This is a tribute to Dr. Don Kirkpatrick who passed away on 9 May 2014 at the age of 90. He had served, most of his active working life, as a Professor at University of Wisconsin Madison. A thought leader and a pioneer in the field of training he conceptualized a model of training management and the framework which stays relevant even after more than six decades since it was first made known to the managerial profession.
Every HR professional would have come across this term called "Kirkpatrick's 4 Level of Training Effectiveness" sometime in their careers and many would have used it to delve into aspects of whether the lessons from learning interventions were taken back to the workplace and used in the context for which it was meant. Kirkpatrick model of measuring learning effectiveness at four levels. Put a trained person or a changed person (in our case) into the same context and the chances are there is a reversible reaction and he or she goes back to the old ways. Therefore learning becomes ineffective. So the model of 4 levels of learning evaluation goes into looking at down stream impact and that was the major shift in assessment of training delivered.
Today the world of work is not longer what it was in the 1950's and a far cry from what it was even in the 1990's. But the relevance of the model still remains. Whether it was class room learning or self learning or group learning techniques the stages model still remains a primary way of looking at application of the learning.
Normally most people associate ROI with Kirkpatrick's model but this was not what he proposed. The concept of ROI came from other proponents and is generally something like water on ducks back for those who are not numerically inclined. Also when the scale of change is large and difficult to measure the concept of ROI beats people to a corner. To overcome this I have used something called the VOI (Value of Investment) concept which is all about what value you expect the change to bring to your organization and as long as you are able to articulate that and check out whether it is bearing fruit you are good on your judgment for the investment. More on this in a later post.
Every HR professional would have come across this term called "Kirkpatrick's 4 Level of Training Effectiveness" sometime in their careers and many would have used it to delve into aspects of whether the lessons from learning interventions were taken back to the workplace and used in the context for which it was meant. Kirkpatrick model of measuring learning effectiveness at four levels. Put a trained person or a changed person (in our case) into the same context and the chances are there is a reversible reaction and he or she goes back to the old ways. Therefore learning becomes ineffective. So the model of 4 levels of learning evaluation goes into looking at down stream impact and that was the major shift in assessment of training delivered.
Normally most people associate ROI with Kirkpatrick's model but this was not what he proposed. The concept of ROI came from other proponents and is generally something like water on ducks back for those who are not numerically inclined. Also when the scale of change is large and difficult to measure the concept of ROI beats people to a corner. To overcome this I have used something called the VOI (Value of Investment) concept which is all about what value you expect the change to bring to your organization and as long as you are able to articulate that and check out whether it is bearing fruit you are good on your judgment for the investment. More on this in a later post.
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