Your Chief Virtual Learning Architect

Learning to Performance

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Custom Design & Delivery

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Predictive Evaluation

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Enterprise Learning Strategy

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Dave Basarab Consulting has elevated the training experience, offering an end-to-end comprehensive approach that includes training strategy, instructional design, development, delivery , post program training transfer, and evaluation (via the unique Predictive Evaluation methodology). Virtual Chief Architect Dave Basarab has combined all of these individual training elements with his user-friendly, comprehensive Learning to Performance approach, which significantly increases companies' training ROI.

Why we are different

Innovation: Our primary focus is creating learning programs using a Learning to Performance approach.
Expertise: Dave offers the depth and breadth of his experience, including working internally at prestigious companies (Motorola, Ingersoll Rand and Pitney Bowes) as well as his knowledge and expertise as a highly-respected, sought-after consultant.
Partnership: Basarab collaborates with companies, serving as their own Chief Learning Officer whenever they need to plan, strategize, or implement training initiatives.

Training Services

Enterprise Learning Strategy

Enterprise Learning Strategy

At Dave Basarab Consulting, we're experts in creating Enterprise Learning Plans. We work with you to develop your company's learning strategy and direction.

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom training is an effective way of developing the capability required to execute your strategy. We are a custom design house that creates programs specific to your business.

Learning Burst Development

Learning Burst Development

We can create and deliver your courses via our unique Learning Burst Method - keeping your employees at their jobs while receiving world-class training.

Predictive Evaluation

Predictive Evaluation

We predict the ROI for your courses and establish success gates. We then evaluate the course against the success gates to show value realized and continually improve results.

Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Turn-key virtual custom leadership development program that combines world-class leadership speakers/educators with post-event personalized coaching to provide you with a cadre of highly skilled leaders.

Predictive Evaluation

Building a pilot framework for new instructional design projects

A pilot gives an organization a controlled way to test a new learning experience before committing significant budget, time, and operational capacity. It turns assumptions about content, technology, learner behavior, and business value into evidence that decision-makers can use.

The strongest pilots are designed as small versions of the intended solution, not as unfinished training products. They include a defined audience, measurable outcomes, realistic delivery conditions, adoption indicators, and a process for acting on what the evidence reveals.

For organizations developing leadership programs, custom courses, learning bursts, or enterprise learning strategies, a clear pilot framework creates alignment between instructional design decisions and business performance.

Start with the business problem

Every pilot should begin with a specific performance need. “Employees need better training” is too broad to guide design. A useful problem statement identifies what people currently do, what they need to do differently, and why the difference matters to the organization.

Stakeholders should agree on the desired business result before reviewing storyboards or selecting a learning platform. The result might involve faster onboarding, fewer quality errors, stronger manager conversations, improved compliance behavior, or higher customer retention. This focus prevents the pilot from becoming a test of personal preferences about visuals, narration, or course length.

A short discovery workshop can connect subject matter experts, operational leaders, learning professionals, and representative learners. Their shared input helps separate a genuine capability gap from issues caused by unclear processes, poor tools, or conflicting incentives.

Define the pilot boundaries

A pilot needs a deliberate scope. Select a learner group that reflects the broader population while remaining manageable for observation and support. Define the business unit, locations, roles, delivery channel, duration, and content included in the test.

The pilot should also specify what will remain outside its boundaries. For example, the team may test one module, one leadership behavior, or one workflow rather than an entire curriculum. Clear limits protect the schedule and make results easier to interpret.

Use a simple design brief to document the operating assumptions:

Target learners and relevant job contexts
Performance outcomes and required behaviors
Content included and excluded
Delivery format, technology, and support model
Pilot timeline, owners, risks, and decision dates

Build measures before the materials

Evaluation should be designed alongside the learning experience, rather than added after delivery. Begin with baseline information wherever possible: current performance levels, completion patterns, confidence, error rates, manager observations, or customer outcomes.

Select a balanced set of measures. Learning data can show whether participants understood the content, while behavior data indicates whether they applied it at work. Business measures reveal whether the change contributed to a meaningful operational result. A pilot does not need a complex analytics system, but it does need measures that match the stated purpose.

Pilot dimension	Useful question	Possible evidence
Learning	Did participants gain the required knowledge or skill?	Scenario scores, demonstrations, knowledge checks
Adoption	Did learners start using the experience and its resources?	Access, completion, repeat use, manager check-ins
Behavior	Did workplace actions change?	Observation forms, workflow data, quality reviews
Business impact	Did performance move in the expected direction?	Productivity, retention, sales, error, or service metrics
Experience	What helped or hindered participation?	Interviews, pulse surveys, support tickets

Predictive Evaluation can provide a disciplined way to connect these measures with expected adoption, impact, and return on investment. Referencing Predictive Evaluation early can help the team define success as a chain of evidence instead of relying on satisfaction scores alone.

Design for realistic conditions

A pilot should resemble the environment in which the final solution will operate. If employees have only ten minutes between tasks, test a format that fits that reality. If managers must reinforce the behavior, include the manager touchpoints in the pilot rather than treating them as a future enhancement.

Instructional designers should prototype the critical moments first. These may include a branching scenario, practice activity, job aid, coaching conversation, assessment, or follow-up reminder. Early prototypes expose usability issues before the team invests in full development.

Learning bursts can support this approach by delivering focused practice and reinforcement over time. When these short experiences need to fit within an existing learning ecosystem, guidance on LMS learning bursts can help teams consider scheduling, tracking, access, and learner flow.

Prepare adoption and feedback loops

A pilot can fail because of weak communication or operational friction, even when the instructional design is sound. Give learners a clear reason to participate, explain how the experience fits their work, and tell managers what support is expected from them.

Create feedback points at several stages: before launch, immediately after key activities, and after learners have had time to apply the skill. Use short surveys, interviews, observation, and platform data together. A single end-of-course questionnaire rarely explains why adoption did or did not occur.

Assign owners for reviewing evidence and resolving issues. If a system problem, scheduling conflict, or unclear instruction appears, the team should know who can make a decision and how quickly. Fast learning cycles are one of the main advantages of a pilot.

Decide how the pilot will scale

Before launch, agree on the criteria for continuing, revising, pausing, or stopping the project. These criteria should include minimum adoption levels, evidence of learning, behavior indicators, stakeholder confidence, cost assumptions, and unresolved risks.

A scale decision should consider the quality of the design as well as the conditions surrounding it. Low participation may reflect poor relevance, difficult access, inadequate manager support, or a scheduling problem. Treating every weak result as a content issue can lead to expensive and unnecessary redevelopment.

Practical recommendations for the project team

Write the business outcome and target behavior before drafting detailed content.
Test the riskiest design assumption in the first prototype.
Include representative learners and frontline managers in the pilot group.
Establish baseline measures and decision thresholds before launch.
Record design changes, evidence, and stakeholder decisions in one shared location.

A well-structured pilot gives instructional design teams a defensible path from concept to implementation. It reduces avoidable rework, builds stakeholder confidence, and shows whether a learning solution can earn attention in the flow of work.

Use the framework to plan your next custom learning initiative, then connect its results to adoption, performance, and business value. With the right evidence, a pilot becomes more than a small training launch—it becomes the foundation for a scalable learning investment.

Learning to Performance

Learning to Performance, a complete training approach, gives companies world-class training to drive significant return. This approach includes upfront work (Impact Mapping, design), training (for staff and company executives), and post-training efforts to ensure training transfer. This unique recipe - the key for successful training and adoption - is changing the way companies implement training. This methodology could work with any content for organizations in any industry.