Measurement Demystified Field Guide

The Bridge to Your L&D Measurement and Reporting Strategy

Building measurement skills is critical for talent development professionals who seek to align their L&D programs to business outcomes for organizational success. Designed to improve your measurement capability and advance the measurement maturity of your organization, the Measurement Demystified Field Guide presents a refresher on the talent development reporting principles framework and measurement strategy. While the Field Guide serves as a standalone volume, it is also a companion to the authors’ first book, Measurement Demystified.

In an easy-to-use workbook style, the Field Guide provides nearly 100 skill-building exercises of varying types to help you uncover what measurement work your organization is doing; assess organizational maturity and gaps; understand how to apply specific concepts; and determine what’s right for your organization moving forward. It also offers interview questions to better understand users’ wants and needs; case study exercises to test your knowledge gaps; and reflection questions that focus on your deepening knowledge and skill. You can write your answers in the book or use the resource on ATD’s website.

Achieving measurement maturity is a change effort requiring commitment and discipline. Understanding your current capabilities and gaps is an essential first step followed by determining where your organization wants to go in this area. Once both are achieved, you will be able to develop your desired measurement and reporting strategy—the bridge between where you are today and where you aspire to be. The Measurement Demystified Field Guide is that bridge.

David Vance is the executive director of the Center for Talent Reporting. He is the former president of Caterpillar University, which he founded in 2001, until his retirement in 2007. Prior to this position, Dave was chief economist and head of the Business Intelligence Group at Caterpillar. Dave received a bachelor of science degree from MIT, a master of science degree in business administration from Indiana University (South Bend), and a PhD in economics from the University of Notre Dame. He was named 2006 Chief Learning Officer (CLO) of the Year by Chief Learning Officer magazine. He also was named 2004 Corporate University Leader of the Year by the International Quality and Productivity Center in their annual CUBIC (Corporate University Best in Class) Awards. Caterpillar was ranked number 1 in the 2005 ASTD Best Awards and was named Best Overall Corporate University in 2004 by both Corporate University Xchange and the International Quality and Productivity Center. Dave is a frequent speaker at learning conferences and association meetings. He conducts workshops on measurement and reporting and running learning like a business. He also organizes and hosts the Center for Talent Reporting's annual conference. Dave teaches in the PhD programs of Bellevue University and the University of Southern Mississippi, as well as in the executive education program at George Mason University. He is the author of The Business of Learning: How to Manage Corporate Training to Improve Your Bottom Line and co-author of Measurement Demystified: Creating Your L&D Measurement, Analytics, and Reporting Strategy.

Peggy Parskey is the executive director of the Center for Talent Reporting. She owns her own consulting firm, Parskey Consulting, enabling her clients to successfully implement strategic change initiatives that improve organizational and individual performance. Peggy has a deep background in performance measurement and leverages her expertise in management of change and organizational design to ensure sustainable capability. She is certified in management of change methodologies both at the organizational and individual performer levels. She holds a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Simmons College and two master's degrees from the University of Chicago in statistics and business administration. Peggy is also a part-time principal consultant at Explorance. In this role, she consults with organizations to develop talent measurement strategies; integrate measurement into talent processes; develop action-oriented reports, scorecards, and dashboard for clients; and conduct impact studies to demonstrate the link between talent programs and business outcomes. Prior to working with the Center for Talent Reporting and Explorance, Peggy was employed at Hewlett-Packard, where she was responsible for global learning processes focused on creating best-in-class learning methodologies as well as enterprise-wide evaluation for the L&D function. She has published several articles on measurement, chapters in two books, and is the co-author of the second edition of Learning Analytics, Using Talent Data to Improve Business Outcomes. David Vance and Peggy Parskey co-authored Measurement Demystified: Creating Your L&D Measurement, Analytics, and Reporting Strategy, published in 2020 by ATD Press.