Training Evaluation Newsletter

Dave Basarab
V.A.L.E. Consulting, LLC

In This Issue

New Year's Resolution

Book Recommendation

Predictive Evaluation Launched This Week!

Predictive Evaluation Specail Offer

Improving Training Transfer

New Year's Resolution

Dave Headshot

Dave Basarab, Founder V.A.L.E. Consulting

Here's a beneficial New Year's Resolution for business and training leaders... In 2011, make it a priority to assess your training programs to maximize their impact and success. For ideas, tips or a consultation, please contact me.

Sincerely,

Dave Basarab

Book Recommendation

"Rebuilding Trust"

This is one of my favorite books from two exceptional people Dennis and Michelle Reina. I encourage you to consider adding it to your library.

Predictive Evaluation Launched This Week!

I'm very excited to share with you today that my second book, Predictive Evaluation, has officially launched! As I've mentioned in previous newsletters, this new book spotlights my Predictive Evaluation (PE) Model, the first and only training and evaluation approach to add the element of prediction, and is a follow-up to my previous book The Training Evaluation Process.

Anyone who knows me can tell you how enthusiastic I am about helping professionals who struggle to define training's success, justify training's value, and predict its return. Using the PE model, trainers and business leaders can now successfully predict training's results with value, intention, adoption and impact, allowing them to make smarter, more strategic training and evaluation investments.

In Predictive Evaluation, I provide details and helpful tips about how to use the PE Model in real business environments. The book offers guidance in identifying specific goals and beliefs, determining an action plan, developing quantifiable measurement tools, predicting value, using leading indicators to stay on track, and reporting in a format that executives can easily understand.

The PE Model provides a straightforward, step-by-step process that begins where most other training evaluations stop. It requires student participation, making employees feel invested and engaged throughout the process. It offers flexibility, and can be used either with new or existing courses, working equally well with classroom-based training, on the job training, on-line learning, workshops and more. The PE Model is appropriate across all industries and departments and is suitable for staff at ALL levels.

I get a thrill every time I open the front cover and see the incredible endorsements by prestigious industry leaders Donald L. Kirkpatrick, PhD and James D. Kirkpatrick, PhD, who also wrote the foreword.

A big thank you to all of you who have joined me and supported me on this journey over the past year! I appreciate receiving such positive feedback on the book from respected colleagues, friends, business leaders and others who have read advanced copies. I'd really enjoy hearing your thoughts (or questions) about my new book after you've read it, so please email me or contact me on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Order Predictive Evaluation at

Berrett-Koehler Publishers (see special offer below)

Special Offer

From now until February 10th you can get a 30% discount plus free shipping if you order Predictive Evaluation from Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Just click here and enter the discount code "basarab" when prompted during the checkout process. You'll be asked for the discount code when you enter in your name and address, and you'll see the discount price before you finalize your order.

Improving Training Transfer

Over the next few months I will dedicate my evaluation tips to Improving Training Transfer. These are proven techniques for increasing the transfer of training from the learning experience to back on-the-job. Some of these tips take no additional budget; some take capital investments, other take people resources. All the tips do help improve transfer. The good news is that the tips are mutually exclusive, you can implement as many as you want.

What is training transfer? I define training transfer as ... participants successfully implementing and integrating skill's learned in training into their work behavior.

Startling fact: only 10-40% of training skills are successfully transferred to the job. Which means that we run our training factories at an 90-55% defect rate. I'm pretty sure that your companies would go out of business if their products had such a defect rate. The good news is that we can correct this. The tips that I am going to show you have resulted in organizations increasing their transfer rate to 70% or more.

The Training Transfer Continuum. I think of training transfer as a continuum - from designing to pre course, in course and post course activities. To aid our organization in maximizing transfer, then we need to think beyond the training event itself - before during design and after graduation.

Training Transfer Continiumu

So let's start with the first tip that can be incorporated into instructional design to improve transfer. Please note that is not an all inclusive list and I know you all have some great techniques that have worked for you.

TRAINING TRANSFER TIP #1 - Map Design to Adoption

Map Design to Adoption

When designing training look beyond the session and ask yourself: "What do we expect participants to do on-the-job based upon the course design?" I call these the Adoptive Behaviors. Make sure your course objectives and content are supportive of the behavior. You will be surprised how often we teach content that will never be used because the participant has no need or opportunity for that content. Highly transferable training has tightly aligned content to adoptive behavior. In the same light, the activities and techniques you employ to practice new skills needs also to align to adoptive behaviors.

In summary, design training so that as much as possible is directly aligned to real on-the-job work performed.

-- More to come --

Predictive Evaluation - Ensuring Training Delivers Business and Organizational Results
www.evaluatetraining.com