The Training Measurement Book: Best Practices, Proven Methodologies, and Practical Approaches »

Josh Bersin is the president and founder of Bersin & Associates, a leading industry research and advisory firm in enterprise learning and talent management. Bersin is the author of The Blended Learning Book from Pfeiffer, and The High-Impact Learning Organization and High Impact Talent Management.

The Training Measurement Book offers managers, executives, and training and human resource professionals a method for measuring their investments in a way that provides information that is both actionable, credible, and meaningful to corporate leaders. Using the methods outlined in this important resource, you can free yourself from traditional, often cumbersome measurement models and put in place pragmatic, useful, and easy-to-implement approaches for measuring training activities.

Introduction     1
The Challenge of Training Measurement     1
Need for New Measurement Models     3
Structure of This Book     6
Methodology for This Research     9
A Personal Comment     10
General Principles of Training Measurement     13
Measurement Should Deliver Actionable Information     13
A Measurement Program Should Not Be Designed to Cost-Justify Training     20
Measure Training as a Support Function     22
A Measurement Program Must Meet the Needs of Multiple Audiences     26
Measurement Should Be a Process, Not a Project     27
The LMS Is a Foundation for Measurement     31
Dedicate Resources     33
Start Simply and Evolve Over Time     34
The Pros and Cons of Using ROI     37
ROI Analysis Assumes That Training Is Treated as an Investment     38
In-Depth ROI Measurements Are Often Difficult to Believe     42
In Concept, the ROI of Training Should Be Extraordinarily High     44
It is Very Difficult to Correlate Outcomes Specifically to Training     46
How Do You Make ROI Actionable?     48
Use of "Potential ROI" During Performance Consulting     48
"Performance-Driven"Versus "Talent-Driven" Training     50
Don't Let ROI Become "Return on Insecurity"     53
Limitations of the Kirkpatrick Model     57
The Kirkpatrick Levels Are Not a Complete Model     58
The Model Incorrectly Positions the Levels as a Hierarchy     62
The Kirkpatrick Model Ignores the Role of Training as a Service-Delivery Function     63
Kirkpatrick Misses Other Operational Measures     66
One Alternative: The Six-Sigma Approach to Measurement     68
Another Alternative: The Success Case Method     68
The Impact Measurement Framework     71
The Business Impact Model     73
The Impact Measurement Framework     87
Summary of the Framework     103
Program versus Organizational Measures     103
How to Use the Measurement Framework     106
Summary of the Measurement Models     106
Implementation: The Seven-Step Training Measurement Process     109
The Seven-Step Program Measurement Process     109
Best Practices in Implementation     123
How to Start     129
Measurement of Business Impact     139
Simplifying the Problem     140
Use Line-of-Business-Specific Measures      141
Integrate with Performance Management Processes     148
Measurement of Alignment     153
Caterpillar's Planning and Budgeting Process     154
CNA Insurance Training Investment Model     156
How Do You Measure Alignment?     157
Attainment: Measurement of Customer Satisfaction     163
The Six Sigma Approach     163
How Do You Operationalize the Measurement of Customer Satisfaction?     166
Measurement Tools and Technologies     169
The Role of the LMS     169
Training Analytics and Advanced Reporting     172
The Knowledge Advisors Solution     174
CLO Dashboard by Zeroed-In Technologies     175
The Journey Forward: Focus on What Matters     179
Case Study A: Randstad Measures Onboarding     185
Randstad Overview     185
The Business Problem     186
The Solution     187
Results     191
Lessons Learned     196
Next Steps     196
Case Study B: HP Develops an Integrated Measurement Process     199
HP Measurement Goals     199
HP Systematic Approach     200
Designed to Deliver Actionable Information     202
HP Solution: Standard Evaluation and Indicators     203
Lessons Learned     206
Research: The State of Training Measurement Today     209
What Do Training Organizations Consider Important?     209
What Do Training Organizations Actually Measure?     211
Budgets for Training Measurement     212
The Importance of a Business Plan     214
How Do Organizations Measure Alignment?     215
The Role of Performance Consulting     217
Satisfaction with LMS Systems     218
Is Enough Being Spent on Training Measurement?     219
Demographics from the Survey     220
Examples of Learning Measurements     223
Caterpillar University ROI Analyses     223
DAU: Business-Focused Approach     223
Cisco Sales Training     226
Microsoft Learning     226
Sprint University     229
Specific Learning Measures     233
Training Analytics Specifications     235
Introduction     235
Business Measures     235
Dimensions     239
Hierarchy and Aggregation     242
Computational Flexibility     242
Security and Roles      243
Dashboards     244
Alerts and Report Subscriptions     244
Extract, Transform, and Load     245
General     246
Creating Demonstration Scripts     246
Index     249
About the Author     259