Can We Skip the A in ADDIE?

The analyze phase of the ADDIE (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate) systems-approach process is an important aspect of standard military and civillian ISD (instructional systems design). However, it is often skipped or glossed over when time, budget, or both dictate. According to Molenda and Boling (2013), the analysis phase is when the instructional design team analyzes the job, selects the task functions, constructs the performance measures, analyzes the existing course, and selects an instructional setting (Fig. 4.3). Molenda and Boling then go on to cite Gagne, Wager, Golas, and Keller’s more detailed explanation of the design team’s role in the analyze phase:

• First determine the needs for which instruction is the solution.
• Conduct an instructional analysis to determine the target cognitive, affective, and motor skill goals for the course.
• Determine what skills the entering learner are expected to have, and which will impact learning in the course.
• Analyze the time available and how much might be accomplished in that period of time. Some authors also recommend an analysis of the context and the resources available. (Molenda & Boling, 2013, Table 4.1)

Essentially, the analysis phase is the process of identifying what, why, where, when, how (in terms of materials available), and for whom you are designing the course or instruction.

Section IV of Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Regulation 350-70 elaborates even further on the rigorous analysis phase requirements set forth by TRADOC, which consist of nine specific analysis tasks and a multitude of subtasks that fall under collective training and individual learning for each of the nine analysis tasks (Department of the Army, 2011, p. 63, Table 5-1). With so much focus on this phase of the ADDIE process, one may wonder how this seemingly important step may be sped through or skipped almost entirely by leaders in a training environment, even when TRADOC specifically mandates that “[c]onducting an analysis is mandatory prior to new development or major revisions of courses/events or other Army learning products” (Department of the Army, 2011, p. 63). However, based on the constraints of time and money, leadership at military and civilian courses rush or even skip the analysis phase on a regular basis, neglecting process for the sake of product.

For military instructional designers, most of whom have had the ADDIE process ingrained into them by doctrine and use, skipping the analysis phase may seem counterproductive and even detrimental to the design process. Designing a course without the analysis phase is tantamount to building a house without having plans or a blueprint. Construction workers can’t improvise the building of a complex structure, nor can instructional designers improvise the designing of a complex course—or so strict adherents to the ADDIE process would have us believe. Recently, though, more and more ADDIE detractors are making their voices heard.

As is often the case when processes are formalized, the guidance and rules become so cumbersome as to hurt the very effort the established process is meant to help. People in general like to categorize things in order that they may be more easily understood, and the government, military, and corporate America like to create doctrine based on categorization, especially in terms of process, because of the mentality that if it works well for one person, it will work well for everyone. Thus, elaborate systems are created and codified. When this happens, we are often left with hulking tomes of doctrine stripped of all flexibility and creative power that made the process useful to begin with.

Molenda and Boling (2013) point out an alternative view that states, “process models cannot describe fully or direct effectively successful design efforts for any but the simplest situations,” and that “[i]n this view, design is seen as a space in which creators of artifacts…grapple with multiple tensions and desires from multiple sources” (“Alternative Design Traditions, para. 1). And in terms of a guiding principle, where TRADOC’s verbose explanation of the ADDIE process would have designers check a series of boxes, this alternate view observes that “[instructional designers’] efforts at problem solving within this space are based on rich experiential knowledge and training in habits of thought and performance” (“Alternative Design Traditions, para. 1).

Others argue that, in general, “the ISD approach is too slow and clumsy for the fast changing digital environment, fails to focus on what is most important, and tends to produce uninspired solutions” (Molenda & Boling, 2013, “Critique of ISD,” para. 2). The Army has good intentions by having designers strictly adhere to the ADDIE process: the hope is that by standardizing the process consistent quality can be achieved. However, when that quality is mediocre, slow to produce, and not cost efficient, we have to ask ourselves if the process is hindering the very efforts it was meant to improve. Molenda and Boling even conclude by asking if we should “retain, adapt, or discard systems approach models and...find ways of thinking about design that are productive for the changing media environment of the 21st Century (“Conclusion,” para. 5). Yet, even if we agree that process models have become too cumbersome, we must still acknowledge the need for an initial planning phase.

User design and rapid prototyping are two concepts that would aid the initial planning phase while speeding up not just the analysis phase, but also the design, develop, implement, and evaluate phases. User design involves the end users in the ISD process and would cut down on the number of TRADOC analysis tasks. By involving the end user in the analysis phase, designers would spend less time conducting target audience analysis and the various forms of guess work it involves. Then rapid prototyping, which is basically the quick assembling of an incomplete product for testing, would allow for the combining of many analysis, design, and development tasks. It would also allow for trial implementation and evaluation without the time and effort to produce a perfect product (which is an impossibility, anyway) before testing the team’s ideas. The feedback from the user design and rapid prototyping could then be used in redesigning further prototypes, with the intention of having a fully functional product faster than would be feasible with the multiple iterations of the ADDIE process that it takes to work all of the bugs out of a final product. So, rather than rushing the analysis phase or skipping it altogether, leaders at all levels in training and design should look to alternative design traditions that are backed by research and have a history of success.

References

Molenda, M., & Boling, E. (2013). “Creating.” In A. Januszewski and M. Molenda (Eds.), Educational technology: A definition with commentary (Chapter 4) [Kindle version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Department of the Army. (2011). Army learning policy and systems (TRADOC Regulation 350-70). Fort Eustis, VA: Army Training and Doctrine Command. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCoQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tradoc.army.mil%2Ftpubs%2Fregs%2FTR350-70.doc&ei=x5sQVKDmJ8-RNviygbAJ&usg=AFQjCNFTLsN8vuzJxoQYemdD8blkQIf07w&sig2=9XSyyfoIVrpRKigO-vwp3g&bvm=bv.74649129,d.eXY&cad=rja