I was defending Kirkpatrick’s levels the other day, and after being excoriated by my ITA colleagues, I realized there was not only a discrepancy between principle and practice, but between my interpretation and as it’s espoused.  Perhaps I’ve been too generous.

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I’ve written a few postings recently (notably Social Learning doesn’t mean what you think it does) where I have tried to show how the fundamental changes in how businesses are operating, require a fundamental change in how the L&D function needs to view workplace learning.  I suggested this means a move from a “Command and Control” approach to an “Encourage and Engage” approach to Workplace Learning. Read more →

Charles Jennings argues that the adage ‘access to knowledge is power’ is more fitting in today’s information-swamped world.

Workers learn more in the coffee room than in the classroom. They discover how to do their jobs through informal learning: talking, observing others, trial-and-error, and simply working with people in the know. Formal learning – classes and workshops – is the source of only 10 to 20 percent of what people learn at work. Corporations overinvest in formal training programs while neglecting natural, simpler informal processes. Read more →

At the Learning Technologies conference in London yesterday, a member of the audience inquired about metrics. The reply was “ROI.” It never ceases to amaze me how many people assess the cost and benefit of projects with accounting approaches developed in Venice in five hundred years ago. Read more →