Project management in instructional design: ADDIE is not enough

Abstract

In the digital age, instructional designers must possess both a sound instructional design knowledge base and solid project management skills that will enable them to complete courseware projects on time, on budget and in conformance with client expectations. Project management skills include the ability to apply repeatable processes, along with interpersonal skills such as communication and leadership skills. However, courses in project management are often absent from the higher education instructional design curriculum, creating a gap between what is learned in instructional design programmes and real-world practice. In this paper, the author draws on the education and project management fields to examine this gap. The author argues that the gap between instructional design project management models and how instructional design practitioners view project management is a consequence of the divergent perspectives of higher education subcultures and the extent to which those subcultures are likely to embrace cross-disciplinary subjects such as project management. The author proposes some research and advocacy opportunities for closing the gap between instructional design education and practice.

Applying service design in competency‐based curriculum development

“…In an analysis of team‐based instructional design processes, Hawkes and Coldeway () observed that the instructional designer's roles included project manager, coach of the faculty developer, reviewer and evaluator of the materials created by faculty, and media designer. Other studies showed that many instructional designers spend most of their time engaging in project management tasks which are essential to the successful development of curriculum (Van Rooij, ). For our team, the instructional designer had to be an expert in instructional design and also have project management skills in order to evaluate curriculum as well as manage the many processes involved in course and program development within established timelines.…”

Management and Instructional Design: Building Intersections

“…Considering a project on the educational scenario that is currently being reframed, given the convergence of practices of different teaching modes, an instructional design that contemplates this diversity is needed, which extends to varied audience of students, demanding so that the activity of instructional design is able to perform similar pedagogies in different environments (Drira, Laroussi, Le Pallec, & Warin, 2012). Considering that the effective project management, according to Van Rooij (2010), requires knowing the characteristics of the actual project environment, instructional design projects must have its knowledge interconnected with educational practices of the teaching-learning process. For us, the difference between the models of project management and instructional design is the consequence of divergent perspectives between the management area and the educational area.…”

Agile in Academics: Applying Agile to Instructional Design

“…However, JIT started crippling the development efforts due to the extensive time involved with designing each piece of the curriculum. The industry standard for curriculum developers that is increasingly found wanting due to its lack of practical application to real world situations is a methodology called ADDIE [5], and represents Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate. It strongly correlates to the waterfall approach where the course must be understood at all levels in the beginning.…”