Question:
In our jobs as learning and development professionals we spend the vast majority of our time and resources on content creation or acquisition, administration of learning, and delivery with very little time spent on learning transfer and post-program support. Are these really the highest value places to expend our energy and resources?
Answer:
Great question! We have been focusing on this issue for some time. If you examine all of the possible places we focus our time and resources in the learning profession and those which have the potential to produce the greatest impact and alignment with management expectations, there is a disconnect. The Forum Corporation research shown below exemplifies the disconnect between what management wants and where we spend our time and resources. It showcases the opportunity we have to reallocate our effort and resources so as to increase our chance of producing great business results.
© 1995 Forum Corp. Customer Driven Training Organization.
If you examine the available research, it is clear that the vast majority of our learning and development resources go to content, delivery, and administration. If we think about the question from the standpoint of how to reallocate to increase business impact, two options are at the top of the list: driving learning transfer, and reorienting our focus away from activity and onto results using enhanced evaluation and measurement strategies.
Learning Transfer: It is no secret that improving learning transfer strategies can significantly impact the value created by learning. Unfortunately, all too frequently learning transfer is either an afterthought or not considered at all. Truly effective techniques to drive learning transfer begin long before the formal instructional period and continue long after. A primary reason we are so enamored of the new finish line for learning concept is because it implies the need to begin focusing our time and resources on treating learning as a process rather than an event.
© 2011 Fort Hill Company. All rights reserved.
As with any other business process, when resources are committed to maximizing return from learning, the likelihood of producing significant value goes up appreciably. One of the original factors that drove our decision to write The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning was our opportunity to work with companies that were focused on learning transfer as the missing ingredient to producing great business results from learning. The 6Ds® are a methodology for learning process improvement that facilitates reaching “The New Finish Line for Learning.”
If you want to achieve rapid impact from redeploying resources to a new learning transfer strategy, there are two places to begin the quest. The first is to put in place a learning transfer management system like ResultsEngine® to keep learning top of mind and encourage participants to engage in deliberate practice post-program. Tightly coupled with and made scalable by the use of a system like ResultsEngine, is to ensure that managers of participants are engaged with their direct report both before and after the program. Pre-program, have managers inquire about the value their direct report will create as a result of going to the program. Post-program, managers need to act in a support capacity that goes beyond simply offering platitudes about performance.
Evaluation and Measurement: The other place where there is a clear disconnect is in the measurement and evaluation arena. The historical evaluation focus in learning and development has been on activity, i.e., dollars spent, hours of training, butts in seats, the facilitator. While we agree that these are important internal operational measures for learning and development to track, they do not ultimately get to the critical question: Did the program deliver the promised results needed by the business to drive competitive advantage? To get the answer to that question, you need an evaluation strategy that is designed as part of the overall design of the program itself and that focuses on ascertaining whether or not the training contributed in a meaningful way to the performance objectives the program was designed to serve.
A great starting point for developing an evaluation and measurement strategy is to begin with the end in mind and get answers to two simple questions:
- Who should define what success looks like? (A tip – it’s not the learning department; it should always be the business sponsor(s) who will benefit if the program is a success);
- Once you know who will define success, then ask them what business need will be met if the program is a success.
Once you have answered these two questions, then you can begin designing an evaluation approach that will enable you to showcase whether or not the program delivered the value defined by the business sponsor.
There are many ways to reorient our effort and resources to increase our chances of producing great business results after learning. A small reallocation of our time and budget to ensure we drive learning transfer and create sound evaluation strategies will yield significant dividends. Thank you for the question, I look forward to hearing your thoughts. I would also like to invite you and your colleagues to attend our upcoming complimentary webinar, “Turn on the Results; Plug the all new ResultsEngine® into your Training Programs,” on Tuesday, May 3 at 11:00am EDT.
Join the conversation: The 6Ds LinkedIn Group and the FHC Blog
