There is a reason "best practices" are so popular in instructional design. They offer a shortcut. A proven framework. A way to make decisions without having to think too hard about the specific context you are operating in. And for many situations, they work well enough.
But here is the problem: learning does not happen in general. It happens in specific organizations, with specific cultures, specific constraints, specific histories, and specific goals. Applying a generic best practice to a specific context is like prescribing the same medication to every patient regardless of their symptoms. Sometimes it helps. Often it does nothing. Occasionally it makes things worse.
The Seduction of Frameworks
Every instructional designer has their favorite frameworks: ADDIE, SAM, Dick and Carey, Bloom's Taxonomy, Kirkpatrick's Four Levels. These are valuable tools. They provide structure, vocabulary, and a shared language for talking about learning design. But they are also dangerous when they become invisible — when the framework starts doing the thinking instead of the designer.
The most skilled designers do not apply frameworks mechanically. They use frameworks as starting points, then deviate deliberately based on what they observe. They know when to skip a step in ADDIE because the context does not require it. They know when Bloom's verb list is too rigid for the kind of learning they are trying to design. They know when Kirkpatrick's Level 4 is the only level that actually matters for the organization they are working with.
Context Is Everything
Consider two organizations trying to implement the same leadership program. Organization A is a fast-moving tech startup where decisions need to happen in hours, not days. Organization B is a government agency where change happens over years, not months. The same "best practice" leadership framework will fail in both contexts for opposite reasons — too slow for A, too superficial for B.
The real skill of instructional design is not knowing the frameworks. It is knowing the context — understanding the organizational culture, the political landscape, the resource constraints, the learner population, and the actual business problem behind the training request. A designer who skips this step and jumps straight to framework selection is not designing. They are applying a template.
The Courage to Break Rules
Breaking rules requires confidence. It requires knowing the rules well enough to understand what you are giving up when you break them. It requires being able to explain your deviation to stakeholders who expect the standard approach. And it requires accepting the risk that your non-standard approach might fail — which is still preferable to the guaranteed mediocrity of a standard approach applied to a non-standard problem.
At Mekalin, we start every engagement with what we call a "context excavation" — a structured process for understanding the real organizational landscape before any design work begins. Only after we understand the context do we select, modify, or abandon frameworks. The result is not a best-practice program. It is a fit-for-context program. And that makes all the difference.
