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 Pilot a Training Program Before Full-Scale Rollout

A pilot gives an organization a controlled way to test a training program before committing budget, time, and employee attention across the enterprise. Rather than treating the first launch as a final product, leaders can use a small implementation to examine learner engagement, operational fit, manager support, and early performance signals.

A well-designed pilot is more than a shortened version of a workshop. It is a learning experiment with defined assumptions, a representative audience, measurable outcomes, and a process for turning evidence into design decisions. This approach can improve adoption while reducing the risk of scaling ineffective content.

The strongest pilots connect instructional design with business priorities from the beginning. They clarify what employees must do differently, how that behavior will be supported, and which indicators will show whether the program is creating value.

Define The Business Case

Begin by identifying the business problem the training is expected to address. A vague goal such as “improve leadership” is difficult to evaluate, while a specific aim—such as reducing avoidable escalation delays or improving coaching consistency—creates a practical basis for measurement.

Set a small number of success criteria across learning, behavior, and business performance. Learning measures may include knowledge or skill assessments. Behavioral measures can track application on the job, while business indicators might include productivity, quality, retention, customer satisfaction, or reduced error rates.

This stage should also identify the cost of inaction and the assumptions behind the proposed solution. If the underlying issue is unclear accountability, a course alone may not solve it. A pilot can test whether training is the right intervention before larger investments are made.

Select A Representative Pilot Group

The pilot audience should be small enough to manage closely but broad enough to reveal meaningful variation. Include participants who reflect the roles, locations, experience levels, technology environments, and work conditions expected in the full rollout.

Participant selection should avoid choosing only highly motivated volunteers. Their feedback may be positive but unrepresentative. A balanced cohort can reveal where instructions, examples, access requirements, or practice activities fail for people with different needs.

Secure manager participation before the pilot begins. Managers influence whether employees receive time to learn, opportunities to practice, and reinforcement after training. They can also provide valuable observations about whether new behaviors appear in everyday work.

Build A Testable Learning Experience

Pilot the complete learning journey, including preparation, core instruction, practice, job aids, manager reinforcement, follow-up, and evaluation. Testing only a classroom session can hide problems that emerge when learners return to operational demands.

The format should match the behavior being developed. Complex skills may require scenarios, coaching, simulations, or guided practice. For distributed teams, a sequence of concise digital activities may be more effective than a single intensive event. In some situations, learning bursts can provide spaced practice and reinforcement without removing employees from work for an entire week.

Design the pilot with a few explicit hypotheses. For example, you might predict that a manager conversation guide will increase follow-up activity or that scenario-based practice will improve confidence in handling difficult customer interactions. These hypotheses make the pilot more disciplined and help evaluators interpret the results.

Compare Evidence Before Scaling

Collect baseline information before learners begin. This may include current performance data, confidence ratings, manager assessments, observation scores, or workflow measures. Without a baseline, improvements may be difficult to attribute to the program.

Use several evidence sources rather than relying on satisfaction surveys. Learner reactions can identify confusing content, while knowledge checks show immediate learning. Manager observations, application data, and business measures provide stronger evidence of transfer and impact.

Pilot Evidence	What It Reveals	Possible Decision
Learner feedback	Relevance, clarity, and usability	Revise content or delivery
Knowledge or skill checks	Immediate capability gains	Strengthen weak topics
Manager observations	Workplace application	Improve reinforcement
Operational metrics	Early business movement	Scale, refine, or investigate
Participation data	Access and completion barriers	Adjust scheduling or support

A predictive evaluation approach can strengthen this process by estimating likely adoption, impact, and return before a large rollout. It helps leaders distinguish between a program that participants enjoy and one that is likely to produce measurable organizational value.

Review Leadership And Context

Leadership programs require special attention to organizational context. The same curriculum may work differently depending on decision rights, culture, manager expectations, and the level of support leaders receive after training. Before finalizing content, teams can use leadership curriculum questions to clarify the capabilities and conditions the program must address.

The pilot should test whether leaders can apply the concepts in realistic situations. Include conversations, decisions, and constraints that mirror their roles rather than relying solely on abstract models. Ask participants what makes the new behavior difficult and what organizational signals may discourage it.

Faculty and facilitators also affect pilot quality. Experienced subject-matter contributors can add credibility and practical nuance, particularly when the program addresses identity, communication, or workplace relationships. Perspectives such as introverted leadership expertise can help prevent a leadership curriculum from assuming that one style fits every participant.

Decide What To Change

Hold a structured review soon after the pilot while experiences and evidence are still fresh. Bring together designers, facilitators, business sponsors, managers, and selected participants. Separate preferences from material problems: a request for more content is different from evidence that learners cannot perform a critical task.

Use the findings to make a clear scale decision. The program may be ready to expand, require targeted revisions, need another pilot with a different audience, or prove unsuitable for the original business problem. Document the rationale so stakeholders understand how evidence shaped the decision.

Keep the learning objectives that connect directly to priority business outcomes.
Remove activities that consume time without improving capability or application.
Revise examples and practice scenarios using pilot participant feedback.
Add manager reinforcement, job aids, or post-training coaching where transfer is weak.
Establish a measurement plan for adoption, impact, and return during scale-up.

A pilot should leave the organization with more than a revised course. It should produce a repeatable rollout model, clearer ownership, stronger implementation guidance, and credible expectations for performance improvement.

Turn Pilot Findings Into Scale

Before expanding, update the facilitator guide, learner materials, technology setup, communications, support resources, and evaluation instruments. Confirm that the delivery model can work across locations and that managers know what they are expected to do before, during, and after training.

Set thresholds for continued measurement after launch. Early participation may look strong while workplace application declines weeks later. Scheduled follow-ups can reveal whether skills are sustained and whether additional reinforcement is needed.

Use the pilot as a practical bridge between strategy and execution. Dave Basarab Consulting can help organizations design the learning experience, establish meaningful measures, and connect training adoption with business results. Begin with a focused pilot, evaluate it rigorously, and scale only what has demonstrated a credible path to impact.

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.