I sit at my desk enjoying the satisfaction of having just completed a new-hire training program for Bitloom’s sales team. The feeling does not last long. A Slack message from my manager appears: he has just left a meeting with senior leadership, and they are demanding that we develop a communication-skills training program to address two major concerns: delayed customer support response times and poor service quality. The request is clearly a high priority, and leadership appears convinced that inadequate communication skills are causing both problems. However, my responsibility as the Lead Learning Designer is not simply to deliver the requested training, but to determine whether it will address the actual performance need. Christensen’s Performance Improvement Process Model emphasizes that performance-improvement work should begin by verifying the need rather than immediately accepting a proposed intervention. Similarly, Stefaniak explains that statements such as “we need training” d...
At the beginning of this course, I described the word “evaluator” as sounding very formal, almost like someone standing with a clipboard waiting to judge everything being done wrong. That was honestly how I viewed evaluation at first. I knew I had experience asking questions, building relationships, supporting projects, and helping teams stay focused, but I did not see those skills as formal evaluation skills. In my first self-assessment, I rated myself a 3 out of 6 because I felt I was not starting from zero, but thinking back, seven weeks ago, I really was closer to a 2 if I was being honest with myself. I had useful crossover skills, but I did not yet understand how to apply them within a formal evaluation process. At the end of this course, I would place myself at a 4 out of 6 as an evaluator. I am still not an expert, and I would not pretend to be one. However, I now have a clearer understanding of what evaluation actually requires. More importantly, I can see how my existing skil...