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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Predictive Evaluation

Designing Assessment Centers That Predict On-the-Job Performance

Organizations invest in assessment centers to make better talent decisions, identify development needs, and strengthen the connection between learning and business performance. Their value depends on more than realistic exercises or polished scoring sheets. A credible assessment center must produce evidence that reflects the behaviors employees need to demonstrate in their actual roles.

The strongest designs combine job analysis, behavioral observation, trained assessors, and reliable performance standards. They also distinguish between what a participant can explain in a classroom and what that person is likely to do when facing pressure, ambiguity, competing priorities, and real stakeholder demands.

When assessment data is connected to learning strategy and measurable outcomes, it can guide selection, promotion, succession planning, and leadership development. Predictive Evaluation adds a useful discipline by examining whether assessment and training investments lead to adoption, capability improvement, and business impact.

Start With The Performance Model

An assessment center should begin with a clear definition of successful job performance. This means identifying critical tasks, decisions, relationships, and observable behaviors rather than copying a generic competency framework. A sales leader, plant supervisor, and project manager may all need communication skills, yet each role expresses that capability differently.

Job analysis should gather evidence from high performers, managers, customers, and performance records. The design team can then translate this evidence into behavioral indicators. For example, “strategic thinking” becomes the ability to identify commercial trade-offs, test assumptions, and allocate resources against measurable priorities.

Build Exercises Around Real Decisions

Exercises are most predictive when they reproduce the demands of the target role. Useful formats include in-baskets, case analyses, role plays, group problem-solving tasks, presentations, simulations, and structured interviews. Each exercise should have a clear purpose and expose participants to decisions they are likely to face on the job.

Realism does not require recreating every detail of the workplace. It requires reproducing the cognitive, interpersonal, and operational pressures that influence performance. A leadership simulation might require a participant to address an underperforming employee, respond to a customer escalation, and defend a resource decision to senior leaders.

Scoring must be tied to evidence from the exercise. Assessors should record what participants said or did, how they reached decisions, and whether their actions met defined behavioral standards. General impressions such as “confident” or “executive presence” are too vague unless they are anchored to observable actions.

Strengthen Assessor Reliability

Even well-designed exercises can produce weak results when assessors apply inconsistent standards. Assessor training should cover behavioral observation, note-taking, rating errors, evidence evaluation, and the difference between capability and personal style. Practice with sample responses helps assessors calibrate their judgments before live sessions.

A structured rating process improves reliability. Assessors can first review evidence independently, assign ratings against behavioral anchors, and then discuss differences using documented observations. A consensus conversation should clarify evidence rather than allow the most senior or outspoken assessor to dominate.

Multiple assessors and multiple exercises provide a broader view of performance. A participant who struggles in a presentation but excels in a complex stakeholder role may show a development need rather than a general lack of leadership potential.

Connect Assessment Evidence To Learning

Assessment centers become more valuable when their results directly inform individual development plans and enterprise learning strategy. Participants should receive feedback that identifies strengths, performance risks, and specific behaviors to practice. Managers need guidance on how to reinforce those behaviors after the event.

A development recommendation should describe the expected behavior, the context in which it matters, and the evidence that will show progress. This creates a practical bridge between assessment, custom instructional design, coaching, learning bursts, and workplace application. Organizations seeking examples of structured learning offerings can review sample courses as they consider how assessment findings might shape development pathways.

The assessment center should avoid becoming a one-time event with no follow-through. Scheduled manager conversations, targeted practice, observation check-ins, and short application assignments create opportunities to test whether learning transfers into daily work.

Use A Clear Evidence Framework

A defensible assessment center combines several forms of evidence rather than relying on a single overall score. The framework below illustrates how each source can contribute to a performance forecast.

Evidence source What it reveals Common risk Design response
Job analysis Critical tasks and behaviors Outdated role assumptions Refresh data with current performers and stakeholders
Simulation exercises Applied decision-making and interaction Artificial scenarios Use realistic pressures and role-specific consequences
Structured interview Experience, judgment, and reflection Leading questions Use consistent prompts and anchored scoring
Assessor ratings Observed behavior across exercises Halo and leniency bias Train assessors and require behavioral evidence
Follow-up metrics Transfer and workplace impact Weak measurement ownership Define post-assessment indicators before launch

Validity should be examined over time. Organizations can compare assessment ratings with later indicators such as productivity, quality, retention, customer outcomes, promotion readiness, or manager evaluations. This analysis helps determine which exercises and competencies provide meaningful predictive value.

Dave Basarab Consulting’s discussion of Predictive Evaluation offers a useful perspective for connecting learning investments with adoption, impact, and return on investment. The same principle applies to assessment centers: design the measurement approach before collecting data.

Manage Fairness And Participant Experience

A credible process must give every participant a reasonable opportunity to demonstrate capability. Exercises should be reviewed for unnecessary cultural, linguistic, accessibility, or technology barriers. Accommodations should preserve the performance target while removing irrelevant obstacles.

Transparency supports trust. Participants should understand the purpose of the assessment, the types of exercises involved, how information will be used, and when feedback will be provided. Confidentiality rules and data-retention practices should be communicated clearly.

Fairness also requires reviewing outcomes across relevant demographic groups. If one exercise produces unexpected disparities, the organization should investigate whether the issue reflects a genuine job-related difference or a flaw in the design, instructions, scoring, or assessor behavior.

Make The Design Actionable

A high-quality assessment center is a business instrument, not simply an event. Its outputs should support decisions about selection, succession, coaching, training priorities, and role readiness. The following practices help keep the design focused:

  • Define success through observable, role-specific behaviors.
  • Use multiple exercises and assessors to reduce single-source bias.
  • Train assessors to document evidence before assigning ratings.
  • Link feedback to workplace practice, manager support, and follow-up measures.
  • Review predictive accuracy and business outcomes after implementation.

Organizations should begin with a focused pilot involving a critical role or leadership population. The pilot can test exercise realism, assessor consistency, participant experience, and the usefulness of performance data before wider deployment. Results from the pilot can then refine the competency model and measurement plan.

Assessment centers earn credibility when their forecasts are tested against what employees actually do. Build the process around job evidence, connect it to learning and manager reinforcement, and measure the outcomes that matter to the business. Dave Basarab Consulting can help organizations design a practical evaluation approach that turns assessment insight into stronger capability and more reliable performance.

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.

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