The Far West Laboratory used a five-step instructional systems design (ISD) model to develop a nationwide training and educational curriculum and delivery system for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Stages of the model involved defining a comprehensive set of objectives, defining a priority curriculum, assigning training strategies, designing a training and delivery system, and developing a long-range use and development plan. In the absence of empirical data, four decision-making aids were built into the model to facilitate recycling (a characteristic of the ISD process that refers to techniques for reassessment based on feedback from the data collection, logical insight, and a review of consistency between design stages) and the validation of initial formulations: (1) an "input-transformation-output" configuration for each design stage, (2) cycles of divergence to convergence within each substep in each stage, (3) the use of "options profiles" and "configurations profiles," and (4) inventories composed of decision principles for making selection and matching choices in initial stages. These four devices provided logical rather than empirical procedures to help ensure that design decisions remained tied to the data and informed by a comprehensive view of constraints and possibilities. (YLB)