While it is obvious that the end result of training is to lead to a particular business outcome, seldom to companies spend time ascertaining this need. This is because organizations find it difficult to articulate what they really want. After all, their real need goes beyond training. And training is a just a means of getting there.
Here are a few questions that will help you to effectively define the business outcomes for training.
- What is your most vital source of revenue?
- What are the core elements of your business strategy?
- Who are your main competitors?
- What are the biggest business challenges you are currently facing?
- What are the biggest workforce-related challenges you are currently facing?
By answering these questions, you will get a fair idea as to what is it that you are trying to accomplish through training. A well-defined business outcome will also aid the process of visual thinking, that in turn, will help you and your stakeholders to choose the appropriate training partner and build an effective learning strategy for your team.
Learning isn’t the solution that training provides, improved performance that facilitates the achievement of a specific business outcome is the real objective of training. To achieve this, as an organization you must aim to deliver improved performance instead of merely conducting a training program that delivers a learning experience. By doing so, you will create an ecosystem of learning that will in turn facilitate the achievement of your business outcome. Since the post-training environment strictly belongs to the organization itself, companies possess the power to be either the solution or the roadblock on their own path to success. By defining the business outcome and aligning training to specific needs will enable you to bring effective changes to your business processes and work environment to optimize the impact of learning.
As a corporate training company, we at Challenging Horizons help our clients to define what they are trying to accomplish and provide suggestions on the appropriate delivery method that will facilitate in achieving their objective.
