The Real Value of Training: Measuring and Analyzing Business Outcomes and the Quality of ROI (BUSINESS BOOKS) - Hardcover

Stone, Ron

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071759972 ISBN 13: 9780071759977

Verlag: McGraw Hill, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

GET THE TOOLS AND KNOW-HOW THAT MAKE ROI MORE THAN JUST A NUMBER

"Ron does such a great job answering the question that has baffl ed many learning professionals for years: How do we measure and demonstrate the value of training. Applying his methodology of ROI is inspiring in that the exercise helps to translate training activities into improved performance and, ultimately, tangible business outcomes, rather than mere calculation of numbers."

― JUDY FENG, Director, Talent Management, Baxter Asia Pacific

"Those who have criticized ROI will be pleased with Stone’s ROI Quality Analysis (RQA). HR directors and training managers will benefit from implementing this credible technique, and Stone's 'secret sauce ingredients' allow instructional designers to serve up a five-star training program."

― STEPHANIE MOOSHEGIAN, Ph.D., Chair, Saint Louis University's Organizational Studies Program

"Loaded with robust and practical methodologies, templates, and proven tools, The Real Value of Training masterfully demystifies ROI. As a seasoned learning and development practitioner, I can now add a valuable ROI approach that when used with both tangible and intangible results tells a powerful story of how signifi cant learning events contribute to positive business outcomes. Great book!"

― MERIBETH GERMINO, Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy, Biopharmaceutical Industry Leadership Development Executive

"The uniqueness of this book is that it will benefit any leader who wants to transform the organization through training solutions totally focused on alignment with performance through integrating training with individual development and business goals."

― VIDYADHAR S. DABHOLKAR, Head of Human Resource Development, HILTI Manufacturing India Pvt. Ltd.

The financial crisis and ensuing recession permanently changed how business is conducted. Executives and other decision makers, pressured to accomplish higher goals with lower budgets, are demanding greater levels of accountability from their people. And when it comes to investing in business processes, they want quantifiable proof that any new initiative will contribute to solving problems, serving customers, and improving the business.

The Real Value of Training gives you the tools not only to prove that your program will deliver solutions; it goes one step further, so you can explain exactly how much it will deliver. Presented by training ROI expert Ron Stone, The Real Value of Training offers an 11-step process for qualitatively and quantitatively measuring the value of training.

Stone's methodology brings ROI to a new level of scrutiny and credibility by helping you successfully:

• Collect critical performance data
• Analyze results and adjust for causal influence and sustained impact
• Assign a monetary value to business-outcome data
• Calculate the fully loaded cost of the solution design
• Calculate the ROI and its level of quality
• Predict and quantify performance improvement

Using Stone's groundbreaking methods, you will create a training program that is powerful but flexible enough to refocus at a moment's notice, so it remains aligned with the organization’s interests, no matter what happens―whether it's another economic meltdown or a shift in business strategy.

Take your training ROI to a new level of credibility! With The Real Value of Training, you have everything you need to verify that your training solution is directly aligned with business strategy and to determine and communicate its ultimate value to the organization.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Co-author Ron Stone is Vice President and Chief Consulting Officer of Performance Resources Organization, and consults directly on evaluation projects with a broad range of international clients. Stone also conducts public and in-house workshops on the ROI Process.

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The Real Value of Training

Measuring and Analyzing Business Outcomes and the Quality of ROI

By RON DREW STONE

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Ron Drew Stone
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-07-175997-7

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 Talking about Performance Results
Chapter 2 Stone's Measurement and ROI Process: A View from Above
Chapter 3 Begin on the Right Foot: Partner to Create a Measurement 
Strategy
Chapter 4 Collect Relevant Performance Data
Chapter 5 Analyze Results and Adjust for Causal Influence
Chapter 6 Analyze Results and Adjust for Sustained Impact
Chapter 7 Go/No-Go: Assign a Monetary Value to Business Outcome Data
Chapter 8 Calculate the Fully Loaded Cost of the Solution Design
Chapter 9 Calculating the Return on Investment and Assessing the Quality 
of ROI
Chapter 10 Measuring the Contribution of Solutions: Alternatives to ROI
Chapter 11 Communicate the Results
Chapter 12 Opportunity Forecasting: Predicting Performance Improvement and 
ROI
References
Index

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Talking about Performance Results

Yes, this book is about measurement and evaluation. The process of measurementand evaluation actually begins up front, when a training professional partnerswith a client or sponsor to address the performance issues and expectationsinvolved in a specific training solution. Prior to negotiating and designing alearning engagement, the professional and the client or sponsor must agree aboutthe end in mind. When there is a failure to identify the end in mind for atraining solution up front, the alignment of the solution with the business isleft to chance. It is also difficult to successfully measure and evaluate atraining solution whose expected outcome has not been defined.

