Alignment with organizational goals
*Warning: this is a relatively unformed series of ideas (not uninformed…just unformed), so may appear to be rambling.*
There is a constant effort to align training with organizational goals. It seems that alignment to organization goals is on a continuum, with training being developed completely in the absence of what the organization is trying to accomplish on the far left of the continuum and regular conversation with training requestors somewhere in the middle. Yes, the middle.
Under ideal circumstances in the organizations I’ve worked with, the training leaders and the business unit leaders are in close communication with business unit leaders, some going as far as “embedding” a training professional within the business unit. While this reduces the response time and ideally results in the training pro getting a head-start in responding to requests, it remains a transactional relationship. The shoddy image below illustrates what I’m talking about here.
So then, what is the ultimate “alignment” for training? It’s the condition where training actually drives change in the organization. The summary of this ideal condition is one where the training team maintains an up-to-date dashboard of the key training indicators that are known drivers of organization measures.
In other words, imagine that the training team knows (through previous measurement) that product release training has to get to sales people within 30 days prior to product release. If, on the day of product release, only half the target audience has received the release training, the training team has the opportunity to go directly to the product team (or whoever) with a data-driven prediction of a gap in expected sales.
Yes, somewhat unformed…but I’m working on it. This is what comes from questioning closely-held assumptions (like the one that “alignment” is the ideal).
~Geek~
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