Measurement Demystified

Your Groundbreaking Framework for Measurement and Reporting Most people find measurement, analytics, and reporting daunting—and L&D professionals are no different. As these practices have become critically important for organizations’ efforts to improve performance, talent development professionals have often been slow to embrace them for many reasons, including the seeming complexity and challenge of the practices. Few organizations have a well-thought-out measurement and reporting strategy, and there are often scant resources, limited time, and imperfect data to work with when organizations do attempt to create one. Measurement Demystified: Creating Your L&D Measurement, Analytics, and Reporting Strategy is a much-needed and welcomed resource that breaks new ground with a framework to simplify the discussion of measurement, analytics, and reporting as it relates to L&D and talent development practitioners. This book helps practitioners select and use the right measures for the right reasons; select, create, and use the right types of reports; and create a comprehensive measurement and reporting strategy. Recognizing the angst and reluctance people often show in these areas, authors and experts David Vance and Peggy Parskey break down the practices and processes by providing a common language and an easy-to-use structure. They describe five types of reports, four broad reasons to measure, and three categories of measures. Their method works for large and small organizations, even if yours is an L&D staff of one or two. The guidance remains the same: Start small and grow. Measurement Demystified is a great first book for talent development professionals with no prior knowledge of or experience with measurement and a valuable resource for measurement experts. Those adept at lower levels of training evaluation will grow their knowledge base and capabilities, while measurement experts will discover shortcuts and nuggets of information to enhance their practices. A more comprehensive treatment of these important topics will not be found elsewhere.

The Bridge to Your L&D Measurement and Reporting Strategy Building measurement skills is critical for talent development professionals who seek to align their L&D programs to business outcomes for organizational success. Designed to improve your measurement capability and advance the measurement maturity of your organization, the Measurement Demystified Field Guide presents a refresher on the talent development reporting principles framework and measurement strategy. While the Field Guide serves as a standalone volume, it is also a companion to the authors’ first book, Measurement Demystified. In an easy-to-use workbook style, the Field Guide provides nearly 100 skill-building exercises of varying types to help you uncover what measurement work your organization is doing; assess organizational maturity and gaps; understand how to apply specific concepts; and determine what’s right for your organization moving forward. It also offers interview questions to better understand users’ wants and needs; case study exercises to test your knowledge gaps; and reflection questions that focus on your deepening knowledge and skill. You can write your answers in the book or use the resource on ATD’s website. Achieving measurement maturity is a change effort requiring commitment and discipline. Understanding your current capabilities and gaps is an essential first step followed by determining where your organization wants to go in this area. Once both are achieved, you will be able to develop your desired measurement and reporting strategy—the bridge between where you are today and where you aspire to be. The Measurement Demystified Field Guide is that bridge.

Your Groundbreaking Framework for Measurement and Reporting Most people find measurement, analytics, and reporting daunting--and L&D professionals are no different. As these practices have become critically important for organizations' efforts to improve performance, talent development professionals have often been slow to embrace them for many reasons, including the seeming complexity and challenge of the practices. Few organizations have a well-thought-out measurement and reporting strategy, and there are often scant resources, limited time, and imperfect data to work with when organizations do attempt to create one. Measurement Demystified: Creating Your L&D Measurement, Analytics, and Reporting Strategy is a much-needed and welcomed resource that breaks new ground with a framework to simplify the discussion of measurement, analytics, and reporting as it relates to L&D and talent development practitioners. This book helps practitioners select and use the right measures for the right reasons; select, create, and use the right types of reports; and create a comprehensive measurement and reporting strategy. Recognizing the angst and reluctance people often show in these areas, authors and experts David Vance and Peggy Parskey break down the practices and processes by providing a common language and an easy-to-use structure. They describe five types of reports, four broad reasons to measure, and three categories of measures. Their method works for large and small organizations, even if yours is an L&D staff of one or two. The guidance remains the same: Start small and grow. Measurement Demystified is a great first book for talent development professionals with no prior knowledge of or experience with measurement and a valuable resource for measurement experts. Those adept at lower levels of training evaluation will grow their knowledge base and capabilities, while measurement experts will discover shortcuts and nuggets of information to enhance their practices. A more comprehensive treatment of these important topics will not be found elsewhere.

