Many training organizations may think their curriculum is aligned to the company's business needs. Can you confidently say that yours is?
When you look holistically at your curriculum, does it:
- Meet definable and observable performance standards?
- Enable you to determine if learner achievement of the curriculum objectives occurs?
- Allow you to determine if the instructional elements effectively meet the curriculum objectives?
Do you evaluate the effectiveness of your instructional programs along the following criteria:
- The instructional content teaches to the objectives specified
- The time required for instructional programs are appropriately aligned to the student time available
- Instructional materials and resources are easily accessible and contextual to the student's physical and virtual environments
- Appropriate assessment mechanisms are included that provide performance-related remediation
- Performance-related data is tracked and stored
- The instructional activities are evaluated to determine effectiveness
Too often, training organizations become siloed and redundant in their efforts to train the workforce. Consistently measuring the effectiveness of your curriculum and ensuring it's aligned not only to identified business needs, but also to the organization's competencies, will help you provide a measurable and sustainable ROI to the business.
The question is: how do you intend to ensure your curriculum strategy stands up to the test of alignment and effectiveness? Consider these three actions to help you get started:
- Evaluate all curriculum and instructional components annually
- Leverage business intelligence software to gather usage data on your course catalog. Consider deeper analysis on courses and/or programs that are not being used or accessed frequently
- Ensure that all courses fit into a program or curriculum that is tied directly to a business need
- Question the request for training if it can't be easily shown what the desired outcome is or how it is aligned to a business need or goal
- Provide supplemental support services for post-course evaluation
The primary success factor resulting from a well-defined curriculum strategy is performance improvement. By focusing your efforts on an appropriate strategy, you will move one-step closer to demonstrating true ROI to the business and the audiences you support.
