Rapid Instructional Design: Learning ID Fast and Right, 3rd Edition

Chapter 2

Before You Do Anything: Pre-Instructional Design Activities

This chapter will help you to:

• Differentiate the various kinds of assessments that you can do
• Determine company needs through an organizational needs assessment
• Find out what a performance assessment does and what human performance technology is
• Determine your organization's training needs
• Create a needs analysis report
• Do a “quick and dirty” training cost/benefit analysis

............Well, if you're reading this it should mean that we've achieved at least part of the first objective of this book, convincing you that instructional design is important. In this chapter it's possible that we'll convince you it's also not worth the effort, simply because it seems to take so much time to do it right. I say this only slightly with tongue in cheek. You are probably anxious to start creating some training, but by the end of this chapter you are likely to feel as if you are no further along toward this goal than you were when you started. However, that is a misconception.

This chapter may not give you the information you need to “jump right in” and start putting training stuff together, but it will provide you with a workable blueprint for your training. Some of the things we'll discuss here will help you ensure that your training won't fail when it is implemented due to a lack of interest on the part of your organization. Other concepts will help you determine what your final training should look like in relation ...