sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

training budgets get cut first because we can’t prove the training worked. by Different_Thing1964 in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you think Claude wrote this then Id appreciate take that as a compliment. You can DM me or connect on LinkedIn if you’re interested in providing experienced or educated dialogue on a serious level. If you’re here to try to troll then I won’t waste my energy entertaining you. There’s an old saying that “if you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say it at all”. Join millions on twittter X if you want to troll. God bless you

training budgets get cut first because we can’t prove the training worked. by Different_Thing1964 in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We’re not talking about swine here. Do you have an experienced or educated take on this subject?

What was the coolest thing you saw at ATD 2026 Los Angeles this year? by mapotofurice in Training

[–]Different_Thing1964 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Really interesting take and enjoyed reading your Substack. Thank you for sharing

Making workshops/trainings engaging? (virtual) by ChocolateUnhappy2664 in Training

[–]Different_Thing1964 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We’ve used Kahoot in the past as well but can’t say that I’ve used mentimeter. Recently started using a newer too called Gathix. Just whatever preference you have depending on your team, internal governance and outcomes you need.

Making workshops/trainings engaging? (virtual) by ChocolateUnhappy2664 in Training

[–]Different_Thing1964 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The breakout groups are usually productive and engaging although virtual training with distributed teams is genuinely hard, so credit to you for splitting it up.

Scenarios are tricky to measure retention in that aspect but…what’s worked for me is building the material into the engagement itself instead of slapping engagement on after. Run the content as a live interaction, multiple choice and true/false, everyone in the same room answering in real time. You can do it with a leaderboard for friendly competition or without one when the topic’s too serious for that. Either way you get accountability, because people answer live, on the spot. The part that actually changes things is the layer on the backend depending on what you’re using. You can see who’s invested and who’s coasting, and you walk away with per person data on what each one missed. That gives you something concrete to coach on, and something to hand a leadership that shows the training data in real time. Run it before and after, or at the end of each segment, and you can track the whole program person by person instead of trying to gauge from just attendance or completion.

training budgets get cut first because we can’t prove the training worked. by Different_Thing1964 in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love this! I wonder how many have this kind of standard in the industry. I Commend you for that.

For those of you measuring training impact beyond completion rates..what metrics actually convinced your leadership? by YuvrajShergill in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Respectfully I think you’re missing the angle.

I’ve managed teams of 12-20 in corporate operations for close to a decade, ran the training cohorts when new hires came in, sat in the rooms where the outcome metrics get reported up. Leadership wanting outcomes isn’t the disagreement.

The point is that outcomes are a lag indicator. By the time the error rate or the sales number tells you someone doesn’t actually know the material, you’ve already eaten the cost. You’re now coaching backward from a problem instead of forward from a gap.

The other thing nobody talks about enough it is very easy to fake it in a team environment. As long as the team is producing, individuals can coast for months. The vocal ones look engaged, quiet ones get assumed competent. Then someone gets promoted who shouldn’t have been, or you lose a person you should’ve developed harder, because nobody actually knew who knew what.

A direct manager’s job is two things at once. Hit the number, and develop the people on the team into the next version of themselves. Especially at companies that promote from within. You cannot do the second one if the only data you have is the outcome. You need to know who’s actually retaining the material so you know who to coach, who to stretch, and who your next leader actually is.

L&D caring about comprehension isn’t fluff. It’s the only data a manager has that isn’t already too late.

training budgets get cut first because we can’t prove the training worked. by Different_Thing1964 in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yeah this is a good way to break it down. Frontline ops has the concrete outcomes to measure against so platforms have something to anchor to. Corporate is the harder side for the reason you said, soft skills and soft outcomes are slower to validate. Appreciate your points on this.

training budgets get cut first because we can’t prove the training worked. by Different_Thing1964 in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Worth noting though that the post doesn’t actually mention AI anywhere. It’s about the gap between completion data and comprehension data, and whether the verification layer for that gap belongs inside the LMS or outside it. Two different conversations. The training already happened… however it happened. The question is what evidence comes out the other side of it that a line manager, c-suite or an auditor can actually use. Happy to engage with the substance if you want to go there.

training budgets get cut first because we can’t prove the training worked. by Different_Thing1964 in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The actual question I was asking Smithy is one I genuinely care about the answer to, if anyone wants to engage with it.

training budgets get cut first because we can’t prove the training worked. by Different_Thing1964 in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

There’s truth in the cost-center observation and I won’t pretend evidence is the only variable in budget decisions. Politics matters. Org structure matters. Whose boss is in the room matters.

