Start with the End in Mind
When you begin a training project, you may be thinking about the organization's priorities that are driving the project. You may be thinking about the content you need to cover. You may be thinking about the moving pieces of implementation, or the technology the training will require. You may be thinking about any number of things - and these aren't bad things - but here's one thing I recommend.
Start with the End in Mind
How will you know when you're successful?
I love to ask this question at the beginning of a project.
It helps us start with the end in mind.
And it helps us visualize the future we want to have.
It's amazing to paint that picture of success and even better to assess whether you've achieved your vision.
So how do we assess whether we’ve achieved success?
We gather informal and formal feedback.
Gather Informal Feedback
You can assess whether you've achieved your vision through informal reflection - an amazingly helpful activity when done with intentionality.
How do we do this intentionally?
Think about who you want to gather feedback from. Examples:
Project team
Training participants
Trainers
Think about how you’ll gather their feedback. Examples:
A live debrief after the training ends
Chart paper and sticky notes during the session
Audio or video summaries
Marked up training materials
Customize your questions so you are gathering the information you need to determine whether you achieved your vision for success. Examples:
If your measure of success was that more people are using a specific tool, ask your audience how likely they are to use the tool after the training. Note: You can track actual usage later to compare!
If your measure of success was that supervisors felt confident guiding their staff during an organizational change, ask your audience how confident they feel. Note: You can do a pre-/post- assessment for formal data later!
What might this look like in action?
You can bring the project team together and ask them how things went, what they learned from the experience, and what they would have liked to be different.
You can display chart paper and ask training participants to leave sticky notes of their feedback on the wall (even virtually!).
You can ask trainers to record their thoughts on a Zoom call.
Create a Formal Evaluation
Informal feedback is helpful, but it’s really a “yes, and” situation. Informal feedback is great when accompanied by formal feedback.
What does that look like for training?
A formal evaluation is a great way to gather reactions to the training, to assess knowledge transfer, to determine if behavior change occurred, and perhaps even to see how the organization was impacted.
Watch this video to learn more about formal evaluation:
Key Takeaways
When assessing a training, it's important to start the project with the end in mind - painting a picture of success. Then, you can create the formal and informal feedback loops you need to determine if you've achieved your vision.
How are you assessing your training?