Measurement Demystified: Creating Your L&D Measurement, Analytics, and Reporting Strategy

Most people find measurement, analytics, and reporting daunting―and L&D professionals are no different. As these practices have become critically important for organizations' efforts to improve performance, talent development professionals have often been slow to embrace them for many reasons, including the seeming complexity and challenge of the practices. Few organizations have a well-thought-out measurement and reporting strategy, and there are often scant resources, limited time, and imperfect data to work with when organizations do attempt to create one.

Measurement Demystified: Creating Your L&D Measurement, Analytics, and Reporting Strategy is a much-needed and welcomed resource that breaks new ground with a framework to simplify the discussion of measurement, analytics, and reporting as it relates to L&D and talent development practitioners. This book helps practitioners select and use the right measures for the right reasons; select, create, and use the right types of reports; and create a comprehensive measurement and reporting strategy.

Recognizing the angst and reluctance people often show in these areas, authors and experts David Vance and Peggy Parskey break down the practices and processes by providing a common language and an easy-to-use structure. They describe five types of reports, four broad reasons to measure, and three categories of measures. Their method works for large and small organizations, even if yours is an L&D staff of one or two. The guidance remains the same: Start small and grow.

Measurement Demystified is a great first book for talent development professionals with no prior knowledge of or experience with measurement and a valuable resource for measurement experts. Those adept at lower levels of training evaluation will grow their knowledge base and capabilities, while measurement experts will discover shortcuts and nuggets of information to enhance their practices. A more comprehensive treatment of these important topics will not be found elsewhere.

About the Authors

David Vance is the executive director of the Center for Talent Reporting. He is the former president of Caterpillar University, which he founded in 2001, until his retirement in 2007. Prior to this position, Dave was chief economist and head of the Business Intelligence Group at Caterpillar Inc. Dave received a bachelor of science degree from M.I.T., a master of science degree in business administration from Indiana University (South Bend), and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Notre Dame. He was named 2006 Chief Learning Officer (CLO) of the Year by Chief Learning Officer magazine. He also was named 2004 Corporate University Leader of the Year by the International Quality and Productivity Center in their annual CUBIC (Corporate University Best in Class) Awards. Caterpillar was ranked number one in the 2005 ASTD Best Awards and was named Best Overall Corporate University in 2004 by both Corporate University Xchange and the International Quality and Productivity Center. Dave is a frequent speaker at learning conferences and association meetings. He conducts workshops on measurement and reporting and running learning like a business. He also organizes and hosts the Center for Talent Reporting's annual conference. Dave teaches in the Ph.D. programs of Bellevue University and the University of Southern Mississippi as well as in the executive education program at George Mason University. He is the author of The Business of Learning: How to Manage Corporate Training to Improve Your Bottom Line.

Peggy Parskey is the executive director of the Center for Talent Reporting. Peggy owns her own consulting firm, Parskey Consulting, enabling her clients to successfully implement strategic change initiatives that improve organizational and individual performance. Peggy has a deep background in performance measurement and leverages her expertise in management of change and organizational design to ensure sustainable capability. Peggy is certified in management of change methodologies both at the organizational and individual performer levels. She holds a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Simmons College and two master's degrees from the University of Chicago in statistics and business administration. Peggy is also a part-time principal consultant at Explorance. In this role, Peggy consults with organizations to develop talent measurement strategies, integrate measurement into talent processes, develop action-oriented reports, scorecards and dashboard for clients, and conduct impact studies to demonstrate the linkage between talent programs and business outcomes. Prior to working with the Center for Talent Reporting and Explorance, Peggy was employed at Hewlett-Packard, where she was responsible for global learning processes focused on creating best-in-class learning methodologies as well as enterprise wide evaluation for the L&D function. She has published several articles on measurement, chapters in two books, and is the co-author of the second edition of Learning Analytics, Using Talent Data to Improve Business Outcomes.