Estrategias De Gestion Del Conocimiento

Outlook
Point of View

February 2007, No. 1

Change Management/Outsourcing

Return on learning, Part 4:
Maximizing the business impact of enterprise learning
By Kurt Olson and Bruce Aaron
Kurt Olson is the director of
capability solutions for
Accenture. He is based in
Chicago.
kurt.j.olson@accenture.com
Bruce Aaron is a senior
evaluator for Accenture’s
Global CapabilityDevelopment group. He is
based in Tampa.
bruce.aaron@accenture.com

One of the most important trends in enterprise
learning today is the ever-sharpening focus on linking
corporate training programs to the business. Recent
Accenture Learning research into high-performance
learning organizations, based on a survey of 285
senior learning executives around the world, found
that maximizing the impactof learning on the
business was the number one challenge of learning
executives—more vexing, even, than dealing with
budget constraints.
What makes it so challenging? The enterprise learning
organization must transform from cost center to value
center, explicitly linking its spending on training
programs to overall business value created. This
linkage involves two important objectives:(1) focusing
measurement on performance—that is, ensuring that
the results of training are measured not just in terms
of the numbers of courses developed or how many
employees have been trained, but also in terms of the
impact of those courses on the performance of people;
and (2) creating and delivering learning assets with
business rigor—developing them on time and on budget, and deliveringthem in the most cost-efficient
manner possible.
The executives overseeing Accenture’s internal training
function were focused on both of these objectives as
they sought to transform the company’s internal
training programs.1 Accenture had a rich heritage of
developing award-winning training. On top of those
expectations, however, executives needed to instill
operational effectivenessinto training development.

World-class training was still the goal; but so was
rigorous program management that operated within
strict budget and time constraints to deliver maximum
business impact with maximum cost efficiency.

Planning, tracking and
communicating results
To help ensure that level of rigor, the team needed an
approach that would clearly link training projects withspecific business objectives during the planning phase,
communicate these plans clearly to sponsors, and then
guide designers during the development process. The
team achieved those goals by adapting a tool from
Accenture’s core systems building methodology to
create a unique and innovative asset, the Accenture
V-Model for Learning and Knowledge Management
(see figure, next page).
As a systemsdevelopment asset repurposed for the
development of learning and knowledge assets, the
model’s focus on testing rigor translates into precise
specification of performance outcomes expected from
training development. The V-model links business
needs to the specific outcomes of the learning assets
to be developed, and provides a framework for measuring results across all levels of delivery—fromdeployment of the solution through return on investment. The full metrics architecture conforms to leading practices in training evaluation. And, because the
model comprises the entire performance space, it
facilitates a crucial shift needed by enterprise learning
organizations today: from a focus on the traditional
“training is the solution for everything” approach to

1 The full story ofAccenture’s learning transformation story is told in a new book, Return on Learning: Training for High

Performance at Accenture (Agate, 2006).

Return on investment

Business need

Performance capability

Executive leadership

Content sponsors

Business results

Capability impact

Executive course sponsors
Performance support requirements
Participant impact
Content and...