ADDIE has been a part of my professional life since Day 1, August 6, 1979.

And I’ve understood it to be controversial since Day 1 as well. It was explained to me that most – including a sister organization at Wickes Lumber – focused on Topics while we would focus on Accomplishments – Rummler & Gilbert’s word for Outputs and Tasks (based on their Praxis Workshop materials from 1972/1973/1974 that I was given soon after starting) – but that we would use the word: Results – and phrase: Performance Objective – as the word Accomplishment – wouldn’t likely resonate with any of our clients and stakeholders.

I was told on that first day that it was not a set of Instructional Development methods, but simply a Planning framework that housed the methods, reflected in Tasks, to produce Outputs, Phase by Phase – where the Phases that we were to use were similar, but different, than ADDIE.

I had a graphic/photo of our ADDIE-like framework at Wickes’ Training Services – a framed poster – but lost it due to a failed hard drive that I hadn’t backed up soon enough. But I do have this document – our internal brochure, if you will…

Stop the Strawmen

A GIF

In the late 1980s we at Svenson & Wallace Inc. (SWI) were thinking about more formally offering training to our clients on our ISD Methods.

I had been training clients in our Analysis and Curriculum Architecture Design methods since 1983, but we were thinking about packaging and offering in-house workshops. We did those formal workshops at HP, General Motors, Amoco, and Eli Lilly (among other clients) beginning in the early 1990s.

My framework – MCD – soon took on this configuration of 6 Phases:

I, my business partners at 2 firms, my staff consultants and literarily hundreds of client ISD staff members, used this configuration to start – and I’m sure that many probably adapted it – both imagery and language – to meet their needs.

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