at workTIPS, TOOLS & INTELLIGENCE

FOR DEVELOPING TALENT

CONSULTING & BUSINESS PARTNERING

Guide Organizational Change With ADDIE

Eric Nalian

MAY 2020 ISSUE 2005

ADDIE in Instructional Design ........................................................................ 2

ADDIE for Organizational Change ............................................................... 2

In Practice ................................................................................................................ 5

Conclusion ..............................................................................................................12

References & Resources ................................................................................... 13

JOB AIDS

Client Questionnaire .........................................................................................14

ADDIE Project Assessment Tool .................................................................. 15

TD at Work (ISSN 2373-5570, Electronic ISSN 2373-5589, ISBN 978-1-95049-6-952, Electronic eISBN 978-1-95049-6-969) is published monthly by the Association for Talent Development, 1640 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. TD at Work is available for subscription in print or digitally. The subscription rate for the Monthly All-Access (12 print and digital issues, plus archive access) is $119 (ATD national members) and $159 (nonmembers). The monthly digital subscription rate for 12 issues is $69 (ATD national members) and $99 (nonmembers). Periodicals postage paid at Alexandria, Virginia, and additional entries. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to TD at Work, 1640 King Street Alexandria, VA 22314. Claims for replacement of subscription issues not received must be made within three months of the issue date. Copyright © May 2020 TD at Work and ATD. All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems—without the express written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, please go to copyright.com, or contact Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 (telephone: 978.750.8500, fax: 978.646.8600). ATD Press grants permission for the material on pages 14-15 to be reproduced for personal use.

Need a trainer’s lifeline? Visit td.org/TDatWork.

Printed in the United States of America.

For help or inquiries about your subscription, please contact Customer Care at 800.628.2783/703.683.8100 (international).

VOL. 37 • ISSUE 2005 • MAY 2020

GUIDE ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE WITH ADDIE

consulting & business partnering

COPYRIGHT © ATD 1Guide Organizational Change With ADDIE |

AUTHOR

Eric NalianEric Nalian is a training and

performance improvement director who partners with clients

to reach their organization’s training, development, and

performance goals. To reach those goals, Nalian provides

innovative, cutting-edge solutions in the training and development

realm. His research focuses on the consulting process that organization development

specialists follow to fill organizational gaps.

Content Manager, Consulting &

Business Partnering Eliza Blanchard

Editor, TD at WorkPatty Gaul

Managing EditorJoy Metcalf

Senior Graphic DesignerShirley E.M. Raybuck

What’s one of the first aspects of instructional design you learned as a practitioner? For

many of us, it was the ADDIE—analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation—model. As you learned the model, you likely completed the process linearly. Working through the five steps, you could create any type of learning solution. And after you had spent several years mastering each element, you likely were able to manipulate the model at will.

With a few simple tweaks to the process, you can transition

from using ADDIE as an instructional design process to using it as a

process to create organizational performance improvement. From

the instructional design perspective, the ADDIE model is a singular

process for a singular task. But as an organizational change model,

ADDIE expands in scope and is capable of solving an organizational

COPYRIGHT © ATD2 | Guide Organizational Change With ADDIE

issue or challenge—that is, creating a change initia-

tive. In both instances, the ADDIE steps and the order

in which you complete them are identical. However, the

intricacies of the individual steps are changed.

In this issue of TD at Work, I will:

• Review the ADDIE model and how it evolves when

you use it for organizational change.

• Outline the desired outcomes you can obtain.

• Detail the ADDIE steps for and provide guidance

on what they look like in practice for creating

change initiatives.

Throughout the issue, I also provide several case

studies to demonstrate using the ADDIE model for

organizational change.

ADDIE in Instructional Design

ADDIE has long been the standard model that most

instructional designers follow. And while there are

others, the essence of those frameworks is similar to

ADDIE. The benefits of the simple ADDIE approach are

that it has been associated with quality design, strong

objectives, thoughtfully designed content, relevant sup-

plemental material, and strong assessments.

Let’s first review the five ADDIE steps.

Analysis. At the start of a project, instructional

designers identify all the variables within the project.

Designers analyze learner characteristics, review avail-

able resources, interview subject matter experts, and

lay the project’s foundation.

Design. After they have reviewed, summarized, and

analyzed information relating to the project, the design-

ers write the course objectives and draft a course out-

line. That includes picking out the types of media they

will use, such as the delivery modality; the audio, video,

and graphic treatment; and whether the course will be

in the learning management system.

Development. Based on the aspects they insert into

the design document, the designers begin developing

the course. During this stage, there is a lot of action,

such as slide design, script writing, voice-over record-

ing, graphic design, programming, and video recording.

All those elements are woven together into a cohesive

learning solution.

Implementation. Once the designers have fully

developed the course, the L&D team, along with the

project sponsors and champions, market and commu-

nicate the new learning event. Concurrently, the learn-

ing event is entered into the LMS, if applicable. Also,

learners register and participate in the course.

