The Center for Creative Leadership at ccl.org claims that if you don’t evaluate the programme for leaders in your company, you cannot know whether:
- the programme achieved the goals it was intended to achieve
- relevant people learned the insights generated during the programme itself
- it is wise to keep the programme going or whether you should cut it instead
How to evaluate development programmes
You need to gather and make sense of the insights and information obtained. This is necessary for future investments. Sometimes an evaluation is needed to check whether the leadership development programme is aligned with needs in terms of company culture.
Evaluations should provide a clear message on whether or not the programme is working. There are four crucial questions.
Who cares most about the findings?
Any evaluation must be designed according to the expectations of the important stakeholders (people who invest in the programme or who are affected by it).
What is the key thing you need to track and measure?
Do not collect more information than you need. What are you looking for? You should define it rather narrowly. The scope should not be too broad.
What results do you want from the programme?
You need to know what each element of the programme is supposed to provide or achieve. Which skills should be developed by the programme?
Are you collecting the data properly?
There are many data-collection methods. Each one has its own purpose. A change in behaviour can be well recognised by a 360-degree assessment. Focus groups, on the other hand, will provide a deeper understanding of what makes it difficult to implement in practice the behavioural changes that are required.
-jk-