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

itising training initiatives when L&D budgets get tight

Training leaders across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are getting squeezed from both sides. Skills shortages in healthcare, resources and the trades are pushing up the cost of development programs, while finance teams demand tighter evidence of return on every dollar spent. The temptation is to freeze spend, but a flat-footed response usually means the same five capability gaps keep biting the business year after year.

The better response is a transparent framework that ranks initiatives against strategic outcomes, quantifies risk, and sequences delivery so that early wins fund the bigger programs. Done well, the framework turns a pressured budget conversation into a disciplined portfolio review that executives can actually support.

The trick is to stop treating training as a list of requests and start treating it as a portfolio. A framework built on strategic alignment, value scoring and predictive measurement gives learning leaders a defensible case when they sit down with the CFO.

Map every initiative to a strategic outcome

The first move is to discard the assumption that all requests deserve equal airtime. Most Australian mid-tier organisations carry between thirty and sixty active learning requests at any one time, and roughly a third will not move the needle on a stated business goal. A simple mapping exercise filters those out early.

Initiative	Strategic outcome	Cost of delay	Confidence in impact
Leadership pipeline for NSW operations	Succession for critical roles	High	Medium
Customer service refresher (national retail bank)	NPS lift in retail banking	Medium	High
AI literacy burst for finance teams	Productivity in back office	Low	Low
Compliance refresher on modern slavery	Regulatory exposure	High	High
Graduate program rotations	Talent brand	Low	Medium

This kind of one-page view stops the loudest sponsor from automatically winning the budget. It also surfaces initiatives where the cost of delay is high but confidence is low, which is exactly where a small pilot or a sharper measurement approach pays off. When teams can see the full portfolio, they stop fighting over scraps and start debating trade-offs that actually matter.

Score each initiative on value, risk and fit

Once the portfolio is mapped, each surviving initiative gets scored on three dimensions. The first is quantifiable business value, expressed in dollars saved, revenue protected or hours returned to the front line. The second is execution risk, including dependency on subject matter experts who are already flat out at the Sydney head office. The third is strategic fit, which asks whether the program reinforces a capability the executive team has publicly committed to.

A weighted score keeps the conversation grounded. Many learning teams in Australia now use a simple one-to-five scale on each dimension, then multiply by weights set in advance by the executive sponsor. That discipline removes the politics from the room and produces a ranked list that survives scrutiny from a sceptical CFO.

Weighting criteria worth considering:

Estimated dollar impact over twelve months
Number of employees affected, weighted by role criticality
Time to measurable outcome, favouring programs that deliver signal within a quarter
Dependency risk, including reliance on a single internal SME
Alignment with a stated pillar of the corporate strategy

Linking each score to a dollar figure, rather than a fluffy benefit statement, changes the tone of the conversation with finance. It also gives learning leaders a clean dataset to feed into Predictive Evaluation, which can forecast sales training effectiveness before the first workshop is even booked.

Sequence for momentum and buy-in

A ranked list is useful, but sequencing matters as much as ranking. Australian executives respond well to early proof points, so the framework should sequence a quick win before a heavy lift. A short learning burst on customer communication, delivered in two hours across the contact centre in Parramatta, builds the credibility needed to fund a six-month leadership program the following quarter.

Sequencing also exposes bottlenecks. If the top three initiatives all depend on the same internal facilitator, the framework should either stagger them or recommend external support. A common mistake is to launch every approved program in February because that is when budgets reset, then watch engagement collapse by April when facilitators are run ragged.

Lock in governance before spend

A framework without governance is just a spreadsheet. The next step is to formalise who reviews the portfolio, how often, and what triggers a reprioritisation. Many ASX-listed companies now run a quarterly learning investment review chaired by the CHRO or head of strategy, with finance and the relevant business unit heads at the table. A documented cadence prevents ad hoc requests from crowding out the planned portfolio, and setting up a learning governance framework gives learning leaders a defensible process that survives leadership turnover while clarifying how new requests are assessed, who approves exceptions, and how performance data flows back into the next funding cycle.

Practical governance touchpoints include:

A standing portfolio review every twelve weeks
A standing intake form for new requests, scored against the same value criteria
A named executive sponsor for every approved initiative
A published threshold for re-scoping or pausing a program
A shared dashboard that tracks adoption, impact and spend against forecast

Prove impact with Predictive Evaluation

The final piece is measurement that finance trusts. A scoring matrix on its own will not convince a CFO to release the next tranche of funding. What closes the loop is a clear view of what changed in the business, expressed in operational terms rather than smile-sheet language.

For programs tied to compliance, this means moving past completion rates and ticking boxes to actually measure the impact of compliance training, which shows how refresher programs reduce incidents, audit findings or rework costs. For commercial programs, forecasting which sales cohorts will adopt new behaviours and which will not lets leaders adjust coaching intensity before the quarter closes.

Pairing Predictive Evaluation with the governance cadence gives the framework its staying power. Every quarter, the data tells a clear story about which initiatives earned their budget and which need to be redesigned.

The concrete next step is to spend one afternoon this week pulling every active learning request into a single spreadsheet, score each initiative against the three weighted dimensions, and walk the ranked list into the next executive meeting with the cost of delay clearly visible.

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.