Instructional Systems Design

At ICF, we pride ourselves on our ability to successfully integrate our technical expertise, project management, and communication skills into our instructional systems design (ISD) capabilities. In fact, it is our unique ability to effectively communicate highly complex knowledge that has enabled us to become one of the nation’s premier providers of training and technical assistance.

ICF believes that the best training solutions not only provide participants with in-depth technical content, but they also provide rich opportunities to apply their newly acquired knowledge to realistic situations, exchange information, challenge old assumptions, and incubate new ideas. However, just staffing and planning a training solution does not automatically lead to the effective transfer of information and techniques. Engaging instructional materials, effective use of technologies, interactive exercises, and well-prepared implementation tactics are all prerequisites for quality learning.

Our ISD approach to training relies on this expertise and on our understanding of the needs of our clients. When planning training solutions, ICF is guided by several underlying principles:

• Adults learn by doing. Whatever the topic, we ensure that the curriculum includes interactive exercises, case studies, and scenarios that reinforce learning.
  
  
• Training is best developed by a team of instructional design and technical experts. We have found that it takes a two-part team to create successful training—experts in instructional design and learning techniques and experts in the technical subject matter. Working in tandem, these experts can design a course that is technically accurate and effectively conveys the needed information.
  
  
• Quality training solutions don’t just reiterate the “rules.” While some training solutions are collections of regulations or notices, ICF’s solutions teach the subject matter as well as serve as true reference tools, ensuring that the training has lasting value long after the initial delivery and helping learners to understand and improve their performance.
  
  
• Great training is driven by compelling and engaging instruction, not by technology alone. Despite significant advancements, technology can only enhance and encourage learning; it is not the driver of the learning process. Rather, it is essential to apply sound ISD methodologies, which are an integral part of ICF’s processes for the development of all our training materials.
  
  
• Improved performance is the bottom line. Training must be driven from and measured by the performance and results metrics the organization is trying to achieve. ICF training makes the firm connection between an organization’s mission, direction, and strategy, and its training investment and organizational success.

These principles bring results-oriented training and performance improvement products to the client’s project.

ISD, as shown in Figure 1, is the most widely used methodology for developing new training programs. This approach provides a step-by-step system for the evaluation of students' needs, the design and development of training materials, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of the training.

ICF has extended this basic ISD model to include an increased focus on project management and project control, as well as on product quality as defined by client satisfaction. (See Figure 2.) ICF further ensures this satisfaction by always being adaptable to the client’s unique situations and settings where the training is implemented.

Analyze Training and Resource Needs

Kickoff Meeting. ICF believes that this “planning” step at the beginning of a project is key to establishing project understandings and expectations. We envision that outputs from the kickoff meeting will include: (1) agreement on the overall structure/content and (2) identification of the types and sources of existing training and reference materials that the client wants us to consider for incorporation in the project.

Note that ICF is unbiased towards any particular technology/delivery medium, which allows us to give our clients the products that best meet client needs and objectives.

Design and Develop Training Program

Rapid Cycle Prototyping. As we analyze, design, and develop training materials, ICF employs a Rapid Cycle Prototyping (RCP) development process (Figure 3) during which subject matter experts, stakeholders, ISD professionals, and others participate in intensive two- to three-day design and development sessions.

At these sessions, participants walk through a structured agenda to flesh out the framework for the course, identify terminal and enabling objectives, training content outlines, and scenarios/examples as well as identify ideas for exercises and interactions. ICF’s experience in using this workshop process has proved to be exceptionally powerful and the most efficient way to design a training program that is fully responsive to clients’ needs.

Design Document. When the RCP is completed, ICF formalizes the design in a Design Document. This document contains the terminal and enabling objectives, a detailed content outline, a hierarchy of learning or a flowchart of the possible paths through non-hierarchical instruction, selected instructional and learning strategies, media selection results, a list and description of non-instructional materials that support the instruction, and (for on-line training solutions) a proposed interface design. We believe that a solid design document is the essential foundation for all subsequent development efforts.

Prototype. To make certain that our documented design is in line with our client’s vision, we typically develop a prototype that enables the client to better “visualize” what the end solution will look like. We advise developing a prototype whether it’s for an instructor-led training course or a technology-based training because prototyping allows for client confirmation and buy-in to the approach early on in the process. If any adjustments are needed, we make and validate them to ensure maximum efficiency during the development and implementation phases.

Development Phase

Fundamentally, during the Development Phase, the instructional work products are created. Instructional displays are produced; text material is written; photos, graphics, animations, and other images are produced; videos are shot and edited; computer programs are written; and participant and instructor materials (if required) are written, edited, and formatted.

Development involves the successful integration of multiple technical disciplines. For example, the development of high-end, Web-based training involves a team of instructional designers, subject matter experts, writers, graphic designers, systems engineers and analysts, computer programmers, and video production personnel, all of whom are led and coordinated by an experienced training project manager. ICF’s advantages in training development include our personnel’s breadth and depth of technical and instructional skills, combined with our experience in successfully managing complex efforts in a multi-project environment.

