The 2 Real Questions That Training Should be Answering

There are those in the field of learning and development who complain that training ROI measurement is often used after the fact…not to show improvement in performance so much as to justify the training that was delivered. Proving to executives that there was a measurable positive return on their investment would be a good thing. But many incorrectly claim that actual ROI is too difficult to measure.

Immature training organizations generally only seek answer the following questions:

                        ·         Did participants enjoy the program?

                        ·         Did they learn what we wanted them to learn?

                        ·         How can we improve the program?

                        ·         Did our program deliver on our objectives in a cost-effective way?

It’s not hard to develop metrics for these questions. The challenge becomes figuring out a way to measure just how effectively the skills were adopted on the job and if the learners’ improved performance truly made a difference in business results that matter.

Based on over 800 successful training assessment and measurement projects, we know that skill, knowledge and process adoption can be measured.  Behavior- and outcome-based questions can be used to get hard data.  We also know that high and low adoption rates can be correlated to the business metric(s) that you want to move to measure impact.

This targeted approach tells you:

·         Are they are using it?

·         Is it making a difference?

Do not lose sight that these are the two real questions that Training Measurement Services should be answering.