Training Industry Magazine - November/December 2016 - 47

BY POOJA SINGH MEHTA

LEARNING PORTFOLIO

TRANSFORMATION

MANY COMPANIES BUILD LARGE COLLECTIONS OF TRAINING
CONTENT THAT REST INSIDE CURRICULA, CATALOGS AND
LMSS. AT ANY POINT IN TIME, SOME OF THESE PROGRAMS
HAVE VERY TARGETED FUNCTIONAL AND BUSINESS
PURPOSES, AND SOME ARE REQUIRED FOR EXTERNAL LEGAL
OR INTERNAL POLICY COMPLIANCE. SOME MAY BE LIBRARIES
OR COLLECTIONS OF PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL SKILLS
COURSES WITH NO SPECIFIC BUSINESS OBJECTIVE BUT
AVAILABLE GENERALLY TO SUPPORT ONGOING EMPLOYEE
DEVELOPMENT. OTHERS, HOWEVER, ARE OUT OF DATE, HAVE
NO OR LOW UTILIZATION, OR ARE DUPLICATIVE (SIMILAR
CONTENT FROM DIFFERENT VENDORS OR AVAILABLE IN
DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE ORGANIZATION).

While most companies capture some
measure of participant satisfaction
with the programs they offer, as well as
various other measures, such as courses
completed or participants trained, very
few can account for the effectiveness
of training programs in terms of
meaningful business measures.
It is widely reported that there is a lack
of strong alignment between training
programs and the current strategic and
operating priorities of the business. Given
the spread of global businesses, there
is also often a lack of standardization of
learning experience across geographies.
On the one hand, strategic and operating
priorities may not be getting the L&D
attention they need. On the other hand,
the expected business impact of the
current collection of programs is unclear.
Ensuring that learning portfolios are
relevant, linked to the business, and
deemed effective and efficient requires
organizations to engage in a learning
portfolio
transformation
exercise.
This exercise should be followed by a
continuous governance process to ensure
that the portfolios remain optimized.

T R A I N I N G I N DUSTR Y MA GAZ INE - TRENDS201 7 I WWW.TRAI NINGINDU S T RY . C OM/ MAGAZ I NE

DRIVING LEARNING
PORTFOLIO TRANSFORMATION
We approach learning portfolio
transformation as a six-stage process
(see Figure 1 on page 48). While Stage 1
is the table stake for initiating portfolio
transformation, the sequence of Stages
2, 3 and 4 can be altered depending
on the characteristics of the portfolio
in consideration.
STAGE 1
CONSOLIDATE
Integral to portfolio transformation is an
enterprise-wide view of all training that
makes up the portfolio. This means having
visibility of all the programs, vendors,
spend incurred, usage, instructional
elements and learning objectives.
Depending on how the content is
organized for the learning portfolio,
the time, investment and resources
required during this stage differs. For
learning portfolios where training
is managed centrally with an LMS,
consolidation could be as easy as pulling
and interpreting the relevant reports
from the LMS. For organizations where
learning is decentralized, federated,

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