Defining Return On Expectations

This morning I attended a session by Jim Kirkpatrick at the ASTD congress in Denver Co. Jim's father - Donald Kirkpatrick - published a series of articles in the 1950's about the 4 levels of course evaluation.
The four levels of the Kirkpatrick model are

• Level 1 : reaction - to what degree participants react favorably to the learning event
• Level 2 : learning - to what degree participants acquire the intended knowledge, skills and attitudes based on their participation in the learning event
• Level 3 : behavior - to what degree participants apply what they learned during training when they are back on the job
• Level 4 : results - to what degree targeted outcomes occur, as a result of learning event(s) and subsequent reinforcement

Today Jim Kirkpatrick presented the New World Kirkpatrick Model. I would like to share with you my minutes of the session (which was excellent)

Why did I attend this session ? 

I work for many years with the Kirkpatrick model and strongly believe in it. Many organizations stick on level 1 evaluation (measure the quality of a training with a questionnaire at the end - I find this a check on the quality of the sandwiches). If you want to deliver results, you'll have to do better. I hoped Kirkpatrick would give me ideas on how he does this.

ROE versus ROI

When organizations develop training plans they often talk about ROI (Return on Investment). Kirkpatrick pleads for ROE (Return on Expectations). Senior leaders should focus on Return on Expectations, because this leads to a result (what do they want to change in their organization, how should the result look like, ...). This approach leads to lasting results. If they would only talk about Return on Investment, they focus only on money. Will I get the money I invested back out ? This is limited and thus a wrong approach. 

Return on Expectations means "What a successful training initiative delivers to key business stakeholders demonstrating the degree to which their expectations have been satisfied." 

Training should not be an island, isolated from the business. It should be linked or even integrated in the business. So it can meet up the expectations of the business. 

How do we do this ? 

Kirkpatrick discribes 3 steps to get to training effectiveness (which is different from effective trainings)

Step 1 : THE END IS THE BEGINNING

Where do you want to end up ? How should your organization look like after the training ? 

Step 2 : RETURN ON EXPECTATIONS IS THE ULTIMATE INDICATOR OF VALUE

This means that you need to dialogue with senior management to set a clear definition of what they perceive as VALUE. Not something flurry like we want customer oriented, but what do we mean when we talk about being customer oriented. How should this behavior look like ? What does this bring into value for our organization ? 

Step 3 : BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP IS NECESSARY TO BRING ABOUT POSITIVE ROE

Get out of you training & development office. Go to the business! Talk to people in the business ! Involve business people in your training development ! Share data, reporting and accountability !

Step 4 : VALUE MUST BE CREATED BEFORE IT CAN BE DEMONSTRATED
We organize training, but learning should stop there. The training activity is just a first step. We should go out and check what people do with what they learned. How do they apply the acquired skills. Make sure people keep on learning. You give them a backpack, allow them to check out what's in it and let them use the tools in the backpack. This will create value. And ACT, INTERVENE if you notice more support is required or you need to adapt the training initiative to get to the result. (If you get in a traffic jam, despite you used a GPS, then you adapt your route as well)


And this leads to the New World Kirkpatrick Model which is shown below :

My conclusion on this session :
This new model was not that new to me. The strong link to the business is indeed important. And yes, we should have a solid discussion with senior management about the value they want to create after the training. 


Lesson learned :
So next time you develop a training plan for your organization, don't just jump on the job and organize a training, but start a dialogue with senior management, business, other stakeholders, to get the clear picture of the value they want to generate with the training plan and measure these expectations.