DoceboInspire: Connect Learning With Performance

• 4 min read

DoceboInspire 2019, Docebo’s annual conference featuring top learning industry experts and technology theorists, is just around the corner.

From September 16-18 in Atlanta, Georgia, guests will gather to share their future-forward insights and learn from the top minds in the industry. This year, guest speakers will discuss how we can define technology through a human lens and what this means for future e-learning advances.

David Wentworth, Principal Analyst for Brand Hall Group, offers us a sneak peak into what audiences can expect from his interactive workshop on Techniques for Evaluating Training Program Success at this year’s DoceboInspire conference. This workshop is designed to present a framework for connecting learning to performance, to better equip companies to measure success.

 

Can you give us a high-level overview of what your framework looks like?

Our learning performance convergence framework is essentially a way to think about learning by starting with outcomes.

Too often when we talk to organizations, measurements come once they’ve finished rolling out the learning. This framework helps organizations think through their learning programs, starting with what they want the outcomes to be.

We suggest to start with something big and work backwards from there. Ask things like, “what are the business outcomes we’re after?” and “what are the performance outcomes from the individuals that feed into those business outcomes?”

You can then look at the learning outcomes, the things that people will know more about, or do differently, do better, do faster – things that feed into those performance outcomes. Once you understand what those learning outcomes should be and how they’re connected to the ultimate goal, it becomes easier to put together a learning program that makes sense for your business.

It’s also important to see that you are actually achieving your learning outcomes. This way, if the learning outcomes aren’t being achieved, you can stop right there. You don’t have to wait and see if your business outcomes are being achieved because, if you’re not achieving the learning outcomes that are connected to those, you’ll never get there.

 

What are some interesting findings from Brandon Hall Group’s research?

One of the biggest things we found is that high performance companies are far more likely to use outcomes like individual performance, time to productivity, employee engagement, revenue, profitability etc. as measurements for the their learning effectiveness than companies that are not high performance.

This was across the board. Lower performing companies were far less likely to use these outcomes and measurements of learning.

 

What should learning professionals consider with their teams before attending your session?

I think that people need to take a look at measurement in their own organizations and see what things they measure when it comes to learning.

How are they determining whether or not their learning is effective? And be honest with how you’re taking measurements, because we tend to see a lot of organizations are focused on things like completions and smile sheets.

We’d like to get a sense of the other ways that organizations are measuring their learning, so it would be helpful to give some real thought into that, and to bring some of the challenges that they’ve tried to solve with learning. We can then try to think about those things in the context of the framework.

We may also be having some interactive polling, so please come prepared to engage with that. Be open to asking questions and discussing with me and one another about some of the challenges you’re facing.

 

What can attendees expect to take away from your workshop?

A saying that we have at Brandon Hall Group is that “the outcome of learning is performance, not learning.”

A lot of organizations do learning for learning’s sake. We’ve been told that there’s a need for training within the organization and we’ve delivered on that. We feel as though we’ve accomplished our job once the learning program is created.

We need to start to think of learning in a broader sense. We need to think of it in terms of behaviors and performance, rather than simply trying to check some boxes on whether or not we finished the learning objective.

 

What is your take on this year’s DoceboInspire theme of ‘Defining Technology Through a Human Lens’?

The topic is very critical, especially given that there’s a lot of noise in the technology space right now.

People are really trying to wrap their heads around what things such as artificial intelligence mean for them and their organization. Without that human lens, some of the new technologies can even be looked at fearfully, like, “how is this going to affect my job and what I do?”

Ultimately, the purpose of any technology is to create a better experience and a better outcome for the people who work in the organization. Really thinking about what our technology choices mean for the people in our organization is critical, as opposed to looking at them as simply business process improvement or cost cutting or efficiency. Putting that human lens on the technology is going to deliver much better long-term results.

Join David and other industry leaders in the heart of Atlanta from September 16-18 for DoceboInspire 2019. Check out the full agenda here. Learn from the top minds in the industry and share future-forward insights.