Start, Build, and Navigate Your Training and TD Career ATD’s Handbook for Training and Talent Development is the premier resource and compendium of everything a training and talent development (TD) professional needs to know to start, build, and navigate a thriving career. Now in its third edition and grounded by the Talent Development Capability Model, this is more than a revised volume. This edition offers an up-to-date view of the growing roles of talent development professionals, our changing world of work, and the critical need for business alignment. Edited by Elaine Biech, the third edition is divided into eight sections comprising 57 chapters authored by 100 expert practitioners—the brightest thinkers in the field—who share foundational and advanced perspectives and information. The Handbook dives deeply into growing professional expertise and personal skills, virtual learning and remote work, trends affecting TD, managing organizational and career change, growing roles in TD, and understanding organizational impact and business alignment. Fifty online tools are available to download, and there is also a glossary and references. TD professionals, keep this practical, companionable volume close by; it’s the reference you will always turn to.

You'll learn from this compelling book, coauthored by Marc and veteran journalist Karen Southwick, how important philanthropy is and what kind of positive messages it sends to your employees and to outside stakeholders. You'll discover how some of the best practitioners of good community service - among them IBM, Timberland, Hewlett-Packard, Lens Crafters, Wells Fargo, and many others - have put their ideals into practice. The examples of salesforce.com and smaller companies included in the book will demonstrate that giving back is not a matter of size nor of longevity, but of early and sustained commitment. That commitment must come from the executives of the company, particularly the CEO, and extend down to the newest employee. It must be reinforced at company meetings and integrated within the corporation. I'll put it bluntly: We want to get companies that don't give to start giving. People can't take it with them. Salesforce.com is a wonderful model, because, starting at the top, Marc has the passion. If you have passion and let your people become involved, the sky's the limit on what the company can do.

Develop a Quality Management System to Support Learner and Organizational Goals Quality management is collectively all the activities and processes that ensure your learning products meet the standard your organization is committed to. All errors have consequences that compromise that standard. Organizational outcomes are compromised if learners can’t complete e-learning courses due to navigation errors like broken hyperlinks or slides with buttons leading nowhere. Stakeholders and subject matter experts are embarrassed when learners walk away confused and with no clue how the content helps them with their job. Some learners are excluded from the experience entirely if accessibility measures aren’t in place. And so on. In Quality Management in Learning and Development, you will learn to mitigate negative consequences. Go beyond checklists for correcting typos and incorrect branding, and instead consider the bigger picture. Define your organizational standard for quality, and learn how to create your own quality management system to support it. Explore how ultimately everyone is responsible for quality, and implement guidelines and policies that keep people accountable. Make sure everyone has the tools, templates, and support they need to support the standard’s guidelines. This book equips you with resources and insights from the field that are ready for you to adapt to your own organization. For instructional designers and managers of the learning function, and even for the resource-strapped department of one, this book can help you step off the hamster wheel of fretful last-minute checks and re-work. Instead step into a proactive process that facilitates quality and results. Rather than agonizing over a broken hyperlink in an already-launched presentation when you’ve moved onto the next urgent project, feel confident in the quality management system that helps you and your stakeholders produce successful content from the outset.

Add Data and Analytics to Your TD Toolkit Instructional design pro Megan Torrance addresses the importance of instructional designers accessing and applying learning and performance data—from how to design learning experiences with data collection in mind to how to use the data to improve and evaluate those experiences. With the advance of new learning technologies and data specifications, instructional designers have access to more and richer data sources than ever before. With that comes the question of what to do with the data. While most data and analytics books focus on their application for measurement and evaluation and assume a prior baseline understanding of what learning data and analytics mean, Data and Analytics for Instructional Designers delves into the foundational concepts that will enable instructional designers and L&D professionals to use data in their roles. Split into two parts, the book first defines key data and analytics terms, data specifications, learning metrics, and statistical concepts. It then lays out a framework for using learning data for planning how to gather data and to building scale and maturity in your data operations. Megan reassures readers that basic math skills with some computer assistance is what you’ll need to get going. So set aside any math anxiety! Through a “If I can see it, I can be it” approach to learning data and analytics, the book blends practical what-is and how-to content with real-world examples and longer case studies from practitioners. Chapters conclude with opportunities for you to put these techniques to work right away, whether you are in a data-rich environment already, or whether you are just getting started and working on hypotheticals.