Presented by:
Dave Vance
President, Manage Learning LLC
Former president, Caterpillar University
Author, The Business of Learning
To:
ASTD Lincoln Chapter
Southeast Community College Continuing Ed Center
April 21, 2011
 Strategic
and planned proactively
(before the year begins)
 Strategic but planned just in time
 Timely but not necessarily strategic
 Most is not strategic and should have
been planned sooner
2
1.
2.
Appreciate that learning is a business
Resolve to run it like a business
Implies that




Learning should produce measurable results
Must be planned carefully
And executed with discipline
Also, that numbers will be involved!
3
3.
Adopt a strategic focus
4.
Create a board of governors
5.
Create vision and mission statements
6.
Create a multi-year plan to achieve your vision



This will be your journey
Manage expectations
Communicate
4
5
7.
Ensure that your organizational structure will
support a strategic focus

8.
Centralized or hybrid
Adopt a workable funding model

Often will be a combination of corporate, allocation and
discretionary (charge back)
6

Start with the business and strategic plan

Meet with the CEO, senior leaders, key stakeholders
• Understand company goals and challenges
• Learn the priorities
• These are business discussions
7


Perform a “macro” level needs analysis to determine if
learning has a role to play in achieving these goals
Make a preliminary determination of recommended
learning programs and their alignment to the
prioritized company goals
8
#1
Strategic Goal
Increase Sales
#2
Reduce Defects
20%
Design course for engineers
5
2
200
#3
Reduce Injuries
25%
Safety courses for mfg ee's
Safety courses for mgt ee's
5
2
5
1
2,500
600
Swilthe
Mfg
#4
Improve Leadership +5 pts Leadership for supervisors
1
0
180
Wang
Strategy
#5
Increase Retention
5,000
2,500
======
5,000
Driese
HR
Top Five Goals
Metric
Learning Program
10% Consultative selling skills for ee's
Product program for employees
Courses to
Number of
Support Goal
Unique
Sponsor
New Existing Participants
VP
Division
1
0
100
Ortega
Sales
3
2
100
+5 pts Individual development plans
Performance mgt course for ee's
10
====
27
20
====
30
D'Agoto Quality
9

The business case brings together the expected
impact (and perhaps benefits) of the recommended
learning and the costs
• Impact: Increase in sales, reduction in injuries, or an increase in
productivity (often these can be dollarized)
• Cost: Budget costs (design, development, delivery,
reinforcement) and opportunity cost
• Net benefit or ROI (if appropriate)
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Expected Unique
2011
Impact of Partici
Priority Corporate Goal
Target Learning
pants
1
Increase Sales
10%
5%
100
2
Reduce Defects
20%
14%
200
3
Reduce Injuries
25%
15%
3,100
4
Improve Leadership
+5 pts
+2 pts
180
5
Increase Retention
+5 pts +1.5 pts
5,000
Subtotal Top Five Prioities
5,000
Total
Partici
pants
1,100
800
13,600
180
7,500
23,180
Gross BudgetOpportunityTotal Net
Benefits Costs
Costs
Benefit
(thous.) (thous.) (thous.) (thous.)
$1,500
$490
$117
$893
$2,100
$570
$512
$1,018
$1,200
$410
$376
$415
$1,200
$582
$302
$316
$1,800
$340
$1,150
$310
$7,800 $2,392 $2,457
$2,952
Subtotal Other Goals
Total All Goals
1,950
5,000
4,725
27,905
$3,050
$10,850
$1,245
$3,637
$778
$3,234
$1,028
$3,980
Unaligned Learning
Other Costs (not included elsewhere)
4,000
4,000
======
5,000
======
31,905
$700
NA
======
$11,550
$300
$400
$600
$0
====== ======
$4,537 $3,634
$0
-$600
======
$3,380
Grand Total for All Learning
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Priority
1
Organization Objective
Key Learning Programs
Target Audience
Increase customer satisfaction
Customer service skills (new)
score by 10%
2
3
Reduce complaints by 20%
Reduce Injuries by 25%
Call center employees
20
20
New services information (revised) Call center employees
20
20
Total key programs
40
40
Billing course (new)
10
10
Service Sched. & Mgt course (new) Logistics employees
Accounting employees
15
15
Total key programs
25
25
500
Five Safety courses (3 new)
Transportation ee's
100
One Safety course (revised)
Division managers
15
15
Two Safety courses (1 new)
Office employees
250
500
365
1,015
Total key programs
4
Improve leadership
Intro to supervision (revised)
New supervisors
10
10
score by 5 points
Leadership for managers (new)
Division managers
15
15
on employee survey
Advanced leadership (existing)
Department heads
5
5
30
30
Total key programs
5
Expected %
Unique Total
Impact on
Participants Participants Corp Obj Impact of Learning
Increase retention by
Individual development plans
All employees
550
550
10 points
Performance mgt (new)
Mgt employees
285
285
Total key programs
Total for Top Five Priorities
Learning for Top Five Objectives
Thousands of Dollars
OpportBudget unity
Total
Cost
Cost
Cost
50%
5% higher customer satisfaction
$25
$19
$44
70%
14% reduction in complaints
$35
$14
$49
60%
15% reduction in injuries
$65
$45
$110
40%
2 point increase
$35
$40
$75
3 point increase
835
835
30%
======
======
====
1,295
1,945
Range = 30%-70%
$18
$32
$50
======
======
======
$143
$110
$253
Courses: 9 New , 3 Revised
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 Yes, of
course
 Yes, but is is not a written document
 No, not really
 We’re working on that now
 We’re moving in that direction
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
Ideally, a written document with the following chapters:
• Executive Summary
• Last Year’s Accomplishments
• Strategic Alignment
• Business Case for Learning
• Learning Resources, Expenditures, Budget
• Detailed Work Plans
• Evaluation Strategy
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


