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

Measuring soft skills adoption in technical teams

Technical organizations increasingly invest in communication, coaching, conflict resolution, influence, and collaborative problem-solving. Yet these capabilities are harder to track than a completed certification or a passed technical assessment. Attendance and positive reaction scores may show that people liked a workshop, but they do not prove that new behaviors are being used on the job.

A practical measurement approach connects learning activity with observable changes in daily work. For engineers, developers, data specialists, and technical managers, adoption may appear in clearer project updates, more effective code reviews, stronger cross-functional relationships, or earlier escalation of delivery risks.

The goal is to create credible evidence without turning human behavior into a simplistic score. Organizations need a combination of learner data, manager observations, workflow indicators, and business measures that reveal whether training has transferred into practice.

Define the behaviors that matter

Soft skills become measurable when they are translated into specific workplace behaviors. “Improve communication” is too broad to evaluate consistently. A stronger objective might be: “Project leads will use a structured format to clarify decisions, owners, dependencies, and deadlines after technical meetings.”

Behavioral definitions should reflect the work environment. For example, active listening could mean summarizing a stakeholder’s concern before proposing a solution. Coaching could mean asking diagnostic questions during one-to-one meetings instead of immediately prescribing an answer. These descriptions give learners and managers a shared standard for adoption.

Establish a baseline before training

A baseline provides a comparison point for later measurement. It can include pulse surveys, manager ratings, peer feedback, project retrospectives, meeting observations, or selected operational indicators. The baseline should focus on the behaviors targeted by the program rather than attempting to measure every aspect of workplace culture.

Use several evidence sources because each has limitations. Self-assessments reveal confidence and intent, while manager observations show visible performance. Workflow data may identify changes in collaboration, but it rarely explains why those changes occurred. Combining sources produces a more balanced view of capability development.

Track signals across the transfer period

Adoption is a process rather than a single post-training event. Early indicators include attendance, practice completion, use of job aids, participation in coaching, and learner confidence. Intermediate indicators include repeated use of the target behaviors in meetings, retrospectives, planning sessions, and customer interactions.

Longer-term evidence should examine whether the behavior becomes routine. A technical manager might consistently use structured feedback during performance conversations, or a product engineer might involve design and support partners earlier in a decision. Short follow-up surveys at 30, 60, and 90 days can reveal whether use is increasing, declining, or dependent on specific managers.

Connect behavior to technical work

The strongest evaluation designs connect a behavior to a meaningful work result. Better stakeholder communication might reduce late requirement changes. Improved conflict management could shorten decision cycles. Stronger coaching may improve retention, internal mobility, or the time required for new engineers to become productive.

Causation must be handled carefully. Delivery outcomes are influenced by staffing, priorities, tooling, market conditions, and leadership decisions. A useful framework is Predictive Evaluation, which helps organizations forecast and measure training adoption, impact, and return on investment before relying solely on retrospective claims.

Measurement layer	Useful evidence	Example for a technical workforce
Participation	Enrollment, attendance, practice completion	Engineers complete a feedback simulation
Confidence	Pulse surveys, self-ratings	Participants report greater confidence in difficult conversations
Behavior	Manager observation, peer feedback, workflow review	Team leads clarify owners and decisions in project meetings
Performance	Cycle time, quality, escalation, retention	Fewer avoidable rework loops or unresolved dependencies
Business value	Cost, productivity, customer, or talent outcomes	Faster delivery and improved cross-functional satisfaction

Design measurement into delivery

Evaluation works better when it is built into the learning experience. Practice activities should produce evidence of the target behavior, such as a recorded role-play, a decision brief, a coaching plan, or a simulated stakeholder conversation. Managers can then reinforce the same behavior during normal work rather than treating training as a separate event.

Delivery format also affects adoption. Remote technical teams may need shorter practice cycles, digital prompts, peer discussion, and manager-led reinforcement. Guidance on remote engagement methods can help learning teams design experiences that encourage participation and follow-through across distributed environments.

Build a useful reporting rhythm

Reports should distinguish between activity, adoption, impact, and value. A dashboard that displays only completion rates can create a false sense of success. Leaders need to see whether people used the behaviors, where adoption is strongest, what barriers remain, and which business outcomes may be connected to the change.

Keep reporting close to decisions. If adoption is low because managers do not reinforce the skill, the response may involve manager enablement rather than another learner reminder. If teams use the skill but project outcomes do not improve, the organization may need to revisit the behavior definition, operating process, or business assumption.

Recommendations for stronger measurement

Define two or three observable behaviors for each soft skills program.
Collect a baseline before training and repeat the same measures afterward.
Use learner, manager, peer, and operational evidence together.
Schedule reinforcement at regular intervals across the first 90 days.
Report adoption separately from business impact and financial return.

A disciplined measurement system should remain practical for the people collecting and using the data. Start with a small number of high-value behaviors, automate routine pulse checks where possible, and review findings with operational leaders. The aim is better decisions about learning investment, not measurement for its own sake.

Organizations that want to connect workforce capability with measurable business results can explore learning consultancy services from Dave Basarab Consulting. A clear evaluation model gives technical teams a stronger path from workshop participation to durable behavior change and demonstrable organizational value.

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.