Last night I was the panel moderator at an event hosted by the ASTD Rocky Mountain chapter in Denver. The event was titled: Training and ROI: The Inside Story The two key questions addressed were: 1. How do you link training results to business initiatives? 2. How do you successfully measure ROI? The four panelist provided interesting case studies from their personal experience. And they certainly had a diverse background and work in very different environment. The evening proved once again that ROI is elusive. It is complex. It means something different to each person. In this posting I will highlight one of the panelists. Deborah Wiest is the Senior Director of Training at DirecTV. Her presentation was titled: "Begin with End in Mind - Linking Training to Business Results". Deborah shared a specific example where her company was struggling with call center inefficiency. So, the training team analyzed the situation and got management agreement on a key solution: increase first call resolution. With the business result clearly defined and agreed upon, the team determined several "contributing factors" to the result. Then each contributing factor was analyzed to see what particular knowledge was needed to impact that factor, and thus, affect the business result. The process was not simple and certainly not easy. Here are some of the team's actions:

• Gather current state pre-intervention data such as call transfer patterns, number of transfers, etc.
• Determine transfer reduction opportunities
• Create/deliver performance-based skills training and support content targeted to the transfer reduction opportunities
• Monitor and track performance results (post-intervention data)
• Evaluate and communicate performance results
• Identify cost savings and other benefits via a scorecard
• Modify and refresh training based on the results and ongoing metrics

  But Deborah states that more important than the actual steps to the process were the relationships. She deliberately and systematically went to all the managers and supervisors in the call center organization and made friends. She needed to understand each stakeholder's personal needs and get their buy-in to this project. So, as much as we hate to think of training people degrading themselves like salespersons, that's essentially what allowed Deborah to achieve a significant ROI for her company. Deborah granted me permission to publish a summary of her presentation. I have asked her if she would like to join our community. Perhaps she can shed more light on her ROI experiences. And maybe I can get some actual ROI cost savings from her. There were other true stories she shared with the audience that I haven't recounted. I will post more about the other panelists and their ROI presentations as I receive permission. The gold nuggets from Deborah's experience:

  1. Be a salesperson, make friends, get stakeholder buy-in
  2. Clearly identify the business result (desired outcome)
  3. Find what knowledge factors impact the outcome
  4. Build training for those factors

     Sounds easy doesn't it?