Onboarding new instructional designers is deceptively expensive. Knowledge is distributed, processes are informal, and new hires rely on ad-hoc mentoring. At Georgetown University’s Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), this meant that Instructional Design Associates (IDAs) took **2 months** to become fully productive. I designed a structured, hybrid onboarding program that: - **Reduced onboarding time** from 2 months to ~2 weeks - **Improved consistency** across IDA knowledge and workflows - **Received positive feedback**, citing clarity and confidence - **Reduced mentoring load** on senior designers - **Scaled cleanly** across cohorts ### The Problem CNDLS hires 4–5 IDAs each year to support instructional design work. These roles are short-tenure (typically two years), making time-to-productivity critical. Onboarding relied on: - Shadowing - Informal documentation - Individual memory and availability As a result, knowledge transfer was slow, uneven, and difficult to scale. **How do you accelerate onboarding without losing the relational and contextual learning that makes design teams effective?** ### Constraints - IDAs joined with diverse academic and technical backgrounds - Onboarding had to run alongside live project work - Canvas was the only approved delivery platform - Asynchronous time needed to be capped - Relationship-building could not be eliminated These constraints ruled out purely self-paced documentation or extended training programs. ### Design Decisions #### 1. Designing backward from role readiness Backward design defined what a “ready” IDA needed to know and do. This clarified scope and prevented content sprawl. I organized content into three domains: - **Logistics:** hiring steps, approvals, timesheets, tracking - **Understanding CNDLS:** teams, culture, events, structure - **Learning Design Practice:** tools, workflows, expectations Asynchronous content was capped at **~20 hours**. #### 2. Using Canvas as a coordination layer Canvas hosted the course, but learning extended beyond it. I pushed IDAs into real interactions by turning onboarding tasks into legitimate reasons to reach out, ask questions, and build relationships. - Scheduling professional headshots with the Media team - Submitting assets to Communications for the staff site #### 3. Embedding people into the learning flow Instead of abstract tool demos, the course directed IDAs to specific learning designers using tools in active projects. Names and contact points were provided. Content functioned as an entry point to conversation, not a substitute for it. #### 4. Iterating based on learner feedback Early feedback revealed friction around internal acronyms. To address this, I created a centralized **CNDLS glossary** to reduce cognitive load and signal that feedback would shape the system. The final deliverable was a short, self-designed Canvas course where IDAs introduced themselves to the broader organization. This made learning visible while signaling readiness. The result was faster onboarding without flattening the social and contextual learning that design teams depend on.