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

Why training content should be validated by experts and learners

In large Australian organisations, training programs often ship with the best intentions but fall short on the factory floor, in the hospital ward, or at the mine site. The reason is rarely effort; it is the absence of a structured validation step involving both subject matter experts and the people who will actually use the material. When learning design skips that checkpoint, content can read beautifully on paper yet fail under the pressure of a real shift handover in Kalgoorlie or a busy pharmacy in Parramatta.

A growing number of learning leaders in Melbourne and Brisbane now treat content validation as a design phase, not an afterthought. By bringing together credible SMEs and a cross-section of end users, organisations can catch factual drift, identify confusing scenarios, and surface the cultural cues that make training stick. The result is material that reflects how work is actually done across the country, from FIFO rosters to local council compliance modules.

Dimension	Designer-only review	SME + learner validation
Accuracy	Relies on secondary sources	Confirmed by practising experts
Relevance	Assumed from job descriptions	Tested against real tasks
Engagement	Based on design intuition	Refined through learner feedback
Adoption	Often lower than projected	Aligned with workplace routines
ROI measurement	Harder to attribute	Easier to link to business outcomes

What subject matter experts bring to the table

Subject matter experts carry the lived expertise of their trade, from the nuanced rules of an aged care facility in Bendigo to the regulatory details of Australian financial services. When instructional designers work in isolation, they tend to generalise. An SME can flag a step that looks logical on a storyboard yet creates a safety risk on a construction site in Sydney's CBD.

In practice, SMEs also stress-test assumptions about regional compliance. Fair Work obligations, state-based WHS requirements, and industry awards do not translate identically across jurisdictions. Pulling in someone with deep operational experience, such as the advisors profiled on the faculty page, ensures the content speaks to operators rather than abstractions. That credibility is hard to fake and impossible to retrofit after launch.

Why learners are the other half of the equation

Even the most rigorous expert review misses how a course actually feels to complete. Australian learners, whether they are apprentices in Adelaide or team leaders in a Perth logistics hub, often need material delivered in plain language with scenarios that mirror their day. Learners catch the moments where pacing stalls, where jargon piles up, or where an activity assumes a tech setup the workplace does not have.

A short pilot with five to eight end users can reveal whether a compliance module makes sense on a four-week swing or whether a leadership burst fits inside a 20-minute pre-shift briefing. That feedback loops back into sharper examples and more honest assessments. Over time, this practice builds a quiet form of organisational trust: staff see their reality reflected in the materials, which lifts engagement without a single marketing campaign.

Warning signs that validation was skipped

When organisations skip validation, the failure shows up in patterns that are easy to recognise in hindsight. The signals tend to repeat across industries and geographies, and they often appear within weeks of rollout.

Compliance training drifts away from the actual controls used at a site.
Soft skills modules read like American case studies transplanted into a Brisbane contact centre.
Knowledge checks ask questions no frontline worker would naturally ask.
Post-training performance data shows little or no change in on-the-job behaviour.
Help-desk queries spike in the weeks following rollout.

Each of these is a clue that the design team worked in a vacuum. Catching them early saves money, reputation, and the goodwill of the workforce.

Building a validation cycle that fits

Validation works best when it is scheduled, not improvised. Many Australian L&D teams are now adopting a two-pass review: first with the SME to verify accuracy and currency, then with a learner panel to test usability and relevance. Sequencing matters because correcting a factual error after a learner pilot wastes everyone's time, while polishing tone before the SME checks accuracy risks embedding the wrong message.

A practical cycle for most mid-sized teams includes four steady steps.

Define the success criteria and the business KPI the training must move.
Convene the SME review with a structured rubric and a 90-minute time box.
Run a learner pilot with a representative slice of the audience.
Revise, then set completion and impact targets using a forecasting tool.

Teams adopting the Predictive Evaluation framework find that this last step turns gut feel into a defensible number executives actually trust.

Connecting validation to business value

The strongest argument for dual validation is what it does to the numbers. Courses built with SME and learner input typically show higher completion rates, fewer help-desk queries, and stronger post-training performance. Australian CFOs are paying attention, especially as the cost of poor training compounds across distributed workforces in places like regional Queensland or the Pilbara.

Connecting validation to outcomes requires discipline. Teams that map each learning objective to a business KPI, then test whether learners can demonstrate the skill in context, find it easier to defend budget and earn a seat at the executive table. Teams looking to formalise this link between learning design and measurable results can reference the Dave Basarab Consulting site as one structured example.

Start with one program next quarter: pick a module that matters to the business, run both an SME and a learner review before launch, and track the difference in adoption within 30 days of release.

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.