Created with input from CEO, governing bodies,
stakeholders, learning professionals
Approved by CEO and governing body
Very scalable: An L&D function with just one person
can still do this
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


Create scorecards to measure progress against goals
Calendar at least one staff meeting per month
dedicated to a review of your progress
Share progress at least quarterly with the board of
governors and/or CEO
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Corporate University
Effectiveness Scorecard
Results Through June
10 Actual
Plan
For 2011
Jun YTD % Plan Forecast
Impact
Total Participants
Number
40,000
50,000
22,013
44%
48,000
Number
20,000
23,000
11,854
52%
24,000
# Particip.
5,000
10,000
6,009
60%
11,000
%
%
# Particip.
-10%
NA
1,000
-20%
-14%
5,000
-17%
-12%
2,089
42%
-20%
-14%
4,000
%
%
# Particip.
-5%
NA
200
-10%
-5%
1,000
-6%
-3%
423
42%
-8%
-4%
700
%
%
2%
NA
10%
4%
4%
2%
On 6 point scale
On 6 point scale
4.8
4.5
5.1
5.0
5.2
4.8
Learning
% passed
85%
90%
87%
88%
Application
%
60%
70%
72%
74%
Unique Participants
Top Priority Programs
Safety
Reduction in Injuries
Corporate
Impact of training (70%)
Quality
Reduction in Defects
Corporate
Impact of training (50%)
Marketing
Increase in Sales
Corporate
Impact of training (40%)
8%
3%
Feedback
Participant
Sponsor/Owner
102%
96%
5.1
4.8
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
Start with the basics and add as you go

Sample strategy:
• Level 0: number of participants, courses, completion dates,
costs
 All courses
• Level 1: reaction
 All courses, not necessarily all participants
• Level 2: learning
 Where appropriate. All compliance courses
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
Sample strategy (continued):
• Level 3: application
 Select courses
• Level 4: impact
 A few key courses
• Level 5: ROI or Net Benefit
 A few key courses

Purpose: Ensure results and improve
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14.
Use business and economic concepts to make better
decisions

15.
Like opportunity cost and marginal analysis
Benchmark with others. Learn. Improve.
Remember, it is a multiyear journey.
The goal is continuous improvement
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Dave Vance
dave@poudrerivergroup.com
Resources

The Business of Learning: How to Manage Corporate Training to Improve
Your Bottom Line by Dave Vance
Available at poudrerivergroup.com or at Amazon.com

A 36-page Sample Business Plan for Learning
(PDF, Word and Excel files) available at poudrerivergroup.com
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