If you are a sub or sandwich lover, you know the difference that bread makes with your sandwich of choice. A Monte Cristo requires a thick slice of French or sourdough bread. A philly cheesesteak deserves a hoagie roll, and a reuben merits the use of rye bread (which potentially could be the only use for rye bread, although I’ve been informed on good authority that hardened slices may be used as door stops in a pinch). For those of you who are gluten-free, you also know that not all gluten-free options are made equally. The bread or bread substitute you choose–and the freshness of the bread–can complete or hinder an anticipated sandwich experience.
You wouldn’t say the bread for a sandwich doesn’t matter, which brings us to the illustrative sandwich we are focusing on today: the ADDIE sandwich.
You may have heard the phrase ADDIE before. ADDIE is an acronym that explains the five overlapping stages within instructional design:
- Analysis: 1) Determining the performance problems that are hindering an organization from reaching its goals and 2) determining what role training will have in solving those performance problems
- Design: Outlining and storyboarding the training
- Development: Actually creating the eLearning (for self-paced instruction) or facilitator’s guides and slide decks (for in-person training)
- Implementation: Enrolling the target audience in the class or course and delivering the training to them
- Evaluation: Measuring the effect the training has on helping the organization reach its goals.
If this design framework was a sandwich, the Analysis and Evaluation parts would be the loaves of bread bookending the top and bottom of the sandwich. Rather than being seen as non-negotiables in the instructional design experience, analysis and evaluation (I’ll call them A ‘n’ E for short) are often discarded in favor of the “filler” phases on the inside of the ADDIE model.
The Problem with Neglecting A ‘n’ E (Analysis and Evaluation)
I made a mistake a couple of years ago when purchasing a used car. We were expecting another child soon and knew we needed a new vehicle to accommodate our growing family. I won’t say we didn’t complete any due diligence. We took the car (a great deal!) for a test drive. I scrutinized the engine and looked under the car (which on account of my car savviness, basically amounted to, “Yep, looks like there’s an engine, and the kids won’t fall through the floor”). We made sure all automatic doors and windows opened properly and that the A/C, heater, and stereo worked without incident. Instead of getting the vehicle’s CARFAX report and having the car looked at by a reputable mechanic, I took the dealership at their word and bought the vehicle. It was only after purchasing it that I was to learn of the multiple wrecks our vehicle had been involved in and the slew of urgent repairs I needed to make as its new owner.
Neglecting to do my homework at the beginning, turned a “great deal” into a great expense of money and energy. Yet this is precisely what many companies do when it comes to training.
Here’s how it plays out in its simplest form:
- C-Suite Member A: “This is starting to be a huge problem for our company.”
- A hush settles over the room, before C-Suite Member B breaks the silence, “We must have training to fix this!”
- Other C-Suite members nod in assent.
- Newest C-Suite member: “I 100% agree!”
But in this scenario, there are two critical assumptions being made:
- That training is the best way to solve Problem X (Training may have little to no effect on solving the issue, so any training development could be a waste of money and resources).
- That Problem X is the main problem that needs to be solved. (Problem X may be the effect rather than the cause of other, bigger performance problems within the company).
Without taking time to analyze what problems your training is solving, or to evaluate if the training actually solved them, your L&D department could be expending a lot of its effort on projects that aren’t addressing your business’s most critical needs.
Three Reasons Why Analysis and Evaluation (A ‘n’ E) are Forgotten
My hunch is that there are three reasons for this:
- A ‘n’ E takes time. As we demonstrated in the previous scenario, companies are often restless to quickly solve their performance problems. Throwing a training at the problem feels like throwing water on a fire, so the quicker the training is delivered, the quicker the fire will be extinguished. In theory, that may work, unless the fire is being caused by a gas leak from somewhere else in the company (this is also proof of why it is hard to come up with good theories; somebody always finds a loophole). By cutting the time it takes to analyze and evaluate training, the employees often are handed training that only partly solves, or completely ignores, the big areas of concern for employees. “I’m feeling overworked due to A, B, and C, and now I’ve got a two-hour training on topic D!” Employees feel unheard by Leadership, and Leadership doesn’t have its main issues resolved. That’s a lose-lose situation, caused by not dedicating time to proper analysis.
