No One Has Written Your Instructional Design Manual

If you are looking for a book, a study, or a blog post to tell you exactly how to design your next project, you are going to be disappointed. I know because I have been there too.

You can read every resource out there. You can study every model. They will give you a strong foundation. But when the project starts tomorrow, you are still going to face your own unique mess. Your own weird set of challenges. Your own group of people who do not behave like the case studies said they would.

Every project is different. Every organization is different. Every goal, every team, every problem is different.

That is not a flaw in the system. That is the system.

What matters is not finding a perfect process. It is being able to spot the dilemmas as they pop up and make smart decisions when they do.

Here are four dilemmas I run into all the time:

1. The Time Dilemma

How long should it take someone to learn something?

If you think there is a universal answer, there is not.
Clients love to assign time to training like it means something.
"Make it a two-hour course."
"Keep it under 15 minutes."
"Can we do this in a quick webinar?"

It sounds strategic. It usually is not.

Time does not guarantee effectiveness. It does not even tell you much about the effort needed. Some skills take five minutes to explain and months to master. Some take an hour to teach and a lifetime to forget.

You have to make a call based on the real problem and the real people in front of you, not some imaginary clock.

2. The Design Strategy Dilemma

There are a hundred ways to deliver training. Videos. Job aids. Workshops. Podcasts. Games. Pick your tool. This is the fun part of design—and also the most dangerous.

With so many options, it is easy to get distracted. You can burn weeks dreaming up creative approaches that sound amazing but do not fit the real-world constraints of your project.

Creativity is great. So is efficiency. You need both. But you also need a ruthless focus on what the learner actually needs to do after the training is over.

Design is not about what looks impressive. It is about what moves the needle.

3. The Process Dilemma

I have spent nearly 30 years watching instructional design processes evolve. Early models were built for consistency. For military training. For classroom delivery. They were not built for the speed and messiness of online learning or the constant changes we deal with now.

Modern approaches like SAM try to adjust for that. They are better. But even the best models still need to be adapted.

No process is going to fit your project exactly. You have to shape it. Bend it. Sometimes break it. The model is there to serve the project, not the other way around.

4. The "Right" Dilemma

Everyone wants to know if their training is "right."

Here is the truth: there is no universal standard for instructional design.
There is no finish line where everyone agrees you nailed it.

Best practices are helpful. Quality guidelines are smart.
But what is "right" will always depend on the project, the people, and the priorities.

You can build something textbook perfect and still miss the mark if it does not solve the real problem.

Right is not about following a checklist. It is about delivering what matters.

Your Success Is in the Mess

These dilemmas are why schedules get blown. They are why budgets creep. They are why so many well-designed projects stall before they make an impact.

No book, no course, no blog (not even mine) is going to hand you a perfect map. And that is okay.

The real advantage is not in knowing the models. It is in knowing how to spot the dilemmas, pull people into the process early, and adjust before things get too far off course. This is what separates good design from great design.

Not process.
Not perfection.
People.

Classic instructional design gave us a starting point. Modern projects demand a lot more flexibility. Study the theories. Understand the frameworks. Then get comfortable stepping outside them. Because no one has written your exact roadmap. And that is what makes this work frustrating, energizing, and worth doing.