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

How to measure soft skills training impact

Measuring the impact of soft skills training with quantitative methods requires more than reaction scores and completion rates. Leadership communication, negotiation, coaching and collaboration may improve performance, but attendance alone does not show transfer. A credible evaluation connects capability, workplace behaviour and organisational results while accounting for managers, workload, systems and incentives.

Begin with a measurement chain: reaction and relevance, learning, transfer, then business results. Each stage needs its own evidence because no single measure can prove impact. Manager observations can be subjective, while operational metrics move for unrelated reasons. Mixed evidence becomes useful when assumptions, denominators and uncertainty are explicit.

Predictive evaluation adds a forward-looking layer. Patterns in confidence, skill use, manager reinforcement and performance can indicate which cohorts will apply new behaviours and where support is needed. This lets learning teams intervene before weak transfer becomes routine rather than waiting for annual satisfaction data.

Australian workplaces add specific conditions: hybrid teams in Sydney and Melbourne, shift-based training in Pilbara mines and regional logistics, and frontline work in hospitals and aged care. Local stakeholders often favour candid, plain language—“not yet”, “needs coaching” and “works in the real job”—so rating scales need careful wording. Rostering terms, enterprise agreements and Fair Work obligations also affect whether staff have time to practise after training.

From reaction scores to business evidence

When learning supports digital or operating-model change, learning consultants in transformation can align stakeholder expectations with adoption and performance evidence. Choose methods that answer different parts of the impact question, then combine them around a shared outcome.

Method	What it captures	Quantitative indicator	Key limitation
Reaction survey	Relevance and confidence	Adoption intent; mean score	Not evidence of transfer
Skills assessment	Knowledge or demonstration	Standardised pre/post gain	May miss real-work performance
Manager observations	Applied behaviour	Rate per opportunity; score change	Subjectivity and rater bias
360 feedback	Behaviour seen by others	Gap and percentile change	Response and social-desirability bias
Business KPI	Organisational outcome	Change versus baseline or comparator	Confounding influences
Predictive evaluation	Future adoption and impact	Transfer probability; expected benefit	Needs reliable, calibrated data

A communication programme, for example, might combine scenario assessment, manager observations, 360-degree feedback and customer complaints. Report each measure separately, then explain where they converge or conflict. Better confidence without observed application signals a transfer problem; better complaints without changed behaviour may reflect another process change.

Designing a defensible measurement model

Translate broad aims such as “stronger leaders” into countable behaviours: coaching questions used in weekly one-on-ones, de-escalation steps completed, or consultative recommendations included in client meetings. For each behaviour, define the baseline, target, observation window, data source and accountable owner.

Pair leading indicators—practice frequency, proficiency, confidence and manager reinforcement—with lagging indicators such as retention, safety reports, complaints, conversion, cycle time or delivery. A learning portfolio that balances capability and ROI should compare expected benefit, confidence and time to impact, not rank courses by completion rate. Calculate return on investment from attributable net benefit divided by programme cost, with the benefit window stated.

Keep units consistent: a percentage-point increase differs from a relative percentage increase, and a financial benefit needs a clear population and baseline. State whether results cover participants, teams, sites or the enterprise because Australian rollouts can progress differently across metropolitan and regional cohorts.

Building credible causal evidence

Where feasible, compare participants with a matched non-participant group or use a staggered rollout. Difference-in-differences estimates whether outcome changes exceed the pre-programme trend, while interrupted time-series analysis tests whether a post-training shift is unusually large. Simple pre/post comparisons are weaker when staffing, markets or products change simultaneously.

Before launch, test inter-rater agreement for behaviour scores, survey response rates, missing observations and metric consistency. Confidence intervals show whether an estimate is precise enough for a decision, while sample-size planning prevents a few anecdotes from becoming a supposedly stable effect. A Brisbane service-team pilot with weekly observations and a comparable team can produce usable signal before enterprise-wide deployment.

Forecasting adoption before results emerge

Predictive models estimate transfer probability and expected impact from observable features such as confidence after practice, realistic simulations attempted, manager coaching frequency, role, tenure and prior performance. The Predictive Evaluation approach from Dave Basarab Consulting links adoption forecasting with measurement so support can be targeted while behaviour is developing.

Validate models on a holdout cohort, check calibration against later adoption and avoid presenting correlation as causation. Warnings include low practice rates, managers contradicting the programme, and teams lacking time to apply learning. Segment results by job level, location and work pattern since an overall average can conceal a cohort unlikely to transfer.

Actions that make measurement credible

A disciplined sequence reduces bias and keeps analysis tied to decisions.

Define the business decision and the behaviours required to support it.
Record a baseline and select a credible comparator before delivery.
Create a metric dictionary with definitions, owners and collection dates.
Pilot observation and survey instruments with managers and participants.
Segment adoption, transfer and outcomes by role, site and work pattern.
Report effect size, uncertainty, cost and contextual limitations together.

Review results after learning, after workplace practice and after outcomes have had time to emerge. This cadence lets leaders reinforce effective behaviour, redirect support and pause initiatives that do not transfer.

Turning evidence into the next decision

An impact case becomes credible when every number has a traceable source and every interpretation acknowledges competing explanations. Combine the learning record, workplace evidence and operating results into one narrative, then assign confidence to each claimed benefit. Leaders can then see whether capability changed, behaviour persisted and value followed.

The immediate next step is a 45-minute cross-functional workshop that names one priority soft-skills programme, its target behaviours, data owner and decision date.

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.