How can we make training more efficient and reduce waste? The goal of most training is to give people improved skills to help them do their work in a better way. Training people in skills they don’t need, or can’t implement is one way of defining waste.
At ITD we have been exploring pre-evaluation as a way of learning how to predict potential waste using this definition. Many organisations train by role, that is, if you’re a manager you get to do this training.
We’ve sent out pre-evaluation questionnaires on a number of courses and then followed up with post evaluation questionnaires at the close of training. The initial results are proving interesting on a number of counts. Firstly we could predict which of the participants are likely to implement most ideas from the training attended and it seems to be pretty accurate so far. Secondly we can take action with those where implementation is struggling following the training. The system gives us clear ideas on who and what to follow up on. It is early days with this technique but it is producing interesting results.