Management Approach (LLAMA), and even David Merrill’s Pebble in a Pond. Which are all to the good, but are they necessary?

In this context, why might I rethink my stance? Well, one thing that’s become increasingly apparent to me is that implementation isn’t the same as development. It’s not just ‘if we build it, it is good’. Instead, as Cross & Dublin pointed out decades ago, any learning intervention really is an organizational change, and should be treated as such, bringing in vision, and messaging, supporting changed behavior, and the like. Further, I was enthused when I heard about an organization’s learning approach where they didn’t release any learning until they’d also figured out how they were preparing managers to support it.

We see this in other initiatives as well. To succeed, it’s more than just ‘spray and pray’! Instead, if we want persistent learning outcomes, we need to not only design a solution and develop it, but we have to ensure that the execution is effective. We need to implement it, and evaluate the implementation, and not assume we’re done until we achieve the impact we had identified as needed (or accept the results we are getting). Which is what Guy Wallace has suggested with the pilot testing he advocates.

Successful implementation means the intervention achieves specific outcomes in capability, leads to persistent change in performance, and impacts the bottom line. It includes extending the learning beyond an ‘event’ to reactivate and reflect. It also includes managing the social component, whether it’s just manager support or actual coaching.

In short, ADDIE isn’t iterative, but it does talk about implementation as a separate, and necessary, step. To be fair, so does SAM, and I’d suspect LLAMA does as well. So, should we stick with ADDIE, or move to one of these newer ones? I like the newer ones because they consider implementation and they’re inherently iterative. So, maybe it’s better to shift than continue to allow the misuse of ADDIE.

Those are my thoughts, at least, what are yours?

REFERENCES

Allen, M. (2012). Leaving ADDIE for SAM: An Agile Model for Developing the Best Learning Experiences. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

Cross, J., & Dublin, L. (2002).  Implementing eLearning. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

Merrill, M. D. (2002). A pebble-in-the-pond model for instructional design. Performance Improvement, 41(7), 39-44.

Quinn, C. N. (2005).  Engaging Learning: Designing e-Learning Simulation Games.  San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

Torrance, M. (2019). Agile for Instructional Designers: Iterative Project Management to Achieve Results. ASTD Press: Alexandria, VA.

Wallace, G.W. (2023). The L&D Pivot Point: Performance Improvement Consulting  - Pivot From Instructional Development Efforts to Non-Instructional Development Efforts or to do Both. Boston: LDA Press.