Instructional Design - If, When, and How Much?

The latest Big Question for the Learning Circuits Blog is:

For a given project, how do you determine if, when and how much an instructional designer and instructional design is needed?

I think the really obvious answer to this question is..."it depends". There are so many variables that play into a performance problem that will change the answers to the if/when/how much questions. How much should you use a developer? Well, it depends on what you're building. How much of an architect should you use to design a house for a family? Well, it depends on what their needs are. All that said...the answer to the "when" question should be "early"...even for the initial analysis because a quality instructional designer will be able to identify if this is, in fact, a project that requires a training intervention. An instructional designer doesn't add much value if he is brought in after the system is developed.

Another variable is the skill of the individual instructional designer. Yes...not all instructional designers are created equally. Some are happy with designing WBT/CBT for the rest of their careers; some have never considered instructional design implications in a game based environment. In 2001, Marc Prensky wrote a popular book "Digital Game Based Learning" where he uses a page to discuss whether or not instructional design is helping or hurting. He uses quotes such as:

Nine times out of ten, if you see a great training program, you'll find it wasn't created by someone schooled in ISD and following that process (actually a Thiagi quote from Training magazine in April 2000).

and

Designing effective learning does not, I believe, require any formal instruction or specialized knowledge. Rather, it takes a thoughtful and creative approach to reaching the desired outcomes.

In reality, Prensky's criticism could be applied to many other disciplines (i.e. you don't need to have any formal instruction or an MBA to be a good project manager). Too often though, the thoughtful and creative approach of an individual is not considered in project planning.

The bottom line is that you can't answer these questions until there is an element of analysis into the problem. I'm afraid that if you had the answers to these questions before an analysis was conducted, you've created a solution before you ever understood the problem.