8pm Assessing results

In the past, life’s always been too hectic to do a proper job of training evaluation – at least that’s been our excuse. With an LMS, excuses will no longer be acceptable, because so much of the information we need will be served up on a plate.

How can an LMS help you to evaluate your training? Well, first of all it can measure usage – bums on seats. More importantly, it can measure completions – how many people are actually finishing courses. It can record reactions (you know, the happy sheets) and if your courses include online assessments, it can also provide some measure of the learning that’s been achieved.

Looking to the big picture, an LMS can make it much easier for you to keep a track of costs. And if it incorporates competency management facilities, you can plot how narrow that learning gap is becoming. There’s no guarantee that you’ll like what you discover, but then, as Bill Gates recommends in his book Business @ The Speed of Thought, ‘bad news must travel fast’.