Segment 10(19) – "Why We Don't Get ROI" - Stephanie Crowe - Vice President Human Resources at Ingenico Inc.

[Paul Terlemezian]

Stephanie Crowe https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanieackleycrowe/ will lead this segment. Her topic is "Why We Don't Get ROI."

Please interact with those who are also interested in this segment - before -during and after Georgia LEARNS 2019 via this online discussion.

[Stephanie Crowe]

Do you always get ROI?  This discussion format will drill into three key factors driving ROI failure.

If you have a story now - share it!  Where did you see a project, company, product or initiative fail to deliver its predicted ROI?  

For the session - bring your experiences and stories to contribute to the discussion.  And maybe you will leave with some new ways to ensure better ROI!

[Dr. J. Nathan Rogers]

Hi Stephanie,

Thank you so much for leading this discussion. It is an important topic. It is my experience in conversations about ROI and connectivity to the role of IDs a there is a lack of critical analysis and enough anecdotal and bench-marked best practice. In addressing the question, “Do you always get ROI?” I wonder how many ID build ROI in their ADDIE process, or any framework they are using. I’m still looking for comments from members discussing how they engage sponsors and clients on the topic of ROI and how they plan to approach it. Having stated this, I concede a couple of things. All clients are not amenable to adding the time and cost associated with measuring ROI as it relates to training. Second, measuring ROI is not always as a simple measure and tie directly or immediately to ROI depending on the type of training. I do believe IDs have a responsibility as much as possible to demonstrate the value proposition of training to the bottom line.

As director of a healthcare organization, I was once asked to develop training for the company insurance billing employees. I worked with the VP, manages, supervisors, and employees to understand their processes related to billing and examine the root cause of insurance rejections that resulted in revenue loss. To make a long story a little shorter, I determined the issues were related to a lack of understanding of billing codes and proper classifications. The training resulted in building real-time electronic performance job aids that could be located by a click of a mouse button rather than solely relying on biller's total memory. The measurement, in this case, was easy; we define what the current rate of revenue losses are currently, and measure each quarter again to determine if the insurance rejection rates were decreasing. Over three months, we notice that after training and having the electronic performance job aids (menu-driven captivate developed tool) the levels of insurance company rejections were decreasing.

My approach with ROI is a conversation with decision-makers, give them options, and collaborative work to understand what the proper measure is and how we translate that to ROI. Most IDs are not trained as accountants or studied business. Being a trained accountant, and I bring those skills to my role as an ID.

Thoughts?

[Stephanie Crowe]

This is a great example - thank you for sharing it.  I agree that determining the desired outcome (preferably measurable) and investigating the root cause and biggest impact intervention are required in the earliest stage of instructional design possible.  And you point out a couple of items we discussed in ROI - business acumen, linking (if/then validation, A leads to B-C-D).  I bet you could put a $ figure on that insurance ROI as well!

[Stephanie Crowe]

Here is the "1-Pager" from this session, which we built on-the-fly to apply this ROI Diagnostic to Lutzie43, using the Resource of Wearables!

[Bill Crose]

Hi Stephanie!

Thanks for doing this session. Rob Brinkerhoff was my grad school advisor, so this has always been an important topic for me.

From my perspective, the biggest reasons organizations fail to deliver an ROI includes their lack of motivation and their tendency to focus too high in the organization when looking for ROI data; the higher one goes up a hierarchy, the harder it gets to find solid data. The lack of motivation is huge because ROI represents proof and proof or lack of it falls onto individuals -nobody wants to be responsible or accountable for other peoples' performance.

Performance is pretty easy to measure at the production tier & most difficult at the leadership tier. If it's true that a manager's value is getting & raising productivity from others, then ROI for management development should come from the production staff they manage. In so many cases, management is actually about maintaining & building relationships and far less about getting & raising productivity from others.

As you noted, valid/unbiased, reliable, & measurable results are required to produce an ROI. There are lots of ways to capture that data when people work on computers (call centers...) or automated production lines equipped with IoT tech, but very few options when people work with their hands (bartenders, nurses, cooks, microbiologists...). Due to the bias, etc. you noted, the data has to be automatically captured in the workflow, it has to be captured always or often enough to become reliable.

So, my work for the past few years has been focused on mobile workflow learning + performance assurance, which provides the opportunity to capture performance data as people follow step-by-step work instructions. The time it takes people to perform each process step is the data that reveals at exact process steps where managers can provide coaching, process/organization change, equipment, etc. to improve performance. The time/money/waste differences before/after management intervention as well as intervention costs are pretty easily calculated -we're building an automatic ROI report to do just that. Compile all that information from a manager's direct reports before/after a manager's training event to get the ROI on that manager's training -before/after delegation training, before/after project management training, meeting management, etc. Same thing for the leadership tier.

Would love to get your thoughts & keep the conversation going.

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