I use (and train others to use) a dozen powerful principles for faster-cheaper-better instructional design.

Here’s one these principles:

Keep your training session as close to on-the-job training as possible.

Let your training session reflect the real world--with all its chaos and unpredictability--instead of the neatly organized structure from an expert's mind.

This strategy is sometimes called situated learning or cognitive apprenticeship. Never mind what it is called; it works.

Here's an example: Let's think of sales training for widget salespeople. From the expert's point of view, knowledge about the widget can be organized into various features that can be logically presented. But the users of the widget is focused on their needs. They want to know how to use the widget to solve their problems or enjoy the benefits.

Let's get more specific. If you want to learn how to use a word processor, the trainer may want to teach you the system, one menu item at a time: This is how you perform file operations, this is how you use the various items under the Edit menu, this is how you use different views, and this is how you insert breaks and page numbers and text boxes. But what you are interested in is how to write an email letter. You want to know just the operations related to that specific task.

The Case Against Content-Based Design

Why am I against training people in a structured, organized fashion? Here are my reasons:

This structured approach treats all pieces of content as equally important. It presents too much information to the user.
This approach focuses on the structure of the content rather than the needs of the user.
This approach is boring. The user is presented with lots of information before being able to perform anything meaningful.
This approach encourages trainers to stick to the sequenced presentation. Most of the time, trainers take the users through their collection of electronic slides.
This approach punishes users for asking questions based on their needs. They end up getting a lecture about things they are not interested in.
This approach reflects the expert's mind and ignores the user’s mind.

Reason for Resistance

If all of this is true, then why do have so much resistance from subject-matter experts, instructional designers, and trainers? Here are some reasons:

This is the way most people learn.
This is the way information about a new product is transmitted from the designer, to the salesperson, to the user.
Most instructional designers are analytical people. They assume that the whole world is exactly like them.
From grade schools to instructional-design courses, people are admonished to prepare logical outlines before they begin to write.
People believe that there are no alternatives to this type of presentation.

We know that there are alternatives. Instead of organizing the content into topics and subtopics, we can organize it in terms of challenges from the field and how experienced practitioners handle them. Instead of mass-producing bullet-point slides, we can use the case method, simulations, and roleplays to get people closer to the real world. Instead of making presentations, we can answer questions.

Authentic Training

My friend Tom Reeves and his colleagues have conducted significant research in the area of authentic training activities. You can use their recommendations for designing reality-based training.

Make the training activities reflect what professionals do on their jobs.
Require the learners spend time in exploring and solving problems.
Present ill-defined training activities so the learners define different aspects of the solution.
Encourage the learners to examine the learning task from different perspectives.
Require and reward the learners to solve problems in a collaborative fashion.
Smoothly integrate learning activities with assessment exercises.

Reflect Reality

Here’s the faster, cheaper, better training design principle in a single sentence:

Use authentic tests, activities, and examples.