All too often we get asked to look at or to discuss program evaluation after the program has rolled out. This of course can be done but in doing so we have lost so much opportunity to ensure the success of the original program and to look for continuous improvement. So, let’s look at the largest part of the New World Kirkpatrick model, Monitor & Adjust, well the Monitor bit anyway as Adjust comes a wee bit later.
The largest part of the New World Kirkpatrick Model is to Monitor and Adjust and it’s the biggest for a reason. You will notice that it covers both the whole of level 3 behaviour and leading indicators of level 4 but not back to levels 1 & 2. The implication here is that once you have trained people and you’ve made sure they do have the knowledge, skills, attitude, commitment and confidence to apply in the workplace, then if things are not going the right way on the job, it is unlikely that the learning is to be the fault and it will actually be the support and accountability that has been put in place to ensure participants actually do what they are supposed to do. But to know what is actually happening in the workplace we have to get out and find out. Now this can be difficult for a lot of people that work remotely from the actual workplace of their participants. Yet if we don’t find out what is really happening, the chances are that people will not be doing what we need them to be doing. So how do we do this? Once again it is critical that we have established partnerships with the organisation so that they can help us capture the information.
The systems you set up to monitor must be able to capture the quantitative data; the quality, hr, productivity measures, but it must also be able to capture the stories that will have so much power and credibility later when we need to discuss results with stakeholders.
So, in setting up your monitoring systems and before implementing the learning, find partners you can work with who have a vested interest in the outcomes and build the monitoring with them. Use a dashboard to look at your quantitative results and find ways to capture qualitative stories; action planning workbooks are a great way to do this. There are many ways to set up these systems, but the key is to have them in place when you first roll out your program.
Six articles down and we haven’t spoken about evaluation! Well, here we go in article 7 we are going to align to Kirkpatrick foundational principle 5 and create a compelling chain of evidence as we look to evaluate our programs.
If you want to learn more about the Kirkpatrick foundational principles and to be able to apply the New World Model, then join us on one of our next bronze and silver level certification programs. View our events calendar.