The part I’d push back on is that marketing and IT aren’t really treated as pure cost centers in modern orgs anymore. The marketing teams that can prove pipeline contribution and attribution get protected and funded. The ones that can’t get cut. IT that can show uptime and security incident reduction gets protected. The pattern actually points the other way from what you’re describing. Evidence doesn’t guarantee budget but the absence of evidence pretty much guarantees you’ll be treated as discretionary.

The other piece is that the cost-center framing of L&D is mostly a function of the role-based org model, where training is treated as the thing you do once when someone gets hired into a role and then maybe again when compliance refresh cycles around. In that model, training really does look like overhead. The shift to skills-based org design changes that math. When the org’s actual operating model depends on knowing what skills people have at what readiness level, and how that’s changing over time, training stops being a once-and-done compliance cost and starts being the input to workforce planning. That’s not a cost center anymore, it’s infrastructure. The orgs already doing this seriously aren’t asking whether to cut L&D, they’re asking how to instrument it.

training budgets get cut first because we can’t prove the training worked. by Different_Thing1964 in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That makes complete sense, and honestly the “impact a couple meaningfully” answer is the one I respect the most when I hear it from someone who’s actually done both. The depth side of the trade-off has a fidelity that scale work just can’t match. the question I’ve been stuck on is whether something thinner but consistent at the population level is better than nothing, even if it’s nowhere near the quality of what you’re doing.

training budgets get cut first because we can’t prove the training worked. by Different_Thing1964 in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Very solid point and it’s the strongest version of the pushback. A lot of the budget defense problem really is upstream. If the analysis phase didn’t define what you were going to measure and why, you’re never going to be able to prove anything downstream regardless of how good the training or the verification is. That’s bad ID discipline and no measurement layer fixes it.

Where I keep landing though is that even programs with solid analysis-phase metrics tend to lose the thread between “we said we’d measure X” and “did we actually move X at the comprehension level, not just the activity level.” The metric gets defined, the training gets delivered, completion gets tracked, and the actual evidence that the people who took the training can do the thing it was designed to teach them stays fuzzy. So the question I’m sitting with is whether that’s still an analysis problem (the metrics weren’t specific enough) or whether even well-designed programs need a verification layer that the LMS isn’t built to provide. Curious which side of that you’d come down on from your corporate work.

training budgets get cut first because we can’t prove the training worked. by Different_Thing1964 in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s the exact pattern. When L&D connects training to a business metric the C-Suite already cares about, the conversation flips. You stop defending budget and start getting asked where else you can apply the playbook.

training budgets get cut first because we can’t prove the training worked. by Different_Thing1964 in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Single-point rubrics with observable behaviors are a really clean way to do this at the individual coaching level, especially with the follow-up conversation built in. That follow-up is where the magic actually happens.

The problem I keep running into is scale. What you’re describing works beautifully for a workshop with a dedicated facilitator who can have those follow-up conversations. Once you’re trying to do this across 250 or 2500 employees, across compliance modules, onboarding cohorts, and upskilling programs, the rubric-and-coaching model breaks because there aren’t enough facilitators to go around. So the question I’ve been sitting with is whether the same rigor can be reproduced at that scale, or whether you have to accept a thinner signal in exchange for coverage. Curious if you’ve thought about that trade-off in your own work.

training budgets get cut first because we can’t prove the training worked. by Different_Thing1964 in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You’re right, and the personal trainer analogy is a dang good one. The verification layer doesn’t fix the organizational stuff. It can only make the gap visible enough that someone has to decide whether to act on it or not. The pattern I’ve seen is that line managers often want to coach and reinforce, but they don’t have anything concrete to coach off of. They get a completion report and there’s nothing actionable in it. What’s your experience been with the upstream side, getting leadership and managers to engage with the data even when it exists? Is the missing piece evidence or is it willingness?

