Evaluation – Mavenzeal

Are your training evaluations getting the results you want?

February 24, 2016

by Matthew Mason with No Comment Evaluation

If you don’t measure results, you can’t tell success from failure. Evaluation comes in all shapes and sizes and it can be difficult to know what’s important. Too much evaluation can slow down training implementation and frustrate the participant as the questions are too long, irrelevant to them and have no improvement measures. Asking the wrong questions in evaluation can do more damage than good as you can set up false expectations for the participants. “The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong question” (Peter Drucker). Too little evaluation means you won’t know if the training was valuable or not. While must people start with a happy sheet at the end, the most important feedback you need is about if the participant has learnt anything and how they can implement this learning when necessary. So how does evaluation ensure better outcomes and results?

Saves money, time and effort on training that isn’t working or delivering what you want
Gives you a chance to get it right the next time rather than repeating the same mistakes
Makes replicating what’s working easily and specifically in other training programs
Allows you to set measurements on achievements and results

Participants also need to self-evaluate to understand if they are improving their skills and knowledge. They require feedback to identify the areas where they need to undertake further learning and development. Giving participants ways to self-evaluate provides them with confidence, motivation and information. How do you get the right balance in evaluation?

Make sure you have the right technology to get the data you need easily and quickly
Its not just all about the stats, some of the most powerful evaluation methods include the stories that go with them
Make sure your participants get a chance to see how they are progressing, learning data shouldn’t be kept in a vault never to be seen again
Plan your evaluation strategy before you plan your training including how you are going to follow up with the results
Consider the results you want out of the training

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Who cares if the training is relevant, the lunch is great!

February 10, 2016

by Matthew Mason with No Comment Course Creation Evaluation

Admit it, we have all thought it! But how do you make sure training is relevant, ensuring participants are more interested in what you are saying then what’s on the lunch menu? It’s easy to become so caught up in what we want to say that we can forget that communication is a two way street. “Messages that fail to fascinate will become irrelevant” (Sally Hogshed) One of the biggest challenges in making training relevant is understanding participants’ motivation and what will capture their attention. When training is driven by the ‘need’ of the business, finding out the ‘need’ of the participant and aligning the two can be difficult. When your participants connect to the content, the facilitator and most importantly the overall experience, magic happens and real learning occurs. But what if you haven’t even figured out how the training is relevant to the business need? It’s not uncommon for training programs to become training for training sake. Delivering training just to have a certain compliance tick or meet the latest business trend can result in wasted time and money, with no improvement to the business. Ever heard of the expression you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink? Well the same goes for learning. You can teach as much as you want but if the content is not relevant to the business or the participant then chances of real impact are limited. So how do you make your training relevant and get better outcomes and returns?

Consider relevancy before you even design your training. Not just the content but your delivery method. Ask yourself if training is even the right answer
Ask your participants what they want. Get a sense of what motivates them to learn. The ideas you will get will help you put together a better training strategy
Think about the workplace or situation that the training is being implemented in and make sure it is relevant to that context and not just the objectives you want to teach
Get feedback on the relevancy from previous and current training programs. It might be time for a change
Look at your training from the participant’s point of view. Ask the question if they participant, what is in it for them?