VIEWING RESULTS THROUGH A PERFORMANCE-CENTERED LENS

When they are addressing the needs of workplace performers, trainingprofessionals often focus too much of their attention on learning and not enoughon performance. Perhaps we should emphasize that the focus on learning is takingplace at the wrong time. The time to identify a solution for operatingdeficiencies or strategic issues is after the performance factors and root causehave been properly identified, not before. Sometimes the client has done thisprior to calling the training department, but sometimes she has not.

Training as a Single Solution Is Gone Forever

There was a time when a training solution consisted of a few learning strategiesaimed at facilitating the knowledge and skills required to deal with a specificperformance need or deficiency. These isolated "training-only" solutions weredesigned and implemented in the belief and hope that training alone was enoughto bring about the desired results. Often, only a limited effort was made toseek reinforcement from management, and only rarely was attention given to suchthings as companion strategies. Because this procedure was rarely challenged andbecause evidence of results was rarely required or presented, this became theroutine way in which training was delivered in many organizations.

Today, some managers, clients, and others still believe that training can besuccessfully delivered in this isolated way—no management reinforcement,no companion actions and strategies, no bundled solutions, just a trainingcourse by itself, doing its performance thing. Send people to the training roomor the desktop, and when they return to the work setting, things will improve.Training professionals today have experienced enough frustration to know thatthis is not the case. The unfortunate truth is, training as a single solution isgone forever. The performance-centered framework challenges those involved inidentifying solutions to think about and analyze all the relevant performancereadiness factors beyond learning.

The framework that many training professionals have historically used inevaluating the need for and fit of a training solution is too narrow. Many ofthem have relied on Kirkpatrick's four levels of evaluation as a performanceframework. This limited view places a narrow focus on learning (Kirkpatrick'slevel 2) as the solution to a performance issue. Many potential performancefactors are overlooked when the training is focused only on "knowledge andskills."

When a client or sponsor requests a training or development program, it isnatural to launch into a conversation about the learning because that is why thetraining department has received the call. But training professionals mustresist closing the deal on a learning solution before sufficient conversation(and perhaps even a little rapid research) to identify the deficient performanceissues and the root cause of those issues has taken place. Only then canexpectations be clarified and a proper solution (nonlearning as well aslearning) be identified, designed, and delivered.

A Twenty-First-Century Performance-Centered View

The training professional should partner with the client and use a simpleperformance framework to enable discussion about how a requested trainingsolution will address specific performance needs. A performance frameworkprovides a context that helps to

• Frame the right questions to identify the desired performance, analyzeperformance deficiencies, and identify the root cause of the problems.

• Identify performance objectives and measures for projects and performancesolutions.

• Communicate with clients, team members, training suppliers, and others tonegotiate expectations and determine readiness solutions and strategies(learning and nonlearning) aimed at closing the performance gap.

Figure 1.1 illustrates a performance-centered framework that can be usedas a tool to facilitate a performance discussion, while at the same timeassuring the client that his needs will be met.

The three components of the performance-centered framework (business outcome,execution, and readiness) are linked within a relationship—that is,performance readiness should influence the desired execution, and execution, inturn, should influence the desired business outcome. Without going into how toconduct a needs analysis, which is beyond the scope of this book, let'selaborate on the relationship among these three components. This should help inunderstanding how to reframe a discussion about learning into a focuseddiscussion about performance. The performance discussion should focus onbusiness outcome and execution and eventually lead back to decisions ondesigning, delivering, and supporting an appropriate solution. The idea is tomove up and down the framework until all relevant questions are answered.

Business Outcome This component refers to how a business or governmentagency will benefit when the performers involved execute as expected. Businessoutcomes include improvements in key performance indicators and other businessmeasures that represent the end in mind, such as

• Reducing the cost of doing business

• Improving the profitability of the business (for nonprofits, diversity andsustainability of funding)

• Improving the quality (effectiveness) of the organization's business products,processes, and services

• Increasing the output (quantity) of products and services (sales, productsmanufactured, products delivered, services provided, orders filled, and so on)

• Reducing the time it takes to complete tasks, complete business processes, andidentify and correct problem areas (efficiency)

• Reducing cycle time to close sales or to improve service to the customer

• Sustaining or exceeding the service levels expected by customers

There are additional categories of business outcome measures and many measureswithin each category, depending on how they are uniquely defined by a particularorganization. Business outcomes should be the ultimate goal of any trainingprogram, development program, or performance solution.

