Measurement&Analytics
As a learning leader, you probably have a learning strategy in place. But do you have a solid plan for measuring its effectiveness? It’s easy to assume that training is working, but without clear measurement, how can you truly know?
Measuring isn’t just about collecting data; it’s about understanding what’s working, what isn’t and how you can make your programs even better. It’s the key to improving training quality, certifying employee skills, meeting compliance standards, boosting performance and, most importantly, showing how your learning and development (L&D) efforts contribute to the organization.
Before you dive into creating a full-fledged measurement strategy, start with a learning measurement audit. Think of it as taking stock of where you are now.
This audit helps you spot your strengths, uncover areas that need work and set clear, measurable goals. Plus, by comparing your current practices to generally accepted best practices, you’ll know exactly where to focus your efforts.
Just remember, the audit needs to be based on facts and hard data to be effective.
By doing this audit, you’ll understand your current measurement practices and identify any gaps. It gives you a roadmap to strengthen your programs and align them with your company’s organizational goals. Most important, it will show you where you’re excelling and where there’s room to grow.
Approach your audit systematically by following these seven steps:
Start by identifying your stakeholders. These may include the learners themselves, L&D staff (such as trainers or instructional designers), L&D management, line of business managers, the chief learning officer or vice president of training, and the business leadership (COO, CFO, CEO).
Why should they care about this audit? Explain the benefits and get their support early on.
Once you have their buy-in, start gathering their insights. This could be through interviews, focus groups or even surveys — whatever works best for your team.
Next, think about your measurement goals. What do you want to achieve? Maybe you want to replace basic learner satisfaction surveys with more insightful, performance-focused ones. Or perhaps you’re looking to develop fair, valid and reliable assessments.
You should also examine your work environment to see how it supports (or hinders) applying what’s learned. And don’t forget about technology — are you making the most of your data sources, or could they be better integrated?
Some examples:
Standardizing performance-focused learner surveys.
Developing valid assessments.
Setting defensible passing scores for your assessments.
Standardizing rubrics for skills assessments.
Analyzing your performance environment.
Leveraging technology and data effectively.
After that, take a good look at what you’re currently measuring. How often do you measure it, how well do you do it and how useful is that information?
Once you’ve got a clear picture of where you are now (Step 4), compare it with your goals (Step 3) to spot any gaps.
Review the gaps you identified in Step 5 and use this analysis to drive your recommendations for improvements.
Start with quick wins — maybe standardizing post-training surveys. Then look at long-term goals, like developing a comprehensive measurement framework, training your team in evaluation methods or using analytics to demonstrate the business impact of your programs.
Short-Term: Standardizing post-training surveys.
Long-Term: Building comprehensive measurement frameworks, training staff and using advanced analytics.
Finally, turn these recommendations into a solid action plan. Prioritize what needs to happen first, assign responsibilities, set deadlines and allocate budgets for each step.
What would this action plan look like? Figure 1 shows some sample audit results.
Once your audit is done, it’s time to share your findings. A written report works well for stakeholders to review in their own time, but don’t stop there.
Present the results in a meeting to open a discussion. You might be surprised at the valuable feedback you’ll get. This input could be crucial and worth integrating back into your report.
Remember, an audit is only as good as the action it inspires. It’s not just about recognizing where you stand today — it’s about defining where you want to go and mapping out how you’ll get there.
Steven Just, Ed.D., is CEO and principal consultant at Princeton Metrics. Email Steven at sjust@princetonmetrics.com or connect through LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/steven-just-081b76.
