Measurement Demystified
Your Groundbreaking Framework for Measurement and Reporting
Most people find measurement, analytics, and reporting daunting—and L&D professionals are no different. As these practices have become critically important for organizations’ efforts to improve performance, talent development professionals have often been slow to embrace them for many reasons, including the seeming complexity and challenge of the practices. Few organizations have a well-thought-out measurement and reporting strategy, and there are often scant resources, limited time, and imperfect data to work with when organizations do attempt to create one.
Measurement Demystified: Creating Your L&D Measurement, Analytics, and Reporting Strategy is a much-needed and welcomed resource that breaks new ground with a framework to simplify the discussion of measurement, analytics, and reporting as it relates to L&D and talent development practitioners. This book helps practitioners select and use the right measures for the right reasons; select, create, and use the right types of reports; and create a comprehensive measurement and reporting strategy.
Recognizing the angst and reluctance people often show in these areas, authors and experts David Vance and Peggy Parskey break down the practices and processes by providing a common language and an easy-to-use structure. They describe five types of reports, four broad reasons to measure, and three categories of measures. Their method works for large and small organizations, even if yours is an L&D staff of one or two. The guidance remains the same: Start small and grow.
Measurement Demystified is a great first book for talent development professionals with no prior knowledge of or experience with measurement and a valuable resource for measurement experts. Those adept at lower levels of training evaluation will grow their knowledge base and capabilities, while measurement experts will discover shortcuts and nuggets of information to enhance their practices. A more comprehensive treatment of these important topics will not be found elsewhere.
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![Dave-Vance]()
Full ProfileDavid Vance is the Executive Director of the Center for Talent Reporting which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the creation and implementation of standards for human capital reporting and management. He is the former President of Caterpillar University, which he founded in 2001. Until his retirement in January 2007, he was responsible for ensuring that the right education, training and leadership were provided to achieve corporate goals and efficiently meet the learning needs of Caterpillar and dealer employees. Prior to this position, Dave was Chief Economist and Head of the Business Intelligence Group at Caterpillar Inc. with responsibility for economic outlooks, sales forecasts, market research, competitive analysis and business information systems. Dave received his Bachelor of Science Degree in political science from M.I.T. in 1974, a Master of Science Degree in business administration from Indiana University (South Bend) in 1983, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Notre Dame in 1988. Dave was named 2006 Chief Learning Officer (CLO) of the Year byChief 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 one 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 managing the learning function, and teaches at Bellevue University and the University of Southern Mississippi. His current research focus is on the development of Talent Development Reporting Principles (TDRp) for L&D in particular and human capital in general. He also is a trustee and lead independent director for State Farm Mutual Funds, and an advisory board member for Capital Analytics, Inc. and Knowledge Advisors. His first book, The Business of Learning: How to Manage Corporate Training to Improve Your Bottom Line, was published in October 2010.
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![Peggy-Parskey]()
Full ProfilePeggy Parskey has more than 25 years of experience driving strategic change to improve organizational and individual performance. She focuses on team and organizational performance improvement leveraging performance measurement methods, management of change, and organizational design to ensure sustainable capability. Her firm, Parskey Consulting, focuses on culture, strategy, and change enablement. Parskey has melded her expertise in change with her deep experience in measurement to enable senior leaders to manage their change initiatives through data-informed decision making.
In addition to her own clients, Parskey serves as a principal consultant at Explorance, where she provides business development support and delivers strategic consulting services to talent and learning organizations. In that role, she develops talent measurement strategies; integrates measurement into talent processes; develops action-oriented reports, scorecards, and dashboard for clients; and conducts impact studies to demonstrate the linkage between talent programs and business outcomes. For more than 10 years, Parskey was the assistant director at the Center for Talent Reporting, where she was responsible for credentialing talent practitioners in the execution of Talent Development Reporting Principles. She co-delivers the Measurement Demystified Workshop with David Vance that is now being delivered under the auspices of ROI Institute.
Parskey has co-authored three books, Learning Analytics, Using Talent Data to Improve Business Outcomes (2nd Edition with John Mattox and Cristina Hall, Kogan-Page, 2020), Measurement Demystified (with David Vance, ATD Press, 2020), and Measurement Demystified Field Guide (with David Vance, ATD Press, 2021). She has authored several whitepapers and book chapters and delivers webinars to help upskill talent practitioners on measurement best practices. Parskey holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Simmons College and two master’s degrees from the University of Chicago, in statistics and business administration. She is a past president of the Los Angeles Chapter of ATD, having also served as program director and chief financial officer.
