Happy Friday everyone!
I am currently workin on improving my organisations evaluation process - in particuar embedding learning into everyday activity and behaviour and measuring the value.
I am working closely with the Kirkpatrick model and principles but am interested to understand what other L&D professionals are doing so would welcome any reply's!
Many Thanks Nicki
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Replies
If you'e looking at measurement in everyday practice then I'd suggest the Brinkerhoff Success Case Method would be more relevant than the Kirkpatrick model. Its approach is focused less on the intervention and more on the effect and the contextual application in the workplace.
Most importantly you need to know what you want to measure. It is very easy for L&D to succumb to the elephant powder test; correlation doesn't mean causation and too much L&D practice is claiming a 'share of pie' when the L&D involvement had a much less significant impact.
Hi Nicki,
This is well worth a read from Jane Hart - It's AFTER training, when the real learning happens
I think the distinction that's important and Blake has mentioned this below is what are you measuring - learning or performance?
As Jane says the learning starts to take place after any training when people are actively putting what they have learned in to practice. The support of their line managers here is paramount to ensure what they have learned is carried out and continued through coaching and feedback. I'm a big believer in ANY training activity being linked to business objectives ( we all should or what's the point in doing it) this should be identified and agreed up front and linked to some sort of output or performance outcomes. Some of this is harder to do around soft skills training however you should still be able to identify some sort of metric or business measurement that will be impacted by 'What's going to happen after training" - "Whats the change we expect to see" - "What are we expecting to change" and crucially "Who do we need support from to make it happen". The Kirkpatrick model has updated to really focus on level 3 as the transfer of knowledge to performance and what support is needed to ensure this happens. Agreeing leading indicators as a means to identify what's changing quickly rather than waiting 3,6,9 months to measure the 'next level'.
This must be done in collaboration with our organisations and those we are supporting - training in isolation does not work. A bold statement but it's true and something that needs to shift in terms of accountability around learning. In other words people (led by the organisational culture) that see training as something done to them and see the responsibility of the learning resting with the L&D professional or team will really struggle with embedding learning and changing performance. Not a quick fix in may cases.
As Blake mentions below - what are you currently doing and what ideas do you have to improve the process?
Mike
Hi Nicola,
Howard is your man for Kirkpatrick, his advice is just the tip of the iceberg of his knowledge.
When starting anything which may be new for the organisation my advice with clients is to always start with small and easy to achieve steps. So what is easy for your staff to do during their daily activity. Make it clear that learning can be as simple as asking a colleague a question. Measuring the value can be made easier by just asking a single question which is more feeling based to begin with, and then overtime introduce a quantitative measurement. For example, someone who spends 10 minutes a day learning something new may feel great for achieving it but the results of their performance may not be seen for a few weeks or months.
What ideas have you come up with yourself so far?
Warm regards
Blake
Hi Nicola,
Great to see you use the Kirkpatrick approach, I am going to take this opportunity to remind you that it is key to get your training sponsor on side early and get a clear definition of what success looks like for them, what is the indicator they will use to measure this. This allows you to claim success later on. Also remember that 50% of you resources should be directed at post delivery support, what are you and you managers doing to provide motivation, support, learning recaps etc?
H