In a perfect world, when a client requests training, she will identify aspecific deficiency in business outcomes as the driving force for the request.However, the world is not perfect. Sometimes the focus is only on the trainingas an event. This is the worst possible scenario because the trainingprofessional must have the skill to move the conversation toward performance,sometimes having to overcome client resistance. Other times, the client mayfocus on his team's lack of execution in the work setting. This is a good thingbecause it is often easy to address execution and then move the conversationtoward business outcomes and then back to readiness or learning.

Execution in the Work Setting Execution is the performance of the workitself, the work processes, and how performers go about getting the work done.It identifies what a specific population should be doing or not doing(behavior), and how individual or team execution may influence the status of oneor more desired business outcomes. For example, the problem may involve thesales associate implementing the six steps of the sales process when engaging acustomer, or the supervisor coaching her team and providing feedback andrecognition, or the customer call center representative handling a customer calland resolving service issues. Execution is arguably the most important componentof the performance framework because it is the link between the readinesssolution and the business outcome. A significant amount of time, effort, andmoney can be packaged as a training solution, but unless people execute theprocess that they have been taught when they are in the work setting, thebusiness outcome (end in mind) will not be achieved. If we could mix a secretsauce to achieve results, we would aim it squarely at execution.

When training professionals are discussing training needs with a client,execution is where they should focus much of their attention. When prompted withthe right questions, it is quite natural for a client to engage in a discussionabout what people are doing now and what they should be doing differently. Arelevant solution cannot be identified until the execution deficiency and itsroot cause are known. When the root cause is associated with knowledge, skills,or confidence, then a training solution may be an appropriate part of a bundledsolution package. This is where performance readiness comes into the picture.Now the right questions can be asked to determine how to design or customize thebest solution.

Performance Readiness: Applying the 80/20 Rule If execution is to happenas expected, people must be performance-ready. Performance readiness is not justabout learning. It answers the question, "What will it take to get theperformers to be 'ready to perform,' and how can the surrounding workenvironment be optimized to put them in the best possible position to executeand achieve the expected results?" When a team is not performing as expected, orwhen new requirements are introduced, the relevant readiness factors must beidentified. More than one readiness factor may be a key contributor to the rootcause. The dimensions of performance readiness are as follows:

• Individual or team compatibility. Is the job the proper fit; doemployees have the mental and physical capacity to do the job?

• Individual or team competence for specific job requirements. Giventhat the job is a proper fit, do the employees have the knowledge, skill, andconfidence required to perform in the job setting?

• Ineffective habits. Even though the employees may know how to perform,are their current habits contributing to ineffective behavior?

• Active management reinforcement (AMR). AMR is actually aboutmanagement carrying out its responsibility to facilitate performance byinfluencing employees' motivation, confidence, and capability to execute in thework setting. It's about the responsibility of management to create and sustaina work environment that puts employees in the best possible position to executeand achieve the expected results. We should ask, is the immediate manageractively reinforcing and supporting the desired behavior by personally doing thefollowing?

1. Providing advance and ongoing communication of goals and expectationsregarding work roles, workload distribution, responsibilities, and development

2. Providing performance incentives and consequences

3. Providing timely coaching, feedback, recognition, and support

4. Providing adequate tools, equipment, technology, and resources

5. Providing proper design of work space, job tasks, policies,procedures, and processes

Certainly not every training request requires detailed scrutiny of each of thesekey readiness factors. It doesn't take long to pare these factors down when theright people are asked the right questions. It may be obvious that some of thefactors are functioning properly, while others may require further analysis. Inany case, in today's business world, time is usually of the essence, and a smartassessment must be done quickly. Therefore, the 80/20 rule is applied. That is,you need to identify the 20 percent of readiness needs that, when resolved, arelikely to provide an 80 percent realistic opportunity to influence the desiredexecution in the work setting. A packaged performance readiness solution thatincludes learning as well as one or more additional readiness actions asdetermined by the analysis may be created.