- A ‘n’ E demands effort. Yes, crafting an excellent training is no piece of cake, but to spend time analyzing the root causes of performance problems, or to evaluate how a training is affecting the metrics a company most cares about, takes visibility from Leadership and effort from your L&D team. The problem with living in an “agile development” world is that we always want to hustle to the end of the project cycle to move on to the next project. Speed and efficiency are fantastic objectives, but they must be counterbalanced by looking at how the finished product (the training) affects the organization over time. I didn’t learn this lesson until late in my previous role. If you are creating instruction for your employees, you must ensure it is closely aligned with improving what the organization values the most. It’s not easy, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth the extra effort! If your company can spend 80 hours creating an eLearning, you can certainly devote a day or two to ensuring that eLearning or training will solve what you most need it to solve.
- A ‘n’ E requires trust. As Devlin Peck, a coach for instructional designers, says on his website, “[M]ost organizations do not spend sufficient time on analysis. An oft-cited reason for this is lack of buy-in from organizations; supervisors tell instructional designers to create courses, and instructional designers do not have the influence to redirect the conversation.” (Devlin Peck, “What is the ADDIE Model of Instructional Design? 2024 Guide”, Updated January 12, 2024). This may be true in some organizations, but Peck goes on to explain that when instructional designers cave in to these “ad hoc” demands without taking the time for thorough analysis, they are liable for allowing these bad practices to continue. In modern parlance, not speaking up causes them to lose their “seat at the table.” When your L&D team stops being the experts in learning, your organization will get training, but it won’t get solutions. Trust, in every organization, stems from acknowledging what you can depend on others to do with excellence. The L&D team needs Leadership to allow them to push back and analyze what its training requests are attempting to fix, and the L&D department needs to trust Leadership that it is the best resource for high-level organizational analysis and the best partner in planning out its analysis and evaluation goals.
Time, Effort, Trust, and L&D
Time, effort, and trust are not novel concepts for companies. Many business books are written every year addressing how companies can improve their company’s productivity, efficiency, and culture. Yet one of the reasons these topics are so popular is because there are many examples of companies cutting corners in these areas and suffering the consequences. Learning and development isn’t an exception!
You wouldn’t ever consider acquiring another company, or having your company be acquired, without doing your due diligence. Take the same approach with your L&D department, who could be one of your biggest avenues for retaining your employees and growing your organization. Companies can better utilize their L&D team and instructional designers by allowing them to focus on all aspects of the ADDIE design model.
And the next time someone suggests you can create training without sufficient analysis or evaluation, don’t buy it!
A 'n' E Resources
- This is a terrific article by Erik van Vulpen. Within the webpage, search for the “ADDIE model template-EXCEL” section. This will give you a downloadable spreadsheet for the main tasks and deliverables to consider in each of the ADDIE buckets.
- Devlin Peck is a wealth of information in the L&D space, and there are several articles I would recommend regarding this topic. First, he has an article breaking each stage of the ADDIE process. He also has an article covering the types of needs assessments you should consider during the Analysis phase and an article covering The Kirkpatrick Model of Evaluation. Although I’ve personally found the distinctions between Levels 3 and 4 of Kirkpatrick’s model to be ambiguous, the key is that you need to evaluate the course on how it affects employees and your organization in the long-term, as opposed to only evaluating immediate feedback that your learners supply after completing their training.
- Cathy Moore is my hero when it comes to the Analysis stage of ADDIE. She has a strategy called action mapping that goes through determining the environmental factors, skill gaps, and knowledge gaps that could be causing a performance challenge for an organization. Click on this link to be able to download a PDF of questions to ask when analyzing a performance problem and determining if training is an appropriate means of solving it. From the website, you can learn more about her book (highly recommended!) and online courses which go through her strategy in more detail.