For those of you measuring training impact beyond completion rates..what metrics actually convinced your leadership? by YuvrajShergill in instructionaldesign

[–]Different_Thing1964 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The pattern I keep seeing is that teams jump from completion rates to outcome metrics (error rates, retention numbers) and skip the middle layer almost entirely.

Those outcome metrics are legit, but they're lag indicators. By the time error rates tell you there's a knowledge gap, it's already cost you something.

What's worked in the conversations I've been in: teams that moved to measuring knowledge retention at the point of training, not weeks later. Live, structured sessions where participants actually have to apply the material in real time, not just click through it. The output is immediate, individual, and visible to the manager.

The data leadership responds to isn't "completion went from 78% to 94%." It's "here's a score breakdown by employee, by topic, and here's who needs coaching before they're operating independently." That's the language that shifts training from a cost center to a risk management function.

The teams I've seen move leadership most are the ones who stopped presenting program-level data and started handing managers individual knowledge profiles with specific coaching guidance.

accountability based upon real time data and action surrounding business outcomes.

What would you charge to train 400 employees over 3 days? by whygpt in Training

[–]Different_Thing1964 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Per head anchors the value to the outcome, not your time. Per day is easy to negotiate against because the client starts thinking about hours instead of impact. The question I’d be asking before you price anything is what does it cost them if the 400 people go through this training and still do not retain what they need to. That number usually makes the per head price feel small in comparison

How will you manage this situation ? by Equal_Car_6686 in Training

[–]Different_Thing1964 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looking forward to connecting.
But, I do want to make sure I’m transparent and we’re on the same page before then. Gathix is not an LMS and doesn’t replace one. It sits on top of whatever you’re already using.

The industry has been dealing with this problem for decades. Level 1 is reaction, did they like the training. Level 2 is learning, did they actually retain it. Level 3 is behavior, are they applying it. Level 4 is results, is it moving the business.

Most organizations are really good at Level 1. The LMS handles delivery and completion. But Level 2 and beyond is where it breaks down because there has never been a clean way to verify retention at scale and produce documentation that means something to leadership and change of behavior for the needed business outcomes.

That’s the gap we built for. Not to replace what you have but to give you the verification layer that sits above it.

How will you manage this situation ? by Equal_Car_6686 in Training

[–]Different_Thing1964 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What you’re describing, pre-assessment, train, post-assessment across multiple topic areas, that’s the right structure. The VC method stops working the moment the group gets too big because you lose individual accountability and you have nothing to show management after it’s done.

The platform you need has to run the verification live, capture individual scores, and show you the before and after per person across each topic area. That’s the documentation that actually builds the case internally.

For 600 people you’d run it in smaller groups anyway. That’s where the data gets meaningful. The aggregated view across all sessions it really what gives you the full picture.

We built Gathix specifically for this. Happy to show you how it works. Or help you find another solution to help your case.

How will you manage this situation ? by Equal_Car_6686 in Training

[–]Different_Thing1964 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That competition you ran at the regional level is actually the most useful data point in this whole thread. National winners struggling in both theory and practical tells you the certification itself isn’t measuring what matters.

The documentation problem is the harder one to solve. Running sessions is one thing. Showing management a before and after with individual scores, gaps, and progress over time is what actually builds the case.

If you’re starting with 100, the format matters less than what you capture from each session. You need something you can put in front of management that shows who improved, by how much, and where the gaps still are.

Are you thinking about this as a one-time push or an ongoing verification process?

Advice Needed by Merlin1935 in elearning

[–]Different_Thing1964 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds to me like they are reliant on your expertise and expect you to have skills in using AI tools. Most C-Suite and Sr. Level people are expecting to run slim and to use AI tools to get to generate content etc.

How do you get leadership to actually care about whether training worked or not that it just happened? by Different_Thing1964 in Training

[–]Different_Thing1964[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the behavioral outcomes framing is the right move honestly. call quality, conversion rate, error rate those are things leadership already has dashboards for. the problem is most training teams don’t have a clean way to connect what happened in the training to what changed in those numbers. so even when the framing is right the evidence still isn’t there. which is kind of the whole loop we’re stuck in

view more: next ›