Quick Answer:
A performance consultant starts with a business or performance problem and determines what is preventing people from achieving the desired results. An instructional designer focuses on creating learning experiences that help people build the knowledge and skills needed to perform.
The roles can overlap significantly. In fact, many experienced use performance consulting skills as part of their work. The biggest difference is often where the conversation begins and whether training has already been identified as the solution.
What Does a Performance Consultant Do?
A performance consultant helps an organization understand why current performance differs from desired performance and what needs to change to close that gap.
That means the starting point usually isn’t, “What training should we create?”
Instead, a performance consultant might ask:
- What business result are we trying to achieve?
- What should people be doing differently?
- What are they doing today?
- What’s preventing the desired performance?
- How will we know if performance improves?
Those questions can lead to training, but they don’t have to.
The underlying problem might involve processes, tools, resources, expectations, incentives, competing priorities, manager support, communication, or the work environment.
As one learning leader observed in a recent TrainingPros podcast conversation, “I think a lot of times we assume that it’s a learning issue, and it may be a learning issue, but it isn’t always.”
That’s an important part of performance consulting: training is one possible intervention, not the assumed destination.
What Does an Instructional Designer Do?
An instructional designer focuses more specifically on helping people learn what they need to know or do.
Once a knowledge, skill, or behavior need has been identified, an instructional designer determines how to address it effectively.
That work may include analyzing the audience, defining learning objectives, organizing content, choosing instructional strategies, creating opportunities for practice and feedback, developing assessments, and designing classroom, virtual, digital, or blended learning experiences.
Good instructional design goes well beyond creating courses.
Experienced instructional designers ask questions about the audience, work environment, desired behaviors, existing knowledge, barriers to application, and how learning will transfer back to the job.
That’s also where the line between instructional design and performance consulting can begin to blur.
What’s the Biggest Difference Between a
Performance Consultant and an Instructional Designer?
One useful way to distinguish the roles is by looking at the primary question each is trying to answer.
A performance consultant asks:
What is preventing people from performing as needed?
An instructional designer asks:
How can we help people learn what they need to perform effectively?
Imagine a sales leader says:
“Our salespeople need negotiation training.”
An instructional designer may analyze what salespeople need to know and do, determine where their negotiation skills are weak, and design an effective learning solution.
A performance consultant goes one step further back.
Why are sales results below expectations? Is negotiation skill actually the problem?
Perhaps salespeople know how to negotiate but discount too quickly because of compensation incentives. Maybe managers aren’t reinforcing the desired sales behaviors. Perhaps pricing guidelines are confusing. Or maybe there truly is a negotiation skill gap.
Only the last situation can be solved primarily through training.
From Instructional Designer to Performance Consultant:
Is Needs Analysis the Same as Performance Consulting
No. Needs analysis can be an important part of performance consulting, but performance consulting is broader than front-end analysis.
A training needs analysis typically identifies the gap between current and desired performance, investigates causes, examines the audience and work environment, and helps determine what learning may be needed.
Performance consulting extends the conversation to the larger performance system.
The consultant isn’t simply trying to determine what training is needed. The objective is to understand what must change to produce the desired performance and business result.
That distinction becomes particularly important when the original request already contains a solution: “We need a course.”
A performance consultant may ultimately agree. But first comes the question: How do we know?
Where Do Performance Consultants
and Instructional Designers Overlap?
Quite a bit. An experienced instructional designer may already:
- Analyze performance gaps.
- Ask stakeholders probing questions.
- Conduct audience and task analysis.
- Connect learning objectives to desired behaviors.
- Recommend performance support instead of or in addition to formal training.
- Design solutions around measurable outcomes.
- Consider what needs to happen in the work environment for learning to transfer.
Those are highly consultative behaviors. That’s why job titles alone aren’t always a reliable way to determine someone’s capabilities.
An instructional designer who has spent years working upstream with business leaders may have substantial performance consulting expertise. Likewise, some performance consultants have instructional design backgrounds and can move from diagnosis into solution design.
Audience Analysis in Instructional Design
When Do You Need a Performance Consultant
Instead of an Instructional Designer?
Consider bringing in a performance consultant when you know you have a business or performance problem but don’t yet know what is causing it or what the solution should be.
For example, an organization might be experiencing declining customer satisfaction, inconsistent manager performance, poor adoption of a new system, missed sales targets, or employees failing to follow a critical process.
Those are performance problems. Training could be part of the solution, but diagnosing the problem should come first.
An instructional designer may be the better fit when you’ve already established that people need new knowledge or skills and you need expertise determining how best to develop them.
And sometimes you need both.
A performance consultant can diagnose what’s preventing performance and recommend interventions. If learning is one of those interventions, an instructional designer can then design the learning experience.
In other cases, one experienced consultant may have the expertise to do both.
Can an Instructional Designer
Become a Performance Consultant?
Absolutely. For many experienced instructional designers, it isn’t a dramatic career change. It’s an expansion of how they approach the work. Instead of beginning with:
What should we teach?
They begin with:
What are we trying to change?
That requires becoming comfortable talking about business results, performance metrics, processes, systems, incentives, management practices, and other factors outside traditional instructional design.
It also requires being willing to discover that the best answer isn’t training.
Why Does the Distinction Matter?
Organizations don’t benefit from excellent training that solves the wrong problem.
Understanding the difference between performance consulting and instructional design helps L&D leaders bring in the right expertise at the right point in a project.
If the problem has been diagnosed and learning is needed, an instructional designer can determine how to create an effective learning experience.
If you’re still trying to understand why performance isn’t where it needs to be, a performance consultant can help you investigate the problem before you invest resources in a solution.
And when you find someone who can do both, you may have a practitioner who can follow the problem from business need through learning solution—and keep the desired performance at the center of the work.
Comparing the Major Performance Consulting Models and the Evolving Role of Instructional Design
What to Read Next:
If you are still learning about Performance Consulting, these articles continue the conversation:
Ready to Work with Us?
Does your L&D team have more projects than people?
Many organizations in this position turn to contract performance consultants to analyze the need for performance initiatives without overloading internal teams. If you’re exploring options or comparing performance consulting companies, you should learn more about how organizations design and scale these solutions.
TrainingPros is a learning and development company that connects organizations with experienced instructional designers, eLearning developers, and performance consultants. We’ve been named a Top 20 Staffing Company by Training Industry and a Champion of Learning by the Association for Talent Development (ATD), recognition that reflects our commitment to delivering high-quality, tailored learning solutions.
To hear ongoing conversations with senior learning leaders, listen to our Learning Leader Spotlight podcast: Apple | Spotify | YouTube
If your learning initiatives require additional support, whether for a single project or a large-scale rollout, our relationship managers can help you find the right expertise quickly and confidently.
When you have more projects than people™, let TrainingPros find the right consultant to start your project with confidence.
Frequently Asked Questions
About Performance Consultants
Does a performance consultant create training?
Sometimes. A performance consultant may recommend training when a knowledge or skill gap is contributing to the performance problem. Depending on the consultant’s background, they may also design the learning solution or work with an instructional designer to develop it.
Can an instructional designer do performance consulting?
Yes. Many experienced instructional designers have strong performance consulting skills. Look beyond the title at whether the person has experience diagnosing performance problems, connecting work to business results, considering non-training causes, and recommending solutions rather than simply developing requested deliverables.
Do I need a performance consultant if I already know I need training?
Possibly not. If you’ve already established that a knowledge or skill gap exists and understand the performance people need to demonstrate, an instructional designer may be exactly what you need. If you’re assuming training will solve the problem but haven’t determined what’s causing the performance gap, performance consulting may be a valuable first step.
