Appreciate all the comments. The ACS is one thing, but knowing what the overall journey is to get there is helpful with planning on what I'm doing this year. The ACS tells you a lot, but doesn't tell a person how he/she goes about the training and getting the requirements.
Great point and sorry to start at the ACS, but lots of pilots don’t start there.
All CFIIs I trained with would go over their typical plan of action and frankly, there were similarities but none was identical. (I started and stopped the instrument at least three times over many many years.)
I think you’ll get some good commentary from the -II rated instructors here, but you’ll really have to mini-interview your local ones to truly know how they approach it. Pun intended.
I’d say for busy non professionals to look for:
An instructor who:
Has access to a good sim and likes using it when appropriate but isn’t married to it if the student has basic instrument control down already. Most students don’t but some do from other work or attempts to get the rating done.
Has availability. Go as fast as possible through this one as time and funds allow. Concentrated training and practice back to back pays off. You’re connecting body to brain in a new way, so a regular workout is really good. Same holds true after the rating is earned.
Does things by the numbers. By this I mean teaches basic control and numbers first. Building blocks. If a student can immediately set a power setting and configuration for whatever is thrown at them ... “500 ft/min descending left turn, 90 knots”... without having to think about it at all, using that skill to fly approaches becomes far easier. If the student provides the aircraft and it’s not a common rental, filling out a cheat sheet with power settings and such for various common maneuvers is the first flight. Not approaches.
And do the flying in an aircraft equipped as close to what you’ll actually fly in the soup as possible. Save the GPS buttonology transition and flying different types for after the rating and some time getting the ticket wet. Don’t learn how to play baseball and then play hockey. It just adds time and frustration. That said if you can’t and have to transition, get the rating then hire them to do a solid transition. Just do a full IPC and sign it off. Doesn’t matter if it’s only been a month since the rating checkride.
Along those lines, the age old debate about steam vs glass crops up. I do think steam is harder and will result in more easily transferable skills to glass — but — if all you’re ever planning to fly is glass, fly glass.
(The caveat here being if you’re headed into commercial flying, learn steam. You WILL be flying steam somewhere most likely. Then glass. Learn both but start on steam. Controversial, but my opinion. Take it or leave it... there’s still a lot of old junk in the commercial fleet. This goes for older vs newer GPS systems too. There’s a lot more Garmin 430s out there than 600/700 touch screens, commercially.)
There’s a few to chew on. Maybe think of some more later.