Picking the Right Things to Measure

In examining critical success factors, make sure you are picking the things that really matter for your organization. And, remember that really important factors, such as overall business productivity and other long-term benefits of e-learning, may be the hardest to prove (or at least will take the longest to prove). It’s fine to include those measurements and to try to capture information that may indicate that e-learning is making a long-term difference. Nonetheless, pick a few things that will show up early enough to give immediate momentum to your e-learning initiative (for example, response evaluations from e-learning courses compared with those from classroom instruction for the same course content or cost savings to provide instruction to 500 employees compared with the costs of bringing people to the training center). These kinds of measurements can build support for e-learning. Keep honing your measurement criteria with each project, but try to standardize the process as much as possible.