We’re all familiar with the classic questions we need to answer to measure the impact of training – Donald Kirkpatrick laid them out for us in the mid 1970s, and they haven’t changed since then. Level 1: Did the trainees like the training? Level 2: Did the trainees learn what we wanted them to learn? Level 3: Did the trainees put new skills learned to use? Level 4: Did the training have the desired impact on organizational results?

Most organizations have a good grip on measuring at Levels 1 and 2. But evaluating at Levels 3 and 4 is hard, almost impossible, without organizational buy-in, so if your efforts are falling somewhere short of optimal, it may not be (entirely) your fault. But it’s still your job, and you’ll need the infrastructure in place to support it.

We’ve all heard it, and we all know it in our bones; training and development efforts serve the overarching strategic goals of the organization. Resources dedicated to these efforts must produce a return that compares favorably to the return to be obtained from other uses. Yet when we attempt to measure the effectiveness of our efforts, we often act as if the organization ends at the boundaries of our function. We’ve done the training; the trainees learned what we wanted them to learn; we’re effective.