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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

The economics of learning bursts vs. traditional programs

Organizations are rethinking how they fund employee development. Traditional training programs can create depth, consistency, and shared experiences, while learning bursts deliver focused practice in shorter, more accessible formats. The economic question is less about choosing one format and more about matching investment to the performance problem.

A learning burst may be a brief digital lesson, manager-led discussion, simulation, or targeted practice activity. Traditional programs often involve longer workshops, structured curricula, facilitator time, travel, technology, and follow-up support. Each model carries different costs and produces value through different pathways.

The strongest learning strategy connects format, adoption, capability improvement, and business performance. Dave Basarab Consulting helps organizations design learning systems that connect employee development with measurable business results.

Where traditional programs create economic value

Long-form programs are well suited to complex capability building. Leadership development, technical certification, sales methodology, and regulatory training may require explanation, demonstration, rehearsal, feedback, and assessment. Compressing these elements into short bursts can reduce the initial price while weakening transfer to the job.

Traditional delivery also creates valuable social infrastructure. Participants build relationships, compare experiences, and solve realistic problems together. A cohort-based program can establish shared language across departments, which may reduce coordination costs and support consistent decisions long after the formal sessions end.

The risk is that an expensive event becomes an isolated experience. If managers do not reinforce the content, employees lack opportunities to apply it, or business processes do not support the new behavior, the organization pays for attendance without receiving sustained performance improvement.

How learning bursts change the cost structure

Learning bursts reduce several common expense categories. Shorter sessions can lower facilitator hours, production requirements, scheduling friction, travel, and employee time away from work. Digital distribution can also make updates faster when policies, products, or systems change.

Their flexibility improves access. Employees can receive a focused intervention close to the moment of need, such as a five-minute coaching prompt before a performance conversation or a short practice activity before using a new software feature. This timing can increase relevance and reduce the forgetting that often follows a single workshop.

Lower delivery cost does not automatically mean higher value. Poorly designed microlearning can become disconnected content that employees ignore. Learning bursts work best when they are sequenced, reinforced, personalized where appropriate, and tied to a clear behavior or operational outcome.

Comparing investment, reach, and impact

The economics depend on more than production price. Decision-makers should consider employee time, opportunity cost, implementation speed, participation rates, behavior change, and the durability of results. A low-cost module with weak adoption may produce less value than a higher-cost program that changes critical performance.

The following comparison illustrates typical economic patterns. Actual results will vary according to audience size, subject complexity, delivery method, technology, and the quality of measurement.

Economic factor Learning bursts Traditional programs
Initial development Usually lower for focused content Higher for comprehensive curriculum
Delivery cost per learner Low, especially at scale Moderate to high
Employee time away from work Minimal Greater
Best use case Reinforcement, workflow support, targeted skills Complex capability, cohort learning, deep practice
Speed to deploy Fast Slower
Social learning Limited unless intentionally designed Often strong in live cohorts
Risk Fragmentation and low engagement High cost with weak transfer
Measurement priority Adoption and repeated application Completion, capability, transfer, and business impact

Why measurement determines the real return

Training economics should be evaluated through a chain of evidence. First, leaders need to know whether employees accessed and adopted the intervention. Next, they should examine whether knowledge, confidence, or skill changed. Finally, they must connect those changes to operational indicators such as quality, productivity, retention, customer experience, or revenue.

Predictive evaluation can improve investment decisions before a program is fully scaled. By estimating likely adoption, impact, and return, organizations can identify weak points early and adjust the audience, format, reinforcement plan, or business alignment. The ethical predictive analytics discussion is especially relevant when employee data informs training decisions.

Measurement should also account for the economics of attention. A burst may have a low production cost but require multiple exposures to become habitual. A traditional course may produce strong early learning but need reinforcement to maintain performance. Comparing formats fairly means tracking the full cost of adoption and transfer, rather than focusing on development expense alone.

Choosing the right blend for the business

A portfolio approach usually produces better results than a universal format policy. Organizations can reserve immersive programs for high-stakes, complex, or interpersonal capabilities while using bursts for reinforcement, onboarding steps, product updates, and performance support.

Use these principles when allocating learning investment:

  • Choose traditional programs when learners need coaching, practice, feedback, or peer problem-solving.
  • Use learning bursts for focused behaviors that can be applied quickly in the workflow.
  • Combine a core workshop with pre-work, follow-up bursts, manager prompts, and job aids.
  • Calculate employee time and operational disruption alongside vendor and production costs.
  • Set adoption and business-impact measures before selecting the delivery format.

The blend should evolve as evidence accumulates. If a burst has strong reach but limited behavior change, add manager reinforcement or live practice. If a traditional program achieves excellent learning outcomes but low attendance, redesign the schedule, audience segmentation, or digital preparation.

Turning learning spend into business performance

The central economic decision is not whether short-form or traditional training is inherently superior. It is whether the selected experience can produce the required capability at an acceptable total cost and with evidence of business value. Learning leaders who connect instructional design, adoption data, and performance metrics can make that decision with greater precision.

Begin by mapping priority business outcomes to the behaviors that influence them. Then select the simplest format capable of producing those behaviors, add reinforcement where needed, and measure the results across the employee journey. Build a learning portfolio that earns continued investment by showing how each intervention improves capability and contributes to organizational performance.

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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