Evaluation. This phase can occur at several differ-

ent points. Formative evaluations occur throughout

the entire ADDIE process, while summative evalua-

tions take place after implementation. For summative

evaluations, the practitioner can evaluate the learn-

ers’ reaction to the course, the amount of learning that

took place, the effect of the learning event, and the

business results—in other words, the course’s return

on investment.

ADDIE for Organizational Change

Making the transition from using ADDIE to create a

learning course to using ADDIE to implement organiza-

tional change is all about a mindset shift: Focus on the

desired outcome and then work backward. Your process

starts by determining where the organizational gap is. It

ends when you fill the gap and evaluate the process.

Using ADDIE in instructional design can take anywhere

from one week for rapid development to several months

to a year for a more involved course. For organizational

change, the process can take one month or more for the

analysis, design, and development steps. The implementa-

tion phase can take up to a year or more, and the evalua-

tion process can take equally as long.

Although organizational gaps can involve internal and

external organizational issues, for the purposes of this

issue of TD at Work, I am going to focus on internal orga-

nizational issues as opposed to consulting on both internal

and external organizational issues.

Here are the ADDIE steps and how to use them to

create change initiatives.

Analysis. This is the start of the change initia-

tive. Survey employees, hold focus groups, and con-

duct interviews. Review processes, procedures, and

any other documentation that will provide context as

to how the organization ended up in the situation it is

currently in. The result here is that you will identify an

COPYRIGHT © ATD 3Guide Organizational Change With ADDIE |

Case Study: Transportation Network

The transportation company Transportation Network is the premier auto transport expert, ship-ping more than 3 million vehicles annually through-out the US and Canada. The company was founded in 1997 and serves every auto transport indus-try need. Transportation Network’s customer list includes major automakers, manufacturers, remar-keters, financial institutions, leasing companies, auc-tioneers, dealers, retail, and single individuals.

The primary objective for this project was to create an innovative, cost-effective, and engaging onboard-ing program for new hires to acclimate them to their job role and the organization as quickly as possible.

Information GatheringDuring interviews with key leadership personnel as well as with new hires, the L&D practitioner collected most of the information that was necessary to create the onboarding program.

What is your onboarding philosophy? Each department and terminal does its own thing. We have so many different types of jobs and different training that on-the-job training is what we do. More sched-uled orientation is done at the manager level and above. For most employees, however, we only do on-the-job training.

In terms of the onboarding experience, what does success look like to you?

There are different ways that this can be done:• It could be based on the employee’s level where,

for an associate, onboarding would be just within the individual’s department; the higher the employee level, the grander and more big-picture the orientation is.

• Quick-start guides would be beneficial.• Employees need a support system.

• Our ideal onboarding system would include coverage of core values, important contacts, benefits information, company history, and essential company information such as what we do and who we are.

What organizational gaps do you see? When we all come together after we’ve been with the company for a while, this becomes easier. But an open-door policy is something that is missing. It would be helpful if people felt like they could just walk into any office and talk.

What learning methodology do you think your employees would prefer? We use a vendor for our online and mobile learning.

In addition to the staff interviews, the practitioner completed a survey of all employees to gather data on what type of pain points they are experiencing on the job. A general consensus was that employees want their own unique onboarding experience.

Socialization OrientationTo create an orientation that is both quick and non-intrusive, while also assisting the employees getting up to speed and acclimated to their roles as quickly as possible, the L&D practitioner recommended creating an onboarding and orientation program that focuses more on socialization than on training and development.

For an onboarding via socialization approach, new employees can be paired up with a buddy or mentor with a checklist. The checklist is customized for job roles, and it covers everything the individual will need for that role, such as important people to meet, com-pany history, organizational culture, core values, bene-fits information, job roles and responsibilities, where to find important resources, and additional role-specific skills and information.

organizational issue that falls under a mix of leadership,

communication, and training gaps.

Design. Once you have identified the gaps and their

scope, it is up to you and your internal client to deter-

mine an appropriate solution that meets the budgetary

limitations. To do so, outline and prep the possible suite

of solutions to address the organizational issue. During

this step, create a project action plan to show your

internal client how you will develop, implement, and

evaluate the solution.

BUY THIS ISSUE

For details about ATD membership, visit td.org/members.

TD at Work gives seasoned and new talent development professionals a monthly deep dive into talent development. Each issue addresses a core L&D methodology or model or delves into a cutting-edge topic. You will gain:

• step-by-step processes• practical guidance on how to implement a TD practice or model• job aids, case studies, best practices, and visuals.

TD at Work is available through subscription or individual issue purchase.

Monthly All-Access Digital and Print Subscriptions With Archives Access• Member: $119/year*• List: $159/year*

Monthly All-Access Digital Subscription With Archives Access• Member: $99/year• List: $139/year

Monthly Digital-Only Subscription• Member: $69/year• List: $99/year

*Add $40 if shipping outside of the continental United States.

1913

22-6

2410

Subscribe to TD at Work

Choose your subscription at td.org/td-at-work.