ADDIE stands for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. It’s a step-by-step process that instructional designers use to build courses, training programs, or other learning experiences. Imagine IKEA instructions, but for making people smarter instead of sadder.
Here’s the basic idea:
It’s linear. It’s structured. It’s very Type A.
ADDIE was born in the 1970s courtesy of the U.S. military. Yes, that’s right: ADDIE is a product of the same people who invented camouflage and yelling as a leadership style.
The Center for Educational Technology at Florida State University developed ADDIE for the U.S. Army to design more effective training programs (Branson et al., 1975). Because if you're going to teach someone how to fire a tank or jump out of a plane, you'd better have a system.
Since then, ADDIE has escaped into the wild. It’s now used in:
Good question. ADDIE is a bit like Microsoft Excel; it’s not exciting, it’s not sexy, but it works.
People like it because:
Of course, not everyone is wooed by ADDIE’s boxy charms. Here’s why some people think it should go the way of floppy disks and fax machines:
ADDIE is a straight line, but real-world learning design is more like a plate of spaghetti. You get new information mid-project, the client changes their mind, and suddenly your perfectly designed flowchart is useless.
In a world where people want their training delivered yesterday, ADDIE can feel glacial. Each phase can take ages, especially if you’re dealing with corporate approvals (which are only slightly faster than continental drift).
Agile learning design is all the rage. Quick iterations, rapid prototyping, fail fast, all that jazz. ADDIE? Not so much. It was designed for an era when people still used overhead projectors.
In its classic form, ADDIE doesn’t really ask, “Hey, how do learners feel about this?” It’s more focused on performance outcomes than emotions or engagement. Many practitioners believe it assumes your learners are robots who enjoy taking quizzes.
"ADDIE was not designed to be iterative or collaborative, but instructional design today often demands both” (Molenda, 2003).
At Who's your ADDIE, we’ve taken this old framework and given it a bit of a makeover, so it's less “PowerPoint with bullets” and more “learning humans, for humans.” We use ADDIE as a backbone, not a cage.
We keep the structure (because hey, adult brains like structure), but we make the process iterative and human-centered. That means:
So yes, we use ADDIE. But we use it like you’d use a waffle iron for something other than waffles: creatively, strategically, and only when it makes sense.
If you’re wondering whether ADDIE is your soulmate or just a toxic ex, here’s a quick rundown.
✅ ADDIE is for you if:
❌ ADDIE is not for you if:
If ADDIE feels like too much of a dad-rock framework, here are a few options that might be more your speed. We like to incorporate elements of all of these into our process:
They’re just different frocks on the same fowl at the end of the day.
ADDIE is the instructional design framework that refuses to die. Born in the 1970s by the U.S. military, it’s structured, slow, and still weirdly popular. Critics say it’s outdated, rigid, and robotic, but even in its classic form it still works wellfor large projects, regulated industries, and people who love data and flowcharts.
At Who's your ADDIE, we’ve dusted it off, made it squishier and more human, and use it as a launchpad rather than a rulebook. Want to see how Who's your ADDIE can help you build learning that doesn’t suck? Let’s talk. We promise no clip art, no soul-crushing SCORM files, and nothing with 14 bullet points per slide.
Branson, R. K., Rayner, G. T., Cox, J. L., Furman, J. P., King, F. J., & Hannum, W. H. (1975). Interservice procedures for instructional systems development (Vols. 1–5). Fort Monroe, VA: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.
Molenda, M. (2003). In search of the elusive ADDIE model. Performance Improvement, 42(5), 34–36.
