About Peripet Learning
The work most consultants will not do.
Most consulting in this space stays in the safe layer — process, methodology, tools. The frameworks get refreshed. The training gets rebuilt. The dashboards get redesigned. And the underlying performance problem keeps producing the same disappointing returns.
Peripet Learning works one layer deeper. In the people and the relationships that shape how performance improvement work actually gets done inside an organization. That is where the real friction lives. It is also the layer most consultants either miss or avoid.
It is the layer the practice is built on.
Why this practice exists
Mid-market companies are spending real money on performance improvement. New training. New tools. New processes. The investments are reasonable. The returns are not.
The problem rarely lives in what was chosen. It lives in execution — in how expectations get set, how decisions get made, and how the people responsible for results work together day to day. By the time anyone notices the gap between investment and outcome, the moment has already passed and the business has moved on.
Peripet Learning was built to close that gap. Not with another framework laid on top of the work. With direct engagement in the layer where the breakdown actually happens.
About Richard Sites
Richard Sites, Ed.D., is an author, consultant, and educator who has spent 30 years in the work — leading teams, advising leaders, and trying to make L&D better for the field and the professionals inside it. The work happens inside organizations — where deadlines slip, decisions stall, and training gets blamed for problems it was never built to solve — and a career in L&D is built on the ability to operate there, not just inside the models. His writing, teaching, and consulting help capable professionals stop executing other people's decisions and start shaping the work itself.
What He Brings to the Conversation
Richard challenges how the field talks about effectiveness, scale, speed, quality, and even what "done" actually means — and he does it in a way that gives audiences something to push back on, agree with, or steal.
He brings the credibility of a co-author whose previous book reshaped how the field thinks about iterative design, and the directness of someone who has run the teams, missed the deadlines, and rebuilt the relationships himself.
Speaking
Richard has hosted workshops and spoken at conferences across the United States and internationally (Canada, China, and Brazil), including numerous ATD conferences and local ATD chapters. His talks consistently center on the same question: why capable L&D professionals deliver good work and still struggle to shape the direction of it.
Teaching
Agile Instructional Design on LinkedIn Learning — Nearly 70,000 people have taken Richard's course on bringing iterative, agile principles into the instructional design workflow. The course translates the ideas behind Leaving ADDIE for SAM into a practical method that designers, team leads, and project owners can apply to their next project. Richard also designed and hosted numerous ATD Leaving ADDIE for SAM workshops.
Background
Richard started as an instructional designer at a university in the mid-90s, building online tools for teachers. He moved into the consulting side of L&D running design teams at a boutique eLearning firm, then led learning organizations through 20 years of shifts in tools, models, and expectations. He is the founder of Peripet Learning, where he advises L&D leaders moving from execution to influence. He holds degrees in Business and Education and lives in Tampa, Florida.
Books by Richard Sites
Leaving ADDIE for SAM
Co-written with Michael Allen, this book introduced the Successive Approximation Model (SAM), an iterative alternative to the traditional ADDIE process. It's become a standard reference for instructional designers looking to build training faster, with tighter feedback loops and less wasted work.
Leaving ADDIE for SAM Field Guide
Written with Angel Green, this is the practical companion to Leaving ADDIE for SAM. It lays out the templates, checklists, and kickoff process — including the "Savvy Start" — that teams need to put the SAM model into practice on real projects.
Uptrain
Uptrain speaks directly to executives, translating training investment into terms the business already runs on: cost, revenue, performance. It offers the Power Formula, a framework for aligning training decisions with business strategy rather than treating training as a support function.
Fix the Work
Fix the Work lays out seven principles for removing the friction, delay, and rework that keep good training projects from landing. It's written for the teams doing the work, not the executives funding it.
Above the Work
Above the Work is built around four forces — Clarity, Courage, Collaboration, and Momentum — that determine whether L&D professionals stay stuck executing decisions or start shaping them. Drawing on more than 25 years of consulting, it's the framework behind the Above the Work Accelerator.