According to Instructional Design Competencies: The Standards (2013), instructional designers should be able to (Koszalka, Russ-Eft, and Reiser 2013, 46) “use an instructional design and development process appropriate for a given project (essential). This is an essential competency and it includes three performance statements, one essential and two advanced: (a) Select or create an instructional design process based on the nature of the project (essential); (b) Modify the instructional design process as project parameters change (advanced); (c) Describe a rationale for the selected, created or modified instructional design process (advanced).” As explained by the Standards, instructional designers must adapt the instructional design model they use to project parameters. To do that, they must be familiar with many models of instructional design.

This chapter provides additional information about this competency, providing suggestions for instructional designers on how to demonstrate the competency. The chapter introduces how to use an instructional design and development process appropriate for a project, select or create an instructional design process based on the project's nature, modify the instructional design process as project parameters change, and describe the rationale for the selected, created, or modified instructional design process.

Traditionally, instructional design has been dominated by the ADDIE model (or some version of it), a hallmark of instructional design and an acronym that stands for analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate. But in recent years, instructional designers have grown more eclectic in their viewpoint (Rothwell, Zaballero, Asino, Briskin, Swaggerty and Bienert 2015), preferring to choose a governing model that depends on the project situation. Eclecticism has grown as a direct consequence of greater pressure to deliver faster instructional products and services (Korkmaz and Boling 2014).

Additional pressures are created by an increasingly robust range of software and hardware to support instruction that may be used individually or collectively, increasing the need to find flexible, agile, and innovative approaches that will work across many platforms, many possible national cultures, and with many media used alone or in a blend.

Consider such practical questions as these:

• When does the client wish to have the instructional design project finished?
• How much is the client willing to pay for the project?
• How rigorous does the client wish the process to be?
• What media should be used to design and deliver instructional design projects?
• How many languages, media, and technology mixes must be used to complete the project?
• How many and what kind of people are available to work on an instructional design team, and how well-equipped are they to meet project requirements?

These and similar practical considerations may influence how instructional designers carry out their projects. Time and cost issues usually trump all other considerations—including such critically important issues as the quality of the instructional products, the media that may be used, and learner transfer back to the job.

As a direct consequence, instructional designers have grown more willing to draw on many instructional design models and processes by which to carry out their work and get results. While the ADDIE model remains a mainstream approach with which most instructional designers are familiar, experimentation continues using other models perceived to be less cumbersome, more flexible, and faster in getting results. Figure 7.1 summarizes what research indicates are the models that instructional designers use most.

While not all models used are sufficient alone to guide instructional design without some creative uses, they include in no particular order (see http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Review-of-the-Instructional-Design-Models&id=6913502):

• Merrill's First Principles of Instruction (see: http://web.cortland.edu/frieda/id/IDtheories/44.html).
• Bloom's Learning Taxonomy (see: ww2.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm).
• Kirkpatrick's Four Levels of Training Evaluation (see: www.kirkpatrickpartners.com/OurPhilosophy/TheKirkpatrickModel).
• Gagné's Nine Events of Instruction (see: www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/conditions-learning.html).
• Kemp's IDM (see: http://idmethodology.blogspot.mx/2014/02/continued-instructional-design-models_25.html).
• Keller's ARCS Model of Motivational Design (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction) (see: www.learning-theories.com/kellers-arcs-model-of-motivational-design.html).
• ASSURE Model (Analyze Learners, State Objectives, Select Methods, Media, and Materials, Utilize Media and Materials, Require Learner Participation, and Evaluate and Revise) (see: www.instructionaldesign.org/models/assure.html).
• Smith and Ragan's IDM (see: www.angelachristopher.net/uploads/8/3/2/4/832462/model_resourceassignment.pdf).
• Cathy Moore's Action Mapping (see: http://blog.cathy-moore.com/action-mapping-a-visual-approach-to-training-design/).
• The Successive Approximation Model (SAM) (see: www.alleninteractions.com/sam-process).
• Human Performance Improvement (HPI) model (see: theengagementeffect.com/our-toolset/additional-tools/human-performance-improvement).
• ROPES (Review/relate, Overview, Presentation, Exercise, Summary) (see: http://business.baylor.edu/James_Moshinskie/ROPES.HTM).

Aspiring instructional designers will grow familiar with these models, drawing on them—and others—as clients and project demands require. Most are not incompatible; rather, they can usually complement each other.