Learning Maturity Models

How do you rate your learning organization? Great? Eight out of ten? Purple? We each have an idea of how good of a job we're doing fulfilling the needs of our learners. We can report this value to our leadership and clients. But how do we compare to other organizations? There are learning maturity models we can use to compare apples to apples, so to speak. Maturity models also give the L&D team members a tangible goal to work toward.

Let's look at a few models here. These are models I've come across in my career. I do not recommend one over another, and I have no personal interest in any of them.

Kirkpatrick

Let's start with Kirkpatrick's four levels, something most of us are familiar with. This model was first created by Donald Kirkpatrick in 1959 and has been updated a few times since then. You start the evaluation at Level 1 and work your way up. The higher the level, the more mature your learning organization.

Level 1 means you measure the learners' reactions to your training. Did they find the training favorable, engaging, and relevant to their jobs? If you use Smile Sheets, you're at this level.

Level 2 means you measure how well the learner acquired the intended knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA). If you have post-training assessments, you’re at this level.

Level 3 means you measure how well the learners apply what they learned once they return to their jobs. If you ask this question of the learners or their managers a month after the training, you are at this level

Level 4 means you can prove the training had the intended effect on the business. If you measure improved KPIs based on the training, you are at this level. Why are you reading this article?

All of your learning solutions probably won't be at the same level. For example, in my work at Dell, call center agent onboarding is measured at Levels 2 or 3, while engineer onboarding is at level 4.

High Impact Learning Organization

Bersin by Deloitte's High Impact Learning Organization (HILO) Maturity Model is considered the gold standard by some. This one’s a little newer than the Kirkpatrick model—it was released in 2012. This model suggests that the focus of a learning organization needs to shift away from training and instead focus on organizational capability development. Organizations at every level still train to deliver the KSAs, but they have to think past those trainings at the end if they wish to leave Level 1, the bottom of the scale.

Similar to Kirkpatrick, there are four levels:

Level 1 is Incidental Training. You are training the learner for their current role. The trainings cover single topics and single sets of KSAs. If your training is a one-size-fits-all, you are here.

Level 2 is Training and Development Excellence. The training is more personalized to the learner's specific needs. You have developed initiatives that focus on developing the learner in their current and future roles.

Level 3 is Talent and Performance Improvement, or Level 2 on steroids. You are focused on improving the individual's performance. You adapt the training by leveraging the learner's experiences and other feedback. You have the learning infrastructure in place to deliver the appropriate training at the time of need.

Level 4 is Capability Development. Your learning solutions anticipate the needs of the learner and the organization. You are focused on the long-term development of the individual and teams. They are trained to adapt to change and evolve their skill sets. The organization itself encourages innovation.

Third-Party L&D Companies

There are learning companies that will come in and audit your processes, or provide toolkits that allow you to audit your processes. eLearningIndustry.com has a blog series on it. One free example of a Do It Yourself audit toolkit comes from Cognota. From their The Complete L&D Audit Toolkit:

A full audit of your L&D department can be as high level or as granular as you need it to be. However, the more in-depth you can go, the more accurate and complete your current state analysis will be. This will lead to a much more robust decision-making process when it comes to potential change implementation as a result of your audit.

Their toolkit includes a presentation template, checklist, tracker, and of course directions on how to use everything.

ISO 9000

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an independent, non-governmental international organization that has developed a series of quality standards to help organizations "improve the quality of their products and services and consistently meet their customers’ expectations." The standard we can apply is ISO 9000, which is a set of principles. From ISO's website:

This standard is based on some quality management principles including a strong customer focus, the motivation and implication of top management, the process approach, and continual improvement. These principles are explained in more detail in ISO’s quality management principles. Using ISO 9001 helps ensure that customers get consistent, good quality products and services, which in turn brings many business benefits.

ISO 9000 looks at the processes you follow to develop your training. Is there a documented process in place that is followed? Are defect management and customer feedback built into the process? Is there a system in place to track changes in the processes? You might have noticed the standard does not cover the actual training content nor the technology you use. This makes it applicable to almost any sized training organization. The ISO organization validates the processes at intervals.

Dell Education Services is ISO 9000 certified. The certification helps us sell our learning solutions to some companies, and some government agencies require it. The real bonus in attaining and maintaining this certification is it forced us to document our processes, combining the sometimes differing processes across our organization, thus simplifying things and in the end saving time and resources. We are now able to more quickly create training with a consistent look and feel.

Summary

These are just a few of the many maturity models out there. It is important that organizations should not necessarily consider the characteristics for each level as items to check off a list; rather, they should be seen as mindsets. A simple Internet search will provide more information on any of these models that spark your interest.

Do you have a favorite from above? Do you have a favorite that I missed? Please share below in the comments, and see you at the conference in June.