Could You Benefit from a Measurement Framework?
“Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.” James Harrington
Have you struggled to identify and articulate the impact of education and training on your organization’s bottom line? You’re not alone. Over 75% of customer education (CEd) leaders are not able to report on business impact. Lack of data, a gap in required skills, and disconnected strategy are common reasons for this miss. There’s often a circular trap where CEd leaders are unable to prove value because they lack the resources necessary to prove value, and yet they cannot get investment for those resources without demonstrating value. So what can be done?
Enter the Measurement Framework
The first step toward showing impact should be implementing a measurement framework. You likely already capture a great deal of data. Most CEd and other training leaders have an abundance of engagement and participation data in their learning management system. However, the connection of that data to business metrics is often challenging. This is where a measurement framework becomes a necessity.
It's one thing to have a lot of data, but quite another to derive value from it. ~ Nick Iyengar
A measurement framework simply defines what success looks like for your education initiatives at the business level. It connects your education leading metrics to your north star business metrics in a clear and understandable way that drives alignment across business units and teams. Rocketmill outlines four reasons a business should implement such a framework:
It provides absolute clarity around your business and objectives.
It clearly defines what success looks like for your objectives and KPIs.
It provides total transparency, and a single point of truth, for how your objectives and KPIs are measured and segmented.
It ensures measurement is customized and democratized.
Measurement Frameworks in Action
Most CEd leaders know that a direct relationship between learning and business outcome is not realistic. You can deliver training to customers, but you cannot definitively prove that the training alone caused an increase in spend. This is true of any strategic initiative at a business; multiple programs and actions influence business outcomes. A measurement framework, therefore, connects indicators to business results using credible theory.
An example of a well-known measurement framework is the Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS is used to measure customer loyalty, which we’ll refer to as “behavior.” This behavior contributes to the business objective of sustainable profits. NPS measures customer loyalty by asking customers how likely they would be to recommend the provider to a friend or colleague. The theory behind this measurement framework is that the level of loyalty in the customer base is an indication of potential revenue growth, and is, therefore, an important indicator for businesses to keep track of.
A similar approach can be taken to demonstrate the impact of learning on customer or partner behavior, and connect that to business outcomes. This framework should ideally be developed from the top down, with the end goal in mind, rather than bottom up, which starts with the data that’s already available. Why? Articulating the business goal clearly sets the purpose for the measurement framework and, therefore, helps to guard against the development of a framework that will potentially veer off in the wrong direction. This may sound familiar to anyone that has retroactively tried to find a correlation between learning activity and sales data.
When developing a measurement framework, it’s important to consider several critical factors relating to data.
Availability of the data: Ensure that the metrics you need exist and can be collected
Affordability of the data: Ensure it’s feasible to collect the data from a cost perspective
Quality of the data: Ensure the data is accurate and clearly reflects the condition measured
Timeliness of the data: Ensure the data is collected quickly enough that it's still relevant
Benchmarking of the data: Indicators are more powerful when a baseline already exists against which to compare them. (Insight2Impact)
Introducing the Echtus Measurement Framework
The Echtus Measurement Framework uses a straightforward method to connect leading learning and behavior metrics to business metrics at the education program level. In the example below, the first program is called Enterprise Product Adoption, and its purpose is to retain businesses from B2B clients by promoting product adoption, measured by net revenue retention (NRR). It targets two primary audiences, Enterprise and SMB customers. We use “seat assignment” as a target behavior metric, and we’ve connected a specific learning metric, E2C course attendance, to drive the behavior. (Ideally, the learning metric indicates proficiency, rather than just engagement, but this is not always possible with customer education.)
Source: Echtus Measurement Framework
The only way for a measurement framework to be useful is for it to be adopted and utilized by the business. After all, it’s an important tool that promotes visibility and transparency not just in the final results, but through all phases of the program. It allows stakeholders to see whether learning is occurring, who is being trained toward what end, and how that training is resulting in changes in behavior. This framework can provide data analysts with clarity on how to build meaningful dashboards and reports, and can help CEd leaders focus on the right ROI story.
Implementing a measurement framework should be a goal of every education and training team. It’s a pivotal step in showing value, getting all teams on the same page, and focusing on metrics that really matter. As James Herrington said in the opening quote, if you can’t understand it, you can’t improve it. Using a measurement framework can help you and your stakeholders understand what’s working and what isn’t, so investments can be targeted to drive real, lasting results.
Ready to measure?
Interested in implementing a measurement framework? Access our free template with instructions here, or contact us for a free consultation to get started!