Your Groundbreaking Framework for Measurement and Reporting Most people find measurement, analytics, and reporting dauntingand LD professionals are no different. Measurement Demystified: Creating Your LD 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 LD and talent development practitioners.

Why is that and what can be done to change this thinking?For years, managers convinced executives that soft skills could not be measured and that the value of these programs should be taken on faith. Executives no longer buy that argument but demand the same financial impact and accountability from these functions as they do from all other areas of the organization.In Proving the Value of Soft Skills, measurement and evaluation experts Patti Phillips, Jack Phillips, and Rebecca Ray contend that efforts can and should be made to demonstrate the effect of soft...

Evolving Technology for Human PerformanceATDs 2020 Trends in Learning Technology collects insights about the latest emerging tech and trends that are transforming the talent development profession from top experts. No matter your role in talent development or the makeup of your organization, it is critical to regularly review new technologies and trends and evaluate if and how they fit into your organization.

Turn measurement data into usable insights to prove the talent development function’s impact on the organization.

Despite exponential growth in big data and data analysis technology, talent development executives and organizations still struggle with determining the best process and timing for measuring talent development initiatives. In a data-driven world where CEOs focus on return on investment to justify expenditures, demonstrating the value of talent development investments gives learning leaders pause.

In my last post about feedback, I discussed how research shows that feedback can improve learning. Hattie and Timperley (2007) explain that feedback helps learning most when it deals with three specific learning problems: Now that we know the kind of feedback that most improves learning, lets discuss what research tells us we should include in feedback.

Its not just choosing the right learning and development initiatives that matters its what leaders do before, during, and after the training session that makes the biggest difference. Over the past several years, weve seen a positive trend in companies choosing to invest in learning and development opportunities because there is more competition for top talent.

How to assess the organizational impact of a coaching program.

Launching evaluation programs that help inform improvements in the effectiveness of learning programs and the success of the business as a whole often proves to be a daunting challenge for organizations.

Prove that your learning solutions contribute to business results.

Organizations face increasingly volatile and complex markets. To compete, they need a business strategy that counteracts negative forces and guides individual lines of business toward positive outcomes. The strategy needs to present leaders with guidelines on how to make decisions and allocate resources to accomplish key objectives, as well as define the actions people in the business should take (or not take) and...

The Talent Development Executive Confidence Index (TDXCI), formerly the Learning Executive Confidence Index (LXCI), is a quarterly assessment of talent development executives' short-term expectations for the health of the talent development function in organizations. The questions in the Q1 2016 survey asked about the status of talent development. Talent development executives are less optimistic about...

Tamar Elkeles presented her session Secrets to Building an Award-Winning Learning Organization, on May 22, 2016, at ATD 2016. In this segment, she discusses developing a leadership pipeline and communicating impact.

The Association for Talent Development (ATD) surveyed 199 talent development professionals with knowledge of their organizations learning evaluation efforts. Of those, only 44 percent think their evaluation efforts are helping them reach organizational learning goals.

Leading-edge talent development executives want not only an understanding of what's working (and what isn't) in talent development; they want fact-based guidance on how to target limited resources on the most promising initiatives for driving business results. This is now possible. Here are the key lessons we've learned about how to apply analytics to improve your learning evaluation strategy, and more importantly, to improve your return on learning investments.

After registering a very high 68.0 for both the second and third quarters of 2015, the Learning Executive Confidence Index (LXCI) for the fourth quarter of 2015 dropped nearly four points to 64.3, suggesting that learning leaders' short-term expectations for the health of the learning function are down.

As a talent-led company, Accenture must look to the future of talent development. Rahul Varma leads that charge. "The role of learning at Accenture has always been critical," says Varma. "We are a talent-led organization and we often say that learning is in our DNA. Learning is a part of what we offer to the world." Varma should know. He's been with the company for 20 years in some key HR leadership roles. Talent development touches every aspect of an employee's path through the company...

Leadership matters, and most people acknowledge that leaders affect an organization's value. However, by just observing that a particular leader is visionary or inspiring, by focusing only on the person at the top and ignoring the larger leadership team, or by failing to assess whose leadership capability is woven into the organization's DNA, investors make simplistic and intuitive assessments of value. Enter the leadership capital index—a Moody's or Standard & Poor's (S&P) rating for leadership. A leadership capital index provides investors a way to...

Learning executives remain optimistic about the health of learning, according to the ATD's Learning Executive Confidence Index, which assesses the expectations of learning executives for the learning function in organizations for the next six months. The LXCI score for the third quarter of 2015 is 68 out of 100. This is identical to second-quarter results. This score is just over one point higher than...

From her vantage point atop the learning organization at Comcast Cable, it's easy for Martha Soehren to forget how radically different things were only six years ago. That was before she and her team tapped a hidden wellspring of support from within senior management to help centralize their far-reaching learning operation. Little has remained the same. Today's Comcast University has been reconceived for maximum effectiveness—its 550 learning and development professionals divided among five colleges, one for each business function. Its 5 million hours of annual...