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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

How to Audit Your Current Training Portfolio for Business Alignment

A training portfolio can grow gradually until it becomes difficult to see which programs create value, which ones duplicate each other, and which no longer support current business priorities. An audit provides a structured way to examine the full learning ecosystem, from leadership development and onboarding to compliance, technical training, and performance support.

Business alignment means more than matching course titles to strategic language. It requires evidence that learning addresses meaningful capability gaps, supports workforce priorities, and contributes to measurable improvements in performance, productivity, risk reduction, customer experience, or revenue.

A useful audit combines portfolio analysis with stakeholder input, learner data, operational context, and outcome measurement. The goal is not to eliminate training indiscriminately. It is to invest in the programs that matter, redesign those with potential, and retire activity that consumes resources without producing sufficient value.

Define What Alignment Means

Begin by translating the organization’s strategic plan into a practical set of workforce and performance requirements. These may include accelerating digital adoption, improving manager effectiveness, reducing safety incidents, strengthening sales capability, or preparing employees for new operating models.

For each priority, identify the behaviors, skills, knowledge, and decision-making capabilities required to make progress. This creates a reference point for comparing the existing portfolio with actual business needs. A course should have a clear relationship to at least one important capability, risk, or performance objective.

Engage business leaders, functional owners, human resources, and frontline managers early. Their perspective can reveal gaps that learning teams cannot see in course catalogs, such as inconsistent execution, weak coaching habits, or workflow barriers that training alone will not resolve.

Build A Complete Portfolio Inventory

Create a single inventory that includes formal courses, learning bursts, coaching programs, onboarding paths, certifications, job aids, digital resources, and externally provided content. Include audience, business owner, delivery method, duration, cost, completion expectations, and review date.

Map each offering to its target role, capability, and intended performance outcome. Look for duplicate content delivered by different departments, multiple programs serving the same audience, and gaps in progression from foundational knowledge to applied proficiency.

Also record how employees access and use each resource. A well-designed course may have low value if it is difficult to find, scheduled at inconvenient times, disconnected from tools, or unsupported by managers. Portfolio alignment includes the conditions that make learning usable on the job.

Assess Value And Evidence

A portfolio audit should distinguish activity from impact. Completion rates, attendance, satisfaction scores, and assessment results are useful signals, but they do not prove that employees adopted new practices or that the business benefited.

Review each program against a consistent set of criteria. Consider strategic relevance, audience need, content quality, adoption, transfer to work, measurable outcomes, maintenance effort, and total cost. A simple scoring model can help decision-makers compare programs without relying on personal preference.

Assessment Area Evidence To Review Possible Decision
Strategic relevance Link to current business priorities and workforce plans Invest, reposition, or retire
Capability need Skills data, performance gaps, manager input Redesign or expand
Adoption Enrollment, attendance, usage, completion, repeat access Improve access or sponsorship
Workplace transfer Observation, manager feedback, workflow measures Add reinforcement or practice
Business impact Quality, productivity, sales, retention, risk, or customer data Scale, test further, or stop
Cost and effort Development, delivery, maintenance, and opportunity cost Simplify or consolidate

Predictive measurement can strengthen this process by estimating likely adoption and business impact before major resources are committed. This practical evaluation walkthrough can help learning leaders connect program assumptions with measurable forecasts and later results.

Examine Learner And Operational Fit

Alignment depends on whether the intended audience can apply the learning in real working conditions. Review prerequisites, role relevance, technology access, manager support, workload, language, accessibility, and opportunities to practice new skills.

Analyze participation patterns by location, role, tenure, shift, and demographic group where appropriate and lawful. High completion in one population may conceal weak adoption elsewhere. Low participation may reflect poor relevance, but it may also point to scheduling conflicts, limited system access, or insufficient leadership support.

Examine the learning journey rather than isolated courses. Employees may need a sequence that combines instruction, practice, feedback, reinforcement, and performance support. Replacing a long course with a short learning burst can be effective when the task is narrow, but complex behavior change usually requires a broader learning strategy.

Connect Evaluation To Business Outcomes

For every major program, state the expected chain of value: the business problem, the behavior or capability to change, the learning intervention, the adoption conditions, and the performance indicator that should move. This logic makes it easier to identify whether weak results come from poor design, low participation, limited application, or an unrelated business factor.

Select measures that leaders already recognize. Depending on the program, these might include time to proficiency, sales conversion, customer complaints, equipment downtime, safety events, employee retention, quality defects, or manager effectiveness scores. Establish a baseline and define when results should be reviewed.

Executive sponsorship also affects whether learning becomes an operational priority. Leaders can reinforce expectations, allocate time, remove barriers, and connect development with business planning. Practical guidance on building executive sponsorship offers a useful perspective for gaining that support.

Prioritize Portfolio Decisions

After scoring the portfolio, place offerings into clear decision categories. Some should be protected and scaled because they address important needs and demonstrate value. Others require redesign, stronger reinforcement, better targeting, or a clearer measurement plan. Programs with weak relevance and limited evidence may be candidates for consolidation or retirement.

Document decisions in a roadmap with owners, dates, dependencies, and success measures. This prevents the audit from becoming a static report. It also gives stakeholders a shared view of what will change in the next quarter, what requires further investigation, and where investment should be redirected.

Use these recommendations to move from analysis to action:

  • Establish a quarterly portfolio review tied to strategic planning and workforce data.
  • Assign a business owner and measurable outcome to every high-priority learning offering.
  • Consolidate duplicate content and create clear learning pathways by role or capability.
  • Add manager reinforcement, workplace practice, and performance support where transfer is weak.
  • Use predictive evaluation before funding large-scale development or rollout.

An audit is most valuable when it leads to decisions that improve capability and business performance. Dave Basarab Consulting can help your organization assess its learning portfolio, strengthen enterprise learning strategy, design targeted solutions, and connect evaluation with measurable results. Begin by reviewing your current offerings against strategic priorities and building a focused action plan for the programs that matter most.

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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