Every business has an origin story. Here’s ours, which all began by learning the power of partnership.
eParamus was founded a decade ago. Our goal was to provide an essential link between development programs and business impact. We started with the idea that learning programs should improve business results. Those results should be delivered in a clear and measurable way.
When we opened our doors in 2008, our first customer was a training company. The company’s president was concerned that they were not retaining customers. They asked us to help them improve their learning program efficacy and customer retention.
We investigated and found that although their customers “liked” the learning programs and pricing structure, customers could not tell how effective the learning was. Without that information, customers had no reason to return for more training. To the customers, they were generic and replaceable. Without proof of learning impact, one training company was as good as any other. In short, the training company did not create a sense of partnership with their customers.
The Power of Partnership
The power of partnership builds trust. Trust is the belief in reliability, truth, and ability of someone or something. Trust is more easily gained when it is backed up by data. Without trust, you can’t build loyalty. Simply put, the training company showed no clear evidence of their value. With this discovery, we at eParamus knew our mission. We would teach training teams how to create partnerships with their stakeholders. We would teach them how to show the impact of their learning programs.
When we investigated the problem for our first customer, we listened to the managers, students, and stakeholders from their customer base. We learned what each stakeholder needed to see to understand the impact of the learning. We looked at the learning programs offered and studied how they could show impact. Through this investigation, we conceived our evaluation model. We visualized measuring and evaluating programs based on the targets identified in the instructional design. We measured impact at specific points in the training process to determine reasons for failure. At each step, we found ways to improve. Eventually, this method became our core offering.
Collaborating with stakeholders became the foundation for clarifying the needed skills, identifying the points of failure, and addressing the means to improve results. Partnership was the only way we could accurately reach the targets that would prove our value to our stakeholders.
Building on Success
Over the years, with the help of our customers, we grew and learned what makes learning programs effective. We discovered how program design is vital to its ability to be measured. We learned that measurement data is the only way to show impact on an organization. The partnership with our customers enabled an effective measurement model and purpose built tool to support the implementation of the process. We watched, with a sense of pride, as our customers built strong relationships across their organization as they implement the model.
As our knowledge grew, we created the Measurable Instructional Design® (MID) process. MID drives partnership between learning and stakeholders and helps the instructional designers to order the steps of design that ensure programs can improve the targeted performance. The combination of measurable training and evaluation became known as the ROI by Design® model. Today the ROI by Design® model means our clients ensure their learning programs lead to changes on the job and impact to the organization.
If you or your company wants to tap into the power of partnership between the learning department and business unit stakeholders, please contact us here at eParamus. We provide you with an effective instructional design method, a powerful evaluation process, and tools that allow you to deliver the chain of evidence needed to satisfy your stakeholders. eParamus believes effective learning is essential to the development of an organization. We are here to help you show your value to your business partners.
Please follow eParamus on LinkedIn and feel free to connect with me, Laura Paramoure, PhD to discuss the learning challenges you face.
Photo copyright: dotshock / 123RF Stock Photo
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