CREATING A PERFORMANCE DESIGN THAT CLIENTS WILL SUPPORT

By analyzing needs beyond learning, an 80/20 bundled solution can be designedthat is performance-driven and has an enhanced opportunity to influenceexecution and drive the desired business outcome. This provides a trueperformance design, as opposed to a single-solution learning design that hasserious performance limitations. Table 1.1 (see page 8) shows an exampleof a performance design for a high-potential leadership program implemented by amultinational company. The program spans nine months with two facilitator-led,one-week learning engagements. The program for high-potential employees isdriven by the need to develop bench strength for anticipated leadershipreplacements resulting from the company's rapid growth. It has the businessbenefit of developing the best and the brightest and keeping them in the companyinstead of allowing them to become a turnover statistic.

In the twenty-first-century workplace, isolated solutions rarely get results. Weare not just talking about training here. Single solutions such as changing awork process, putting in new technology, communicating a new expectation,setting a goal, or sending someone to training does not necessarily drive thedesired performance change. It takes a bundled solution. A bundled solution is aperformance solution that includes one or more companion strategies.

Companion strategies are aligned solutions that focus on more than onereadiness factor. Each strategy is well understood and executed by those who areassigned an execution, support, and reinforcement role. The example in Table1.1 includes multiple companion strategies to influence performance results,and complement the two one-week traditional learning engagements. Examples arethe Webinar conducted by the CEO to gain commitment from the managers of thehigh potential employees, the 360-degree assessment and coaching, the cross-functional three-month job assignment, the action plan to identify and overcomeineffective leadership habits, and the personal dinner with the CEO. Each ofthese could be considered a companion strategy to support and reinforce thegoals of the high-potential program. Of course, a performance design does nothave to be as comprehensive as this one. Each design is crafted to fit the needsof the situation and the objectives of the specific solution.

A training solution should focus on a design for performance, with learningbeing a central key, but not the only contributor. There are several keybenefits of a proper performance design:

• It encourages partnering with the sponsor to clarify expectations and conductany necessary front-end performance analysis to identify relevant performancefactors and recommend companion strategies.

• It focuses on application and links the key performance factors together. Itanswers the following questions: (1) what is the business outcome that needsattention, (2) how will execution of specific processes by a specific populationinfluence the desired business outcome, and (3) how will this performancereadiness solution influence the desired execution?

• The bundled solution with companion strategies builds in active managementreinforcement (from client expectations and front-end analysis) that thestakeholders agree can best influence performance in the work setting.

• It encourages client involvement by reinforcing the message that "trainingalone" has limited potential to influence performance results in the worksetting.

• It pinpoints the factors that should be addressed when conducting a follow-upevaluation.

• It educates stakeholders by ultimately demonstrating the various performancedesigns that work best to achieve the desired performance results.

The central issue in creating an effective training solution is, what designwill work best to enable learning and influence performance in the work setting?The answer is always situational because of the many variables involved in agiven scenario. A set of guidelines is helpful here. After conducting hundredsof ROI evaluation studies with clients on all types of training solutions, Ihave identified seven ingredients (the Secret Sauce) to create a performancedesign that gives the best opportunity to achieve expected results. Table1.2 includes the ingredients of the Secret Sauce.

Here are a few comments about each of the seven ingredients. These could beconsidered as criteria for a successful solution design.

1. Partner with the client up front to identify deficiencies andtheir root causes, target the desired business outcome, and agree onexpectations and success measures. Apply the 80/20 rule to identify the keyfactors that, when corrected, will contribute most to achieving the desiredbusiness outcome. For example, if ten performance issues are contributing to thebusiness deficiency, which two (20 percent) can be corrected quickly byimplementing a solution that will influence at least 80 percent of the desiredresult? Negotiate the client's role in the solution's success.

2. Create linked performance objectives and communicate them toeveryone involved. The objectives and measures should set the expectationfor transfer of the desired performance to the work setting. Learning objectives(and nonlearning strategies) should be linked to execution objectives. That is,each readiness objective or companion strategy should drive one or moreexecution objectives aimed at application in the work setting. Each executionobjective should drive the achievement of one or more business outcomeobjectives.

3. Create a complete performance solution design that addressesreadiness needs beyond learning (the 80/20 rule applies). The solutiondesign addresses relevant readiness needs beyond learning by (a) includingsolution strategies for key nonlearning factors linked to the root cause thatpresent a significant barrier to performance, and (b) building a practical planand gaining client agreement to support both learning and nonlearning strategiesthat are part of the solution design and span the entire experience (before,during, and after the learning engagement).

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Excerpted from The Real Value of Training by RON DREW STONE. Copyright © 2011 by Ron Drew Stone. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
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Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: McGraw Hill
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0071759972
• ISBN 13: 9780071759977
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 272
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar