The Only 3 Things You Need to Measure

According to our recent quarterly training measurement services poll, 71% of respondents “do not know how” or mistakenly believe that training measurement “is too difficult.”

That is not surprising.  When you dig below the surface, you find most training practitioners are designing learning programs with lengthy learning objectives that have little to no link to important business priorities in the eyes of the participants, their bosses or the executive team.

ASTD has been studying training measurement practices for years.  Sadly, things have not changed much since 2004.  The vast majority of training initiatives continue to measure participant satisfaction while less than 10% measure business impact and less than 3% measure return on investment.  That does not even count the wasted effort that goes into measuring enrollments, attendance, completions, hours, materials and food.

When it comes to training measurement, you only need answers to 3 questions:

1. Are people using the new knowledge, skills, and processes?  
2. Are leaders modeling and reinforcing?
3. Is it making an impact?

In our experience, if you cannot answer these 3 fundamental questions…you will eventually have a problem.