Processes

Understand processes such as change, design, development, and learning

Context

In this project, my partner, Steve Corbett, and I helped design and develop an undergraduate biology course for non-science majors. Our Client, Ms. Susan Kaiser, a grant administrator at San Diego State University, created the course, called Biology 350: Emerging Technologies in Human Health Care. Our challenge consisted of providing instructional design support to create the framework of the entire course. However, due to a limited project scope we only developed a complete set of instructional activities and tools for one out of 15 weeks in the semester.

Unfortunately, my partner and I lost about one month of working time due to starting late, having been sidetracked working on what would prove to be an unsuitable project with a different client. As a result of the late start, we had to tightly manage our time with clearly defined milestones and deliverable dates. The artifact I have chosen to represent my mastery of this standard is the flowchart I created that shows my understanding and appreciation of the design and development processes.

These processes guided us in the completion of five major deliverables:

1. Front-end Analysis (FEA) Report
2. Draft Course Syllabus
3. Course Design Document
4. Session Design Document
5. Functional Prototype

Linkage

To ensure that we finished our work within a shortened 2.5-month timeframe, we:

• Followed a traditional ADDIE approach containing tasks scoped with abbreviated, but realistic man-hours
• Provided for iterative internal quality assurance review cycles and Client review and approvals for each deliverable

Incorporating these two guidelines into our workflow gave us confidence that we would complete the project on time with the requisite quality expected from our Client.

Challenges & Opportunities

The design workflow incorporated the following traditional design elements:

To manage our deadlines, the various design and development phases overlapped. That is, some of the phases occurred in parallel. We planned to condense about 15 weeks of effort into 10 weeks.

Results

Our actual project timeline shows we successfully completed the project to our Client’s satisfaction with only minimal time slippage to the right, only nine days past the end date of our original project plan.

Personal & Professional Development

Although not ideal to work under extreme time pressure, successfully completing this project demonstrated that I have the know-how to perform multiple tasks in parallel. It was satisfying to adapt the trusty ADDIE model to a short timeframe. It shows that using a basic approach can be the best way to tackle a difficult problem.

In my professional career as a production and project manager, I have had several opportunities to apply this principle during several work projects. I’ve taken the basic ADDIE approach and used expanded or constricted timelines to match the task requirements. For example, for complex instructional tasks like teaching how to troubleshoot equipment, I’ve learned that extra time is needed to analyze job task requirements. Thoroughly investigating such a complex task requires that an instructional designer interview subject matter experts and research technical manuals for longer time periods. Also, building in additional instructional reviews as the designer writes a complex lesson ensures that it is soundly designed. Taking extra time in the Analysis and Design phases of the ADDIE process is time well spent when the degree of complexity is high.