Training Industry Magazine - July/August 2019 - 29

JUST GET GOING!

Andrew Joly, Director of Strategic Design, LEO Learning
For the past three years, we've asked L&D professionals to share
their perspectives and progress on learning data and analytics in
our annual measurement survey. Examining the top barriers to
success provides interesting insights into the first steps toward
accurate measurement analysis:
1. Get stakeholder buy-in |
Early on in the process, engage senior stakeholders in benefitsfocused conversations.
2. Build team capabilities |
Buy, build or borrow data and analytics skills, and begin to build
the skill change across your team.
3. Start small |
A "narrow-but-deep" approach is a useful focus to implement
when creating your chain of evidence.

GRANULAR LEARNING DATA
Christopher Cameron, Valamis

"Feel-good" statistics, like completion metrics, are dead.
Training teams need to look at granular learning data, like
learner behavior, in conjunction with business metrics to
understand the true efficacy of their training. Data science
allows companies to analyze huge swaths of learning data
and key business metrics to see the behavioral influences
on learning. If you can influence a desired behavior to meet
a business goal and accurately measure the impact learning
had on that outcome, management teams will be armed
with the information necessary to make strategic decisions
regarding training and their business.

MEASUREMENT FROM THE OUTSET

Edward Trolley, Senior Vice President of Managed Training
Services, NIIT
The measurement of training value can be elusive, but it is
important. Begin with establishing a measurement methodology.
Next, have a measurement discussion at the outset, not at the
end. It is not necessary to measure everything, but it is important
to measure what matters (i.e., large projects, high visibility
projects, business issue driven projects, etc.). With the advent of
analytics and integrated systems, we can tie the measurement of
L&D to various metrics, like employee performance. The objective
of measurement should be to consistently build confidence in
your customers, so they know they will get an acceptable ROI.
To reinforce this, develop a results contract at the beginning of
customer discussions to define the scope of the work, the results
expected, the metrics to determine the results, what needs to be
done to ensure the results and any other external factors that
could impact the results of training.

4. Understand what tools are needed |
The key tool in this area is a learning record store (LRS). This
will collect experience API (xAPI) statements from different
learning events and connect to business data from elsewhere
in your business.
Short and sharp. Our advice: just get going!

UNDERSTANDING FIRST
Raytheon Professional Services

For L&D professionals, improving business outcome comes
down to improving the outcome or work output of individual
employees. This upfront analysis needs to take the whole
performance system into account. It is not only about learning
management system (LMS) data but rather about collecting
and analyzing learning, workforce and performance measures
to extract valuable insights that will guide the solution design.
L&D professionals need to adopt a consultative approach
combined with an analytical mindset:
* Ask the right questions with a good dose of critical thinking
in order to unveil the real issues.
* Collect and analyze new types of data that will highlight the
most difficult and most frequent tasks that have the greatest
impact on business outcomes.
Let's call it, "Understanding First." This approach not only provides
insights to inform the learning strategy but also establishes the
baseline measures to prove the value of our solutions.

T R A I N I N G I N DUSTR Y MAGAZ INE -LEARNING ANALYTICS 20 19 I WWW. T RAININGINDU S T RY . C OM/ MAGAZ I NE

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https://www.trainingindustry.com/glossary/learning-record-store-lrs/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/glossary/experience-api-xapi/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/glossary/learning-management-system-lms/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/glossary/learning-management-system-lms/ http://rpsblog.raytr.com/learning-analytics/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/magazine

Training Industry Magazine - July/August 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Magazine - July/August 2019