Anyone Can Design Training.....Sike!
Fool yourself if you want when making the statement, “Anyone can design training.” However, what you will find is that anyone can put something together. However, will it be effective and reap positive ROI for the organization? As a senior instructional designer, one of the most irritating things I face in my profession are those who think that if you can write a coherent sentence, you can design and develop a training program…NOT. As, a result people who clearly do not have the background, education, experience, or even common sense are tasked with creating training programs. Surprisingly, when the programs are implemented and evaluated, both the summative and formative evaluations show the program to be a complete failure. This results in the need for retraining, which in the end makes the entire endeavor cost more than if the training would have been initially designed by a qualified instructional designer. What seemed to be the cheap and easy solution ended up being very costly.
Please stop tasking the creation of training to Julie at the front desk or Bobby, the Excel spreadsheet guru, or Dave the retired military officer who wants to start a new career with his degree in accounting. Do this and you will find that anyone can design BAD training.
