A client asked me today about approaches to evaluation, and this got me thinking about how advocates of different approaches get very dogmatic about what works and what doesn’t work. Kaliym Islam, in Developing and Measuring Training the Six Sigma Way , says “none of the four levels in the Kirkpatrick model capture business feedback or business reaction to the training product”. Jack Phillips, the Return on Investment guru, argues Kirkpatrick’s four levels are at best inadequate and need ROI as a fifth level. It seems no sooner is a new approach in use than someone is rubbishing it in print. MORE >>

My Chief Executive, who is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (RSA), recently introduced me to an impressive series of animated talks on YouTube (thanks, George!). The presentation below, by Matthew Taylor of the RSA, is a good example, and YouTube hosts many more 'RSA Animate' clips. See also Matthew Taylor's blog.) This seems to me a particularly apposite way of promoting a 21st century enlightenment. As a Scot, I feel duty bound to help encourage new enlightenments, given the leading role my forebears played in the previous one. As always, comments welcome MORE >>

This subject reminds me of the Provencal peasants in Jean de Florette, mocking the eponymous hero’s plans to concentrate his farming on “the authentic”, which they caricature as a crop grown only in books. Yet authenticity is important. few days ago I co-facilitated some management training, where my co-facilitator listed various different leadership styles and then offered situational leadership as a model for selecting an appropriate style. countered with the model of authentic leadership, which until then I hadn’t seen as the antithesis of situational leadership. MORE >>

I subscribe to training zone and find some of their articles useful, amid a sea of thinly-disguised sales promotions. recent example of the useful stuff is the ‘the top 10 bad people managers’ by blogger Simon Kenny, who lists some great examples of mistaken behaviour by managers. You need to register for training zone to view his blog.) This sort of material reads well: it’s funny, so it sticks in the mind, and it can be a memorable way of highlighting good and bad practice. In a similar vein, one of my favourite management books is (was? We need help. MORE >>

I’m underwhelmed by the response to my last blog post. know many followers/readers of this blog are interested in e-learning, and I thought there might have been a lot of examples of attempts to evaluate e-learning, not least to show where it is more efficient than face-to-face learning – although I believe the focus is increasingly, and correctly, shifting from efficiency to effectiveness. would still welcome any examples or anecdotes anyone is willing to share. However, I wonder whether the lack of comments (or any other responses) is indicative of a lack of examples? MORE >>