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

Building a Custom Instructional Design Project Plan

A custom instructional design project turns a business need into a practical learning experience. Without a clear plan, teams can lose time refining content that does not address performance gaps, serve the audience, or support measurable organizational outcomes.

A strong project plan connects learning strategy, instructional methods, development tasks, stakeholder decisions, and evaluation activities. It also gives subject-matter experts, designers, reviewers, and sponsors a shared view of what will happen and when.

The seven steps below provide a flexible framework for planning e-learning, instructor-led training, blended programs, leadership development, and short learning bursts. The level of detail can vary, but the logic should remain consistent.

Define The Business Need

Begin by clarifying the business result the training is expected to support. This might involve reducing errors, improving sales conversations, increasing compliance, accelerating onboarding, or preparing managers for a new responsibility. A vague request such as “employees need better training” is not sufficient for instructional design.

Interview sponsors, managers, employees, and other stakeholders to identify the current condition and desired future state. Review performance data, customer feedback, operational reports, and existing learning materials. This discovery work establishes whether training is the right intervention or whether the issue requires process changes, better tools, clearer expectations, or stronger management support.

Analyze The Audience And Performance Gap

The next step is to understand who will learn, what they currently do, and what they must do differently. Consider job roles, experience levels, language needs, technology access, motivation, work environment, and likely barriers to applying new skills.

Describe the performance gap in observable terms. For example, “understands the policy” is difficult to measure, while “selects the correct approval path for three common cases” can guide practice and assessment. This analysis shapes learning objectives, examples, activities, accessibility requirements, and delivery formats.

Establish Scope, Outcomes, And Resources

Translate the business need into a defined project scope. Specify the audience, learning objectives, course length, delivery method, number of modules, required assets, assessment approach, launch date, and post-launch support. Include exclusions as well as deliverables so that additional requests do not quietly expand the project.

A useful plan also identifies the project team and decision rights. Name the executive sponsor, project manager, instructional designer, subject-matter experts, media specialists, reviewers, technology partners, and final approvers. Reviewing sample courses can help stakeholders develop a shared understanding of possible formats, interaction levels, and production quality.

Planning Area	Key Decision	Useful Output
Business purpose	What result should improve?	Business outcome statement
Audience	Who needs to perform differently?	Learner profile
Learning outcomes	What should learners do?	Measurable objectives
Delivery	Where and how will learning occur?	Modality decision
Production	What must be created or adapted?	Deliverables list
Evaluation	How will value be demonstrated?	Measurement plan
Governance	Who reviews and approves work?	Responsibility matrix

Design The Learning Experience

Once scope is approved, select the instructional approach. Demonstrations, scenarios, guided practice, job aids, coaching, simulations, discussion, and knowledge checks each serve different purposes. The design should give learners opportunities to make decisions and receive feedback rather than relying on information presentation alone.

Create a high-level course architecture before writing every screen or facilitator note. Map modules to objectives, sequence concepts from simple to complex, identify practice points, and define assessment criteria. For a blended solution, show how live sessions, digital content, manager reinforcement, and workplace resources connect across the learner journey.

Plan Development And Review

Break the build into manageable work packages with owners, dependencies, review dates, and approval gates. Typical deliverables include a needs analysis, design brief, storyboard, prototype, facilitator guide, participant materials, digital assets, assessments, accessibility checks, and implementation instructions.

Agree on a review process before development begins. Establish how many review cycles are included, who consolidates feedback, which comments require escalation, and how changes affect schedule or budget. A prototype or pilot module can expose issues with tone, navigation, technical performance, or instructional depth before the full program is produced.

Prepare For Implementation And Adoption

A completed course does not guarantee changed behavior. Plan communications, enrollment, manager briefings, scheduling, technical readiness, learner support, and reinforcement activities. If managers are expected to coach or observe performance, give them practical tools and clear expectations.

Adoption should be considered before launch, with baseline indicators and assumptions documented in the project plan. The guidance on measuring training adoption offers a useful perspective on forecasting participation, application, and business impact before a program goes live.

Measure Results And Refine The Program

Define evaluation at several levels: participation, learner reaction, knowledge or skill gain, workplace application, and business performance. Select indicators that connect directly to the original need. Depending on the program, evidence may include assessment results, system usage, manager observations, productivity data, quality scores, retention, or customer outcomes.

Assign responsibility for collecting and reviewing the evidence. Set checkpoints for early feedback, initial adoption, and longer-term impact rather than waiting until the end of the year. Use the findings to revise content, improve support, adjust delivery, or determine whether a different organizational intervention is needed.

Practical Planning Priorities

Write measurable objectives before selecting content or media.
Confirm scope, approval authority, and review cycles in writing.
Build learner practice around realistic workplace decisions.
Include accessibility, technology, and implementation needs from the beginning.
Link evaluation measures to business outcomes and adoption behavior.

A custom instructional design project plan becomes most valuable when it guides decisions throughout the work, rather than serving as a schedule that is filed away after kickoff. It should make assumptions visible, reveal dependencies early, and keep learning activities connected to performance.

Use these steps as a working framework for your next learning initiative, then adapt the level of detail to its scale, risk, audience, and delivery environment. A disciplined plan gives your team a clearer path from business need to effective learning and measurable 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.