Understanding how experienced designers approach complex design problems provides new perspectives on how they translate instructional design (ID) models and processes into practice. In this article, the authors describe the results of a study in which 16 "seasoned" designers shared compelling stories from practice that offered insights into their design practices. Specifically, the authors extracted "rules of thumb" from their stories and examined how, and to what extent, they incorporated ID models and processes. Results suggest that while the majority of the participants referred to the use of textbook models and procedures, they typically didn't use the procedures in a textbook manner. Rules of thumb related to how to adapt models and processes in the context of project constraints and how to minimize frustrations by using very specific types of communication strategies. (Contains 1 table.)