How to Create an Instructional Design Document

When you’re starting to kick off a new instructional design project, whether it’s a single eLearning course or a large-scale, blended training program, it’s easy to become overwhelmed trying to ideate and gain agreement with your stakeholders and subject matter experts on all the deliverables of the project and how they fit together.

Setting clear expectations about the goals of your project, the target audience / learners, the learning objectives, and the deliverables of the project are critical for the successful execution and delivery of the project. After all, if you’re not on the same page with those that you’re collaborating with, it’s easy for the “goalpost” of the project to move, which can quickly result in scope creep, delays, and unhappy business partners. This is where creating an instructional design document can help!

During the Design phase of the ADDIE model, after you’ve conducted a needs analysis, created an action map, defined your learning objectives, and determined your training modalities, the next step is to gain agreement with your stakeholders and subject matter experts. And so, taking the time to organize this information into a design document can help your stakeholders and SMEs see your proposed training solution at a glance before you move into development.

So, in this article, we’ll take a look at how you create an instructional design document to plan, outline, and propose your training solution. We’ll also provide a free design document template you can use with your own projects.

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What is an Instructional Design Document?

While there’s no single format or process for creating an instructional design document—every team documents their projects differently—a design document usually provides a high-level overview of the whole project, including the goals of the project, who’s involved, the deliverables, etc. Think of a design document as a combination of a curriculum / lesson plan and a project plan, helping you scope the project and gain agreement before you move into development and start building any of the training you’re proposing.

Instructional Design Document Example

To help you understand how you might organize the details of your instructional design project into a design document, here’s an example based on a hypothetical sales and customer service project for Webistia.

How to Create a Design Document

As I mentioned earlier, while there’s no single template or process for creating a design document, below are some of the basic elements you want to include when creating a design document.

1. Outline the Basic Project Information

Start creating your instructional design document by outlining the basic information about the project, including the project title and a brief description of the project’s purpose.

When describing the purpose of the project, it’s usually a good idea to clearly define the problem the project aims to solve. This may include details about the specific performance issue being observed or what tasks / skills / outcomes the project seeks to deliver. Either way, details from your needs analysis can be used to gain this information.

2. List the Roles & Responsibilities

Next, you want to list all of the people involved in the project, along with what specific role / responsibilities they play in the project. Remember, the goal of a design document is to help you gain agreement with your stakeholders and SMEs about the details and deliverables of your project. And so, if your ability to deliver and complete the project is dependent on others, you want to list them along with their role.

Examples of this may include a subject matter expert who is responsible for reviewing your course content for accuracy or a Learning Management System (LMS) Admin who will assist you with publishing and distributing your training to your learners.

3. Define the Project Audience, Goals & Objectives

After you’ve outlined the basic project information and listed the roles and responsibilities, the next thing you want to include in your design document are details regarding your target audience, goals, and learning objectives.

While it may seem simple to define who your target audience or learners are, we recommend being as specific as possible. For example, if you’re providing sales training, are you only delivering the training to those sales employees who are under-performing? Or, are you delivering training that spans across multiple, specific segments of learners? Whatever the case, be specific about those details.

As for defining your project goal(s), you want to define the measurable outcome of your project, otherwise known as your terminal objective. Having a clearly defined goal is important, as it’ll be the basis of how you measure the success of the project again. And, of course, if you happened to create an action map in the design of your training solution, the goal listed in your design document should align with the goal(s) listed in the center of your action map.

And finally, you want to define the learning objectives for the training. These describe what your learners will be able to do as a result of the training and should directly support the desired goal you’re trying to achieve.

4. List the Project Deliverables

After defining the details of your target audience, goals, and objectives, the next step is to list all of the project deliverables that will make up the training experience you’re planning to develop. Whether you’re creating a single training solution or multiple blended training objects to cover all of the defined learning objectives, defining the deliverables will help your stakeholders and subject matter experts see everything you’ll deliver for the project. It’ll also become the basis for determining the total scope and timeline for the project.

5. List the Project Milestones

The next set of details you want to include in your instructional design document is the major milestone of the project. While you may create a more detailed timeline for your project separately, providing a high-level outline of the project’s milestones can give your stakeholders and SMEs an at-a-glance sense of each of the major phases of the project, along with when the project will be delivered and complete.

6. Outline the Project Implementation & Measurement Details

The final items you want to include in your design document are details related to implementing the project, measuring and evaluating the project, and any risks and contractions. Having a clear plan for how you’ll implement and deliver the training is an important part of ensuring the project's success. Whether it involves publishing an eLearning course within an LMS and sending out an email to communicate it to your learners or conducting a train-the-trainer with a facilitation team, you want to clearly define how the training will be rolled out to your target audience.

As for measuring the effectiveness of your training, having a well-defined evaluation plan will help make sure you are able to report back to your stakeholders and SMEs about whether or not you achieved the goals and learning objectives you sought to accomplish at the start of the project. Whether you’re simply evaluating how your learners react to the training via a post-course survey, measuring knowledge retention with a pre/post-test, or measuring a change in learner behavior or business results, using Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Evaluation can help you create a plan for evaluating your training.

And finally, you want to list any constraints or risks that may prevent you from successfully delivering the project. This may include your SMEs providing timely feedback, finalization of content details, or scheduling the appropriate time needed for your learners to complete your training. Whatever the case, identifying and defining these risks at this stage can help you work to resolve them sooner rather than later.

Instructional Design Document Template

Before we wrap up this article, feel free to download and use the attached instructional design document template for your own projects.

What Happens After Creating a Design Document?

So, after you’ve created an instructional design document, what’s next? Well, the creation of a design document usually marks the end of the Design phase of the ADDIE model and a transition into the Development phase.

However, before you jump into the development of your project deliverables, it’s usually a good time to create a detailed timeline for the project. Your timeline becomes the primary tool to help you manage the day-to-day tasks of your project, keeping you on track, on time, and within scope. It can be helpful to review all of these documents with your stakeholders and SMEs during your project kickoff meeting.

The Bottom Line

While taking the time to create an instructional design document might seem like time taken away from actually developing your proposed training solution; however, it’s an important tool that can help you align expectations with your stakeholders and subject matter experts before you get started.

So, what do you think? Do you create a design document for your instructional design documents? How are they similar or different from what we’ve provided here? Share your thoughts and tips by commenting below!