Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.
Issue link: http://elmezine.epubxp.com/i/134584
Businessof Learning Determining the Maturity Level Of Your Learning Organization HOW ABOUT ADDING A NEW LEVEL TO THE KIRKPATRICK/PHILLIPS MODEL? BY JOE DIDONATO I n the late 1980s, when I took over Oracle's Customer Education in the Americas, we had a very frank but strategic-level discussion about the organization that I was taking over. Te opening scenario was that my predecessors hadn't really impacted our clients' ability to use our sofware efectively; and as a result, we had relegated our sofware to what we called "shelf-ware." And to make sure I understood the seriousness of my new role, I was told that it was because of Customer Education that we were about to lose the battle to Sybase, IBM, Informix and a host of other larger relational database players at the time. And, by the way, Joe, welcome to your new responsibility. From that initial discussion, we formulated a wide-ranging strategy that had us focused on making our customers truly expert in the use of our sofware. My revenue targets were raised from less than 1 percent of total revenues to 15 percent of total revenues. Tat was determined to be the proper level of marketplace training that would force us into a market growth mode. Te model itself wasn't too complicated to comprehend (see Figure 1), but in retrospect, I've always felt that the Kirkpatrick scenario of maturity levels fell short of truly describing this strategic use of an education organization. And that includes the great addition that Jack Phillips made to the original Kirkpatrick Model. So with that quick story as a preamble, let's take a look at how a learning and development organization might mature. One of the key models that I like shows learning maturity as a progression through four iterations in their growth: >> Traditional Training Partner (Level 1 of maturity) >> Tactical Training Partner (Level 2 of maturity) >> Valued Learning Partner (Level 3 of maturity) >> Strategic Learning Partner (Level 4 of maturity) To begin describing these stages of evolution, I think we need to begin with a common reference point, the Kirkpatrick Model. Tat maturity model asks four fundamental questions: >> Level 1 (Reaction): "Did the learners like the training program?" >> Level 2 (Learning): "Did the learners learn the content?" >> Level 3 (Behavior Change): "Did the learners deploy what they learned on the job?" >> Level 4 (Results): "Did the implementation of the training program impact business results?" Jack Phillips came along and said that's still not good enough and added a ffh level called "Return on Investment" (ROI) to the Kirkpatrick model: >> Level 5 (Return on Investment): "Did the training investment pay of?" Te combined model then became known as the Kirkpatrick/Phillips Model, and is still one of the most widely used models when it comes to describing the level of maturity of the learning and development organization. To me, we're still not there — nor do these fve levels adequately describe my opening challenge in 20 June / July 2013 Elearning!