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Instructional Design and Rapid Prototyping: Rising from the Ashes of ADDIE

Instructional Design and Rapid Prototyping: Rising from the Ashes of ADDIE

by on May 7, 2012 in eLearning, Instructional Design, Project Management/Project Delivery, Rapid Development, Rapid Prototyping, Training Development

Tom Gram, one of my favorite bloggers, a few years ago responded to the hue and cry about ADDIE’s demise in the field of instructional design. In ADDIE is DEAD! Long Live ADDIE!, he talked about the love/hate relationship that many instructional designers and eLearning developers have had with ADDIE as they tried to keep up with business demands for speed and quality and as they observe process innovations such as rapid application development and iterative prototyping.

For many years the five ADDIE phases were the foundation for the design of most systems. Software engineering, product development, interactive/multimedia development are all based on some variation of the model. Most of these systems have evolved from the linear “waterfall” approach of early models; that is, a phase has to be completed and approved before you can start the next phase.

The waterfall approach has generally been replaced by iterative design …

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Microsoft Project for the Thrifty Project Manager: 3 Free (or Almost-Free) Alternatives

by on April 5, 2012 in Project Management/Project Delivery

With what free time I have at work, I’ve lately been on a mission to find a project management suite that can reproduce the best features of Microsoft Project, add on others, and cost less than $30/month all-together.  Some people of course might ask why I would take the time to do this – Project is a great tool, one that many PMs would swear is worth its weight in gold (and judging by the sticker price, they’re not far off).

For whatever reason, getting “just-as-good” alternatives is something of a hobby of mine.  It’s why I proudly purchase store-brand instead of name-brand, and I like to think it helps me to be a better project manager.  Our job ultimately is to think of our clients’ money as if it’s our own, and from that perspective, it’s certainly worth my time to see what’s out there for limited-cost.  Naturally, I …

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Serena Williams and Stepping Back from Your Training Plan

Serena Williams and Stepping Back from Your Training Plan

by on September 2, 2011 in Instructional Design, performance support, Project Management/Project Delivery, subject matter experts

I am a big tennis fan. And there is nothing more important to American tennis fans than the U.S. Open, which started this week.  There are a number of tournaments leading up to the Open.  The major international players (the healthy ones, anyway) use them as preparation.

The big news in the last couple of weeks was that Serena Williams, who had just won the Rogers Cup in Toronto, was dropping out of the next tournament, the Cincinnati Western & Southern.

Serena had come back after a year away from tennis during which she had a number of surgeries.  She had played seven matches in the previous eight days, and the big toe on her right foot bothered her during a morning workout.  “I don’t think this is a good time for me to take a big chance,” she said. “I just don’t think that would be smart.” 

There was …

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Measuring Project Success: Thoughts for the Training Professional

Measuring Project Success: Thoughts for the Training Professional

by on April 24, 2011 in Project Management/Project Delivery

When we think of the concept of “success,” it often seems relatively straightforward.  Looking back on your day, for instance, it’s generally an easy thing to sum up whether it was successful or not.  Did your presentation go well to that big prospective client, or did your car break down on the way to work?  Were you able to get the gym as you had hoped, or did your boss need you to work late on someone else’s project?  Easily definable items such as these, measured against a finite number of other events, allow for relatively rapid analysis.

Yet, when one extends the number of competing factors a bit, measurement becomes increasingly difficult.  Just as it is generally easy enough to determine if your day went well, deciding if you had a good year can be a bit harder.  For one thing, how do you weigh competing factors against each …

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Organizational Change Management Cited – Again – as Key Contributor to ERP Failure

Organizational Change Management Cited – Again – as Key Contributor to ERP Failure

by on April 5, 2011 in ERP Training, Organizational Change Management, Project Management/Project Delivery, system implementation training

In his IT Project Failures blog, Michael Krigsman frequently discusses the importance of change management, communication, and training in successful ERP implementations.  In a recent post, he cites a recent poll by Panorama Consulting, in which IT executives are asked about the “deadliest sin” of ERP implementations.  Organizational change management, as usual, is right near the top of the list:

A major contributor to the importance of change management stems from the impact on workers’ job roles, and the degree to which those changes can affect their careers.  In another post, Krigsman writes:

Communications in [the context of ERP implementation] means explaining the business impact of technology decisions to a non-technical audience. That impact likely includes process changes that may affect employees in a variety of ways. For example, a new CRM or ERP system can change workers’ jobs, roles, and even dictate future employment status. Obviously, these changes have

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