ADDIE and Agile frameworks are two improvement techniques that influence the guidance of learning and development teams during a project. The idea of ADDIE, as well as Agile, involves analysis, evaluation, development, implementation and design as part of their processes. But some features are different in agile methodology as compared to that of ADDIE. Flexible scheduling, incremental organization, transparency, and collaboration are characteristics of a project using Agile methods. But how do the two differ?. Let us discuss Agile vs ADDIE.

Organization
First, the methodologies differ in the characteristic way the training is organized. The Agile method incorporates the ADDIE practices that involve analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation into two-week sprints. The term sprint means a short period in which an e-learning team implements and delivers a product feature for evaluation.

The ADDIE methodology categorizes the practices into five successive stages. Every phase undergoes a process design to accomplish a definition strong enough to boost e-learning teams into the following aspect of a learning design process. For illustration, the analysis stage of ADDIE defines the business requirements, such as cost estimates, end-user requirements, and schedules. Business demands are described and documented before moving onto the next phase. This linear connection among the five practices in ADDIE is indifferent to the agile methodology where the five methods work collectively incrementally in short, persistent sprints.

Flexibility
Elearning teams are increasingly implementing the Agile approach to gather the dynamic requirements of the business. It allows learners to adopt flexibility given uneven content, regular updates to practices, and changing directions from stakeholders. The linear waterfall processes that distinguish the traditional ADDIE methodology need to confront the changing face of business needs. The ADDIE method firmly emphasizes a linear process dependent upon predefined business requests. On the other hand, the Agile methodology permits e-learning teams to quickly react to shifting business needs throughout the lifecycle of the project.

Collaboration
Collaboration is considered a fundamental element of a process in agile methodology as compared to that of ADDIE. The e-learning team that uses the ADDIE method regularly collaborates during each target in the project.

However, the organization and project stakeholders have permission to set up a collaborative relationship on their conditions without the control of the ADDIE framework to decide meeting dates and times. The Agile methodology has embedded daily meetings among stakeholders and e-learning teams -- referred to as daily stand-ups -- into its model.

Transparency
The Agile methodology needs a degree of openness than the usual waterfall method. E-learning teams working Agile accept an iteration of work product for evaluation at the last part of every sprint as conflicting with the ADDIE methodology. Here a product is delivered all at one time and close to the end. Transparency among e-learning teams and partners is typical when working Agile. This is because a general assessment of work product deliverables is listed at the closing stages of each sprint.

Agile vs ADDIE both have their place in learning and development. There is a need to understand the project requirements – and the dynamics of an organization -- to determine what kind of framework is best suitable.

Author's Bio: 

If you are an eLearning designer, you should consider using agile instructional design for your learning initiatives. Unlike the traditional methods of course creation, the agile method offers some significant benefits that will ensure that your results are outstanding yet also efficient. Below, we look at some of the top benefits of the agile design method.
Highly Interactive
Agile instructional design is heavily focused on the learners and how they will interact with the course material. At every step of course development, the needs of the learner and the manner in which they will participate and engage with the course will be taken into consideration. As a result, course developers are able to develop training materials in exactly the way a learner would find it easy to understand. This is one of the reasons why many instructional designers are switching over to agile design. After all, if you can produce high-quality, engaging content using agile, why bother wasting time on other, inefficient instructional design methods?
Rapidly Produce Content
A big challenge faced by most course developers is the time required for developing training material. This is mostly because developers usually tend to focus on creating the entire content of the course all at once. Obviously, this is normally a massive undertaking fraught with so many issues that the project will end up taking a lot of time. But with agile design processes, designers can now develop courses faster, using less time and fewer resources. This is because agile methods look at the course development process as consisting of little chunks of content that need to be developed sequentially. Only when one section is finished can the development team move on to the next section. This process of course development ensures that the training material is created within a short period of time.
Better Collaboration
A huge benefit of the agile design process is that it facilitates easier collaboration among multiple individuals. Everyone involved in the course, right from the organization that invested in its development to the actual learners, can collaborate with each other and offer suggestions to improve the course. As a course developer, this gives you the chance to hear the feedback and understand which aspect of the course needs to be developed and what new, potential features should be implemented. This can go a long way in helping you fine-tune your next course.
No Last Moment Revisions Necessary
In the traditional course development scenario, developers often tend to make numerous changes and revisions to the content. This mostly happens because the course is developed all at once, and then largely revised later on at the end of development. As a consequence, designers often need to correct a lot of errors to ensure that the training material complies with expectations. However, since agile development involves completing the course in portions, all errors and changes are addressed along the way. As such, last-minute, large-scale revisions become unnecessary.