3 Things You Should Know About Training

I enjoy when I have conversations with other business professionals about training, I come up with new ways to illustrate its purpose in a business setting and hopefully paint a clear picture for them on how training can improve performance throughout their organization.  Recently, I was speaking with a business owner about training and explained it to him in the following manner.

We create training to solve specific business problems, usually to fill a performance gap in the learner. Since most training is problem-based, there are three things any professional responsible with creating learning events must know or account for:

1. What are the roles of the target audience? What do they do and what impact does their actions have on the overall organization?
2. What knowledge, skills or a abilities must the learner have to be a top-level performer?
3. What are the expected results of the training, once completed?

The last point is crucial because it is the reason why you are creating training in the first place. The expected results after training must be measurable and observable by anyone who is evaluating the training and its total return on investment. At the very least, if the afore mentioned three points serve as the basis for your training you will have an easier time demonstrating overall value to your stakeholders.

Further Reading

For more information on this topic, please see the following:

• 5 Ways to Ruin Your Training Program
• Defining Training
• What Instructional Design Means to PinPoint Performance Solutions