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

Designing Competency-Based Assessments for Leadership Pipelines

Leadership pipeline programs are strongest when assessment reveals whether participants can apply critical behaviors in real business situations. Attendance, course completion, and confidence ratings may show participation, but they do not prove that an emerging leader can coach a struggling employee, make a sound decision, or align a team around changing priorities.

Designing competency-based assessments for leadership pipeline programs requires a clear connection between organizational strategy, leadership capability, observable behavior, and measurable results. The goal is to create an evidence system that supports fair decisions about readiness, development needs, and future role placement.

A well-designed model also helps learning teams move beyond generic leadership evaluations. It gives managers a practical way to observe performance, gives learners specific feedback, and gives executives credible evidence that leadership development supports business priorities.

Start With A Practical Competency Model

Begin by identifying the capabilities leaders need at each stage of the pipeline. First-line supervisors, functional managers, and enterprise leaders may share values, yet their decisions, scope, and accountabilities differ. A competency framework should reflect those differences rather than applying one broad list of traits to every role.

Translate each competency into behavioral indicators. For example, “strategic thinking” could include recognizing market implications, setting priorities across competing demands, and explaining trade-offs to stakeholders. “Inclusive leadership” might involve seeking dissenting views, distributing opportunities fairly, and adapting communication to different employee needs.

Keep the framework focused. A model with four to seven priority competencies is easier to teach, observe, and measure than a long inventory of vague attributes. Each competency should describe what effective performance looks like at the relevant leadership level.

Convert Behaviors Into Assessment Evidence

Competencies become assessable when they are tied to realistic work outputs and decisions. Case analyses, role plays, simulations, structured interviews, action-learning projects, and manager observations can all generate useful evidence when their scoring criteria are explicit.

Use behavioral anchors instead of impressionistic labels such as “strong leader” or “needs improvement.” A developing score might indicate that a participant identifies the issue but overlooks stakeholder impact. A proficient score could show a balanced decision, clear rationale, and a workable communication plan. Advanced performance might include anticipating second-order effects and enabling others to execute.

Assessment tasks should resemble the conditions leaders actually face. A simulation involving a performance conversation can measure diagnosis, questioning, listening, feedback, and follow-through more accurately than a multiple-choice quiz. Multiple methods also reduce the risk that one assessor, format, or moment determines a participant’s result.

Build A Consistent Assessment Architecture

A defensible assessment architecture specifies who evaluates performance, when evidence is collected, how scores are combined, and what decisions follow. Raters may include trained facilitators, direct managers, peers, customers, or the participants themselves. Their roles should be defined so that each perspective contributes relevant evidence without creating confusion.

Use a scoring rubric with clear proficiency levels and examples of acceptable evidence. Rater calibration sessions can improve consistency by allowing assessors to score sample responses, compare interpretations, and discuss possible bias. Documentation should capture behavioral evidence, not just a numerical rating.

The assessment cycle should include baseline measurement, practice-based checkpoints, and post-program evidence. This makes development visible over time and helps distinguish temporary performance in a workshop from sustained capability on the job.

Assessment method	Strongest evidence	Primary strength	Common watchpoint
Leadership simulation	Decisions and behaviors under pressure	High realism	Requires trained assessors
Structured interview	Judgment and reflection	Consistent comparison	Can overvalue communication style
Manager observation	Workplace application	Direct job relevance	Rater bias or limited observation
Action-learning project	Business problem solving	Connects learning to results	Results may depend on team conditions
360-degree feedback	Relationship and influence patterns	Broad perspective	Needs careful interpretation

Connect Scores With Business Outcomes

A competency score becomes more valuable when it helps explain changes in performance. Define outcome indicators before the program begins, such as internal mobility, retention of high-potential employees, quality metrics, customer satisfaction, productivity, or progress against strategic initiatives. The selected measures should match the leadership behaviors being developed.

Evaluation should examine both adoption and impact. Did participants use the target behaviors after training? Did managers reinforce them? Did the behavior contribute to a meaningful operational result? Dave Basarab’s guidance on connecting learning metrics can help learning teams link assessment evidence with business-facing measures rather than reporting activity alone.

Avoid claiming that every business change came from the program. Use comparison groups, trend analysis, manager evidence, and contribution interviews where possible. A credible evaluation explains the strength of the relationship between leadership development and business performance.

Use Feedback To Predict Readiness

Feedback should do more than identify strengths and gaps. It should help predict whether a leader is likely to apply new behaviors consistently in the workplace. Ask participants and managers about relevance, confidence, opportunity to practice, manager support, and barriers to application.

Short pulse surveys after key practice moments can reveal whether adoption is increasing or fading. Behavioral check-ins at 30, 60, and 90 days can test whether a skill has moved from classroom awareness to routine leadership practice. Patterns in this data may identify participants who need coaching, additional practice, or a different development pathway.

Learner feedback is especially useful when interpreted alongside performance evidence. The approach described in using learner feedback shows how perceptions of relevance and support can inform forecasts of long-term adoption without treating satisfaction as proof of impact.

Recommendations For Implementation

A practical rollout can begin with a pilot group and a small set of high-value competencies. Use the pilot to test assessment tasks, scoring reliability, manager participation, and data collection before expanding across the leadership population.

Define observable behaviors for each leadership level and competency.
Match every assessment activity to a specific development or talent decision.
Train assessors to recognize evidence and apply behavioral anchors consistently.
Collect baseline, application, and outcome data across a defined measurement period.
Review results with business leaders and update the model as roles and priorities change.

Governance matters as much as design. Establish who owns the competency framework, who can access individual results, and how assessment data will be used in promotion or succession decisions. Transparency increases trust and helps participants view assessment as a development tool rather than a hidden screening process.

Put Evidence Into The Leadership System

Competency-based assessment is most effective when it becomes part of the broader talent and learning ecosystem. Results can guide individual development plans, inform coaching conversations, strengthen succession reviews, and reveal where the organization needs better manager support.

Organizations can build this capability by combining instructional design, leadership development, training delivery, and predictive evaluation. Dave Basarab Consulting helps connect those elements so that assessment evidence supports meaningful capability growth and visible business results. Begin with one leadership population, establish credible behavioral measures, and use the findings to improve the next development cycle.

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.