Where Your eLearning projects go wrong
TL;DR: Most eLearning projects fail because we jump straight to Development (the fun part) and skip Analysis and Design (the important parts). This leads to endless revisions, courses that don't work, and wasted expertise. When you invest properly in A&D first, development becomes faster and more effective.
You have an idea or a new project lands on your desk. Within minutes, you're thinking about authoring tools, templates, animations.
You're already developing slides.
You've just skipped straight to Development—the DIE phases of ADDIE.
Why we all do it
Development is fun. You see progress. You can show stakeholders something concrete.
But if you skip Analysis and Design, all that effort produces eLearning that's polished, professional, and completely ineffective.
What You're Skipping
Analysis uncovers what learners need:
- Is training even the right solution?
- What are the real barriers to performance?
- What does success look like?
Without Analysis, you're building a solution in search of a problem.
Design is where learning happens:
- How will you sequence content?
- What practice opportunities build competence?
- What scenarios make concepts concrete?
Skip Design, and you default to information dump slides with knowledge checks, a glorified PDF with navigation buttons.
What this costs you
Rework spirals out of control. You build the wrong thing or build the right thing badly. Either way: endless revisions.
Confidence erodes. When courses don't deliver, you or your stakeholders blame "training."
You waste your expertise. You become an order-taker instead of a learning strategist.
The Alternative
When you invest properly in Analysis and Design, the DIE phases become smoother, faster, and more effective.
Great eLearning doesn't die in Development, it's born from the careful work that comes before it.
Read the full article: Where eLearning Goes to DIE
Stop Jumping to Development
📦 Instructional Designer's Starter Pack Analysis template, design template, and a storyboarding template so you never skip these critical steps. Get the Starter Pack
🎯 From A to D Program 3 weeks 1-1 on your personal project. Learn thorough analysis, strategic design, and foundations that make development smooth. Learn about From A to D
Next time: How to break the DIE cycle, what proper Analysis and Design actually look like.
Talk soon
Lisa
P.S. Next project? Resist the urge to open your authoring tool. Open a document instead. Do the thinking first.