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

Creating a feedback culture that improves instructional design quality

High-quality instructional design rarely emerges from one person working in isolation. It develops through a disciplined exchange of perspectives among subject matter experts, learning designers, managers, facilitators, and employees. When feedback is timely, specific, and connected to real performance needs, it strengthens the learning experience before costly development work is complete.

A feedback culture makes that exchange a normal part of the design process rather than a final approval step. It helps teams identify confusing instructions, irrelevant scenarios, accessibility barriers, weak assessments, and gaps between stated objectives and workplace behavior. The result is training that feels useful to learners and credible to business leaders.

Why feedback belongs in design

Feedback improves instructional design because it exposes assumptions. A designer may understand the content so thoroughly that an unclear explanation seems obvious. A frontline employee, new manager, or busy subject matter expert can reveal where the material demands knowledge that learners are unlikely to have.

The strongest feedback focuses on evidence and learner experience. Instead of saying that a module “does not work,” reviewers can identify where attention drops, an activity fails to mirror the job, or an assessment measures recall instead of decision-making. This level of detail gives the design team something actionable.

Feedback also protects alignment. Every lesson, practice activity, and knowledge check should support a performance objective. Review conversations can test whether the content helps employees do something better, faster, safer, or more consistently.

Build psychological safety around review

People share better observations when they do not fear embarrassment or retaliation. Learning leaders can establish this safety by separating critique of the product from judgment of the person. “This scenario may not reflect the sales process” invites problem-solving; “You missed the point” shuts it down.

Leaders should model curiosity during design reviews. They can ask what evidence supports a choice, which learners might struggle, and what behavior should change after training. These questions keep discussions focused on outcomes rather than personal preferences.

A clear review protocol helps as well. Define who provides input, what type of feedback is needed, when comments are due, and how decisions will be made. Without those boundaries, review cycles become crowded with conflicting opinions and late-stage edits.

Gather input at the right moments

Feedback is most valuable when collected throughout the learning lifecycle. Early discovery interviews can clarify job tasks, learner constraints, and organizational priorities. Storyboards and prototypes allow reviewers to assess structure and interaction before a full course is built.

Pilot testing then reveals how the experience performs in realistic conditions. Observe where participants hesitate, skip instructions, misuse a tool, or ask questions that the course should answer. Combine these observations with survey responses, facilitator notes, assessment results, and post-training behavior data.

Different reviewers should examine different dimensions of quality. An expert can validate accuracy, a learner can assess clarity and relevance, an accessibility specialist can identify barriers, and a business stakeholder can confirm that the program addresses a meaningful performance need. Reviewing sample course designs can also help stakeholders visualize the level of structure and polish expected from a finished learning experience.

Turn comments into design decisions

A productive feedback process does not treat every comment as an automatic requirement. Teams should categorize input by impact, urgency, and evidence. A factual error requires immediate correction; a preference about color or wording may need less attention if it does not affect comprehension or behavior.

A feedback log can make decisions transparent. Record the observation, affected audience, proposed response, owner, and status. When a recommendation is declined, document the reason. This prevents the same debate from returning and shows contributors that their input was considered.

Useful review questions include:

What learner behavior does this change support?
Which performance problem does it address?
Is the issue caused by content, interaction, technology, or context?
How will we know the revision improved the experience?

Feedback source	Best contribution	Useful timing	Evidence to capture
Learners	Clarity, relevance, usability	Prototype and pilot	Confusion points, completion patterns, comments
Subject matter experts	Accuracy and practical credibility	Analysis and storyboard	Errors, missing steps, policy requirements
Managers	Workplace application	Before launch and follow-up	Observed behavior, coaching needs
Facilitators	Delivery quality and learner questions	Pilot and rollout	Timing, discussion themes, recurring barriers
Business sponsors	Strategic alignment and value	Scope and evaluation	Priority outcomes, adoption, performance indicators

Connect learner feedback to business results

Learner satisfaction matters, but it should not be the only measure of instructional quality. A course can receive positive ratings while failing to influence decisions, productivity, safety, customer service, or leadership behavior. Feedback should therefore connect the learning experience to adoption and workplace outcomes.

Before development begins, define the signals that matter. These may include application of a new process, manager observations, quality scores, sales conversion, employee retention, or reduced errors. Predictive Evaluation provides a useful way to forecast how training may be adopted, what impact it could produce, and how return on investment can be measured.

This business connection also improves stakeholder feedback. Instead of asking whether reviewers like a course, ask whether it prepares employees for the target task and supports the intended organizational result. That shift creates sharper design decisions and more credible evaluation.

Make feedback an operating habit

A culture develops through repeated behaviors, not a single workshop or survey. Establish recurring design critiques, short learner check-ins, pilot reviews, and post-launch improvement cycles. Keep the process lightweight enough that teams will use it consistently.

Distributed teams need especially clear collaboration practices. Shared review spaces, decision logs, asynchronous comments, and scheduled synthesis meetings can prevent the loudest voice from dominating. Thoughtful leadership development also depends on this discipline; distributed leadership guidance illustrates why learning systems must reflect how people actually work.

Practical habits for design teams

Organizations can begin with a small set of repeatable practices:

Invite reviewers to respond to defined questions instead of requesting general opinions.
Test learning activities with representative employees before final production.
Give feedback an owner, deadline, and documented disposition.
Train managers and subject matter experts to distinguish evidence from preference.
Review post-launch performance data and feed the findings into the next design cycle.

When these habits become routine, feedback stops being a checkpoint and becomes a quality system. It enables instructional designers to create more relevant experiences, helps leaders invest in learning with greater confidence, and gives employees a genuine role in shaping development.

Dave Basarab Consulting can help organizations connect stakeholder input, instructional design, leadership development, and measurable business outcomes. Build a feedback process that improves the next learning experience before it reaches the workforce.

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.