Today’s economic environment of shrinking budgets demands training that aligns with the needs of the workforce by improving specific employee behaviors. When organizations identify a workforce deficiency there often are critical implications for their operations, so they typically respond with training solutions to correct the deficiency.
During the fall of 2014, the authors were tasked with a course design and development effort for a two-week instructor-led program management course. The traditional instructional design methods used for previous versions of this course relied on a locked-down front-end design, classic linear processes, and evaluation methods that provided feedback late in the development cycle. The previous version of the course was heavily based on another Federal agency’s models and did not meet the needs of the students. Additionally, policies needed for inclusion in the class were in flux. The time available for development was tight; two full-time instructional designers and three part-time subject matter experts needed to create a 10-day instructor-led course in time to deliver a class offering in less than seven months.
To create the new course, the development team incorporated the principles of Agile software development. This paper will review Agile software development, the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) instructional design method, and explain how the team applied the principles of Agile development to instructional systems design. We will discuss the implementation process, organizational tools, team dynamics, and customer involvement. Finally, we will illustrate the potential cost savings of this method by comparing a summary of the resources utilized to industry training development metrics.
Implementation of Agile Methods within Instructional Systems Design: A Case Study
1 Views