Three Common Instructional Design Traps to Avoid

Assuming you have set up your training initiative to succeed by tailoring to your company’s specific situation and needs, as well as garnering executive sponsorship and management support, it could still fail during the deployment phase.

Here are three common instructional design consulting and delivery pitfalls to avoid during delivery:

1. Too much telling and too little doing. The lecture format can introduce a new skill or concept but participants should be given a chance to practice the skill in “real life.” First tell them “what” they should do. Then let them test “how” to do it…again and again…with on-the-spot coaching for performance improvement.
2. Lack of facilitator credibility. If you are providing a sales skills training for example, be sure you have a leader who has been in the sales trenches. Facilitators should be experts in the field in which they train…not only as teachers but as practitioners.
3. Outdated examples or practices. The stories you tell and the exercises you introduce must be current. Don’t lose your audience with obsolete or generic methods or practices.

To deploy effective training, keep it interactive with lots of skill practice and up-to-date illustrations from your own experience.