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🧠 How does an instructional designer step into a brand-new industry and create effective training? This is a question I often hear—and one I’ve had to answer myself more than once. As instructional designers, we’re not always subject matter experts (SMEs), but we do need to speak the language of the learners and understand the context they're working in. When I first started designing training for aviation professionals, I wasn’t sure where to begin. I didn’t have a backgrou

🧩 Behind Every Successful Training Project? A Coalition. Working in learning & development, I’ve seen this time and again: You can have the best-designed training solution — aligned, evidence-based, beautifully packaged — and it still stalls. Why? Because no training project moves forward on logic alone. It moves with support. When I negotiate for time, resources, or buy-in for a specific training project, I look for: 🔍 Who else has a stake in this challenge? 🔗 Whose goa

Training Program Managers: Knowing When to coach and When to manage As training program managers, we often juggle multiple roles—strategist, mentor, problem-solver, and leader. But one of the most critical skills we need is knowing when to coach and when to manage our teams. 🔹 Managing is about structure, direction, and accountability. It’s ensuring deadlines are met, projects stay on track, and teams have the resources they need. 🔹 Coaching is about empowerment. It’s gui

Have you ever used the Story Point method for effort estimation in a training project? Predicting task effort in training projects can be tricky. The Story Point method simplifies this by estimating effort rather than time. How It Works: Pick a baseline task — Choose a "medium" effort task and assign it a value (e.g., 3 points). Use Fibonacci numbers — Points follow the Fibonacci sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc.) to reflect increasing complexity. Compare tasks — Assign points b

Training program managers often face a crucial decision: Should we follow the structured ADDIE model or embrace the flexible SAM approach? The answer isn't always clear-cut, but the VUCA framework can help guide the choice. VUCA — which stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity — is a framework designed to help leaders and teams navigate challenging environments. By applying VUCA thinking to instructional design, we can align our methods with the nature of

Closing a Training Project vs. Landing a Training Project: The Real Impact Starts After the Finish Line. In training projects, we often focus on closing—finalizing content, delivering sessions, and collecting feedback. But what about landing the project? Landing a training project is the step after closure that ensures learning creates lasting impact. It means: ✅ Supporting learners in applying new skills beyond the training ✅ Equipping managers to reinforce learning in dai