Asking many questions before selecting or designing a training program can help determine whether training is the right solution for a performance problem or whether there is an underlying, nontraining issue that needs to be addressed, says Dave Basarab, a training and evaluation expert and author of Predictive Evaluation (www.davebasarab.com).
“Separate what training can provide from other issues,” he suggests. For example, perhaps work processes or procedures are not clearly defined. If that is the case, training alone probably will not solve the problem; processes need to be defined first, he says.
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Or, it may be that employees lack the proper tools, or that the work culture issue is preventing employees from transferring what they learned in previous training, Basarab explains. “Culture trumps training every time.”
Diagnosing the specific issue will help trainers decide whether training can solve the problem and, if so, what the main goal of training should be. Identifying training goals in advance helps ensure success because trainers can hone in on the right training solution, Basarab says.
“The big advantage is that you are going to increase the likelihood that training is the solution that is going to become transferable, impact business results, and result in some value.”
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Of course, it may be difficult to tell an executive, “I don’t think you have a training issue here or solely a training issue,” Basarab says, especially because some executives might not want to look at underlying issues, or they might get upset that their judgment is being questioned. Plus, it is more work for the trainer to search for underlying problems. However, training will not solve performance problems if other barriers exist, he emphasizes.
Asking questions is fundamental to Basarab’s predictive evaluation methodology in that questions help trainers identify clear training goals, identify adaptive behaviors that a company hopes to see after training, and determine whether a specific training program is worth pursuing.