I’m an L&D Professional and I don’t use the ADDIE method!
Originally published on August 27, 2019
If you are in learning and development, you are familiar with the ADDIE method of instructional design. Developed by Florida State University using ideas from the US Military, it is a waterfall method requiring a linear approach to instructional design and it is because of this that I prefer not to use it.
To be clear, the ADDIE method is a standard for a reason and I know many learning and development professionals find it incredibly useful, but for the experiences I have had, I am not one of them.
My background is in tech and I often work very closely with product teams and on fast deadlines. I don’t have a large team, many times it has just been me, and I often rely on other contributors, such as marketing and product specialists, for content, all of whom use an agile method. I have found that for my situation, an agile workflow works best and I use the SAM method for its flexibility.
SAM Methodology
There are two parts to SAM, SAM1, and SAM2. SAM1 is the design phase and SAM2 is the development phase. For small projects with tight deadlines, I may only need SAM1 and publish after review. For larger projects or departures from traditional practice, I will use SAM2 and work through alpha, beta, and gold.
I’ll give you an example of this in practice. In a previous role, I was in a newly created position, building a training program that was started by subject matter experts. There were some really good practices in place that just needed some refinement. For these, I worked through a SAM1 process for the updates, got some feedback from stakeholders, and published. This was great in that I was able to make a quick impact and start to get quality data for iterative improvements.
However, if I am going to depart from the way content has been traditionally delivered, such as converting classroom content to virtual content, I would probably use SAM1 and SAM2. This gives me the opportunity to get lots of feedback and share ownership with stakeholders. It’s that sharing of ownership that is so important from a change management perspective.
I find this flexibility extraordinarily useful. I can work through both processes or not. Sometimes I skip the Alpha step and go right to beta. It’s a system that many other departments understand so when I tell a product specialist that I’m doing a beta test before publishing, they understand exactly what I’m talking about. When I work with subject matter experts to develop content, I don’t have to catch them up on the process as it’s very similar to what they use.
If you are interested in learning more about SAM, I would encourage you to check out this article on Articulate’s E-Learning Heros site. Even if you don’t use Articulate, they have some great resources and articles that I have found very useful.