In addition, throughout the Development Phase, ICF keeps the communication lines open and transparent to ensure client satisfaction. Specifically, ICF provides our clients with ample opportunities to review, discuss, comment, and even edit our work throughout the development process. We also employ multiple mechanisms to facilitate easy and dynamic ways for our clients to provide us with their feedback. This, in turn, reduces our clients’ review burden while ensuring that the solution meets their goals.

At ICF, another key component of our Development Phase is our quality assurance process. Partnering with our clients to keep them closely informed of progress is an essential part of our training development process. At a minimum, we develop a First Draft set of work products. Clients then review and comment on these draft products. After incorporating client comments, we produce a Draft Final set of work products, which also are reviewed and commented on by the client. We intentionally use the term Draft Final because we do not believe any instructional materials are truly final until they have undergone a rigorous user (learner) test.

Implementation Phase

Although the Implementation Phase follows the Development Phase, ICF’s planning for implementation begins much earlier. Media selection, implementation logistical requirements, and the implementation schedule are included in the Project Planning Phase, and implementation issues are assessed for their impact on design during the Design Phase. For most projects, implementation begins during the Development Phase, as logistical arrangements are completed.

The key to successful training implementation often revolves around seemingly insignificant issues of printing, duplicating, labeling, shipping, and configuring compatible equipment—making sure, for example, that the need for free plug-in software is accounted for so that courseware can operate correctly. By planning for implementation and working on implementation issues during development, ICF ensures that logistical details and arrangements are completed prior to the beginning of the logistical phase, producing a smooth transition to delivery of the instructional program.

Successful implementation may also require supplementary guidance and support. For example, depending on the size and complexity of the project, supplementary implementation support might include the following components:

• Job aids, supplemental instruction, and reference manuals
• Train-the-trainer materials
• On-line help, support system, or help desk
• Establishment or procurement of training delivery sites or equipment
• Shipping and insuring of equipment and materials
• Student registration, outcomes tracking, and participant records maintenance
• Certificates of completion
• Calculation and recording of Continuing Education Units
• Development and distribution of course descriptions, on-line or print course catalogs, and e-mail notifications of upcoming training events
• Maintenance and updating of materials as technologies or regulations change

No matter how complex the requirements for implementation support, ICF has experience in planning for, and meeting, these requirements.

Evaluation and Quality Assurance Phase

As shown earlier in Figure 2, Evaluation and Quality Assurance are central to ICF’s overall approach. We show them together because, although the "Evaluation Phase”"is one of the classic ISD phases, we see formal evaluation as just one tool in our overall quality assurance process. We do not view our quality assurance process as something external to the project that is conducted only after the training program is implemented or delivered. Through up-front planning, early and continual client involvement, and focused attention on controlling project schedule and cost, we do not merely inspect quality—we engineer it in the first place. We expect our programs to be excellent, and we integrate the tools to ensure excellence. Our overall corporate success and repeat business from long-term clients attests to our attention to quality and intolerance of mediocrity.

Depending on client needs and resources, the Evaluation and Quality Assurance Phase can include one or more of the following:

• Level 1 or 2 Evaluation is a simple report summarizing the results of participant- and instructor-written evaluations and participant tests assessing whether the participants achieved the learning objectives.
  
  
• Level 3 Evaluation is an assessment of the change in performance on the job by participants in the training.
  
  
• Level 4 Evaluation is an assessment and quantification of benefits and return-on-investment accruing to the organization, including the connection between the skills learned and their impact on organizational goal achievement.

In some cases, we work with clients who desire to make the training project itself a learning event for their organization, and we participate in feedback and “lessons learned” sessions that coalesce how we can design, develop, and deliver better training programs for that client. These sessions frequently result in a stronger partnership and greater understanding of requirements between ICF and the client organization.

For e-learning training projects, we frequently employ an “e-learning scorecard,” advocated by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), to rate and rank responsiveness, levels of interaction, page load times, graphics and audio compression, and other relevant issues.

Ultimately, the goal of any instructional systems design project is to improve performance and enable the organization to reach its goals. In most ICF training projects, the closing of the Evaluation and Quality Assurance Phase comes with the completion of a summative evaluation and lessons learned process that addresses the questions:

• Have we solved the problem?
• Is there a return on the client’s investment?
• What could we improve in the products or in our processes?

Summative evaluation assesses how well that goal was accomplished and frequently illuminates additional opportunities for performance improvement, bringing the ICF ISD process full circle.

Project Controls

Implementing Project Controls is not an additional phase or step in our method; rather, it is the overall management context in which we operate. Project Controls refers to all those project management activities, processes, and reports we use to control and maintain our technical, cost, and schedule baselines. It includes our detailed management plan; our frequent and close involvement with the client so that the client (and ICF) are not surprised; our project success risk planning and management; our monthly progress reporting; our evaluations, reviews, and tests; and our frequent monitoring of cost and schedule performance.

Every ICF project manager has access to extensive and detailed weekly cost data and is expected to monitor that data regularly. When baselines begin to diverge from plan, our first response is to take corrective action—not to ask for a modification to the contract scope or budget.

Certainly, if clients need to change the project scope during the life of the project, we stand ready to change with them. However, if the scope of a project is jointly negotiated and agreed to during the Project Planning Phase, we stand poised to deliver successful training solutions on time and within budget.