More on training effectiveness

Someone sent me a 'scrap' on Orkut asking me (reproduced verbatim, including typos and grammar) :

hello sir..im woking in reputed manufacturing co' in taining department and working on evaluation of effectiveness of trainings..

and as a fresher and its my first job,wan to do sm thng better, so regarding dat i need som help from you, can u suggest any diferent method to knw da effectiveness for behavioural trianing like persanal effectiveness and leadership..

My reply was:

You need to focus on measuring the outcomes of such training.

First and foremost however, you have to check on the identified training needs.

Why was such a need articulated? Go back to the line managers and ask them to define the outcomes that they want to observe after the training.

The training design needs to incorporate the same outcomes as part of the learning objectives.

Post training effectiveness would involve in measuring the changes in such behavior in the workplace 3-6 months after the training.

Yes, there are quite a few conversation around business happening on Orkut :-) Feel free to connect to me if you are on Orkut too :-)