Table of contents
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Key Takeaways
- Learn how to choose the right enablement projects
- Discover effective methods for measuring training impact
- Understand the importance of aligning enablement with business goals
- Gain insights into designing experiments to prove enablement ROI
- How Spekit's just-in-time enablement platform enhances measurement and impact
Are you struggling to demonstrate the value of your enablement programs? You're not alone. Tying enablement and learning programs to business outcomes is a notoriously difficult problem. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore practical strategies to measure the impact of enablement and prove its worth to your company's bottom line.
We'll also share a free downloadable template you can use to begin measuring your enablement impact today!
The Challenge: Why Measuring Enablement Impact is Difficult
Measuring the impact of enablement and learning programs on business outcomes is notoriously challenging. Here's why:
- Time lag between training and results: One main issue is that the stimulus (training) is often far removed from the outcome. How do you know if a training session you ran at the beginning of the year was the reason that competitive win rates went up this quarter?
- Traditional learning metrics don't directly correlate with business performance: Another issue is that traditional learning metrics (course completion rates, session sentiment, etc.) don’t really mean much to the bottom line. Ultimately - do you care that people complete a course? Or can they close a deal or save a customer from churning?
- Difficulty in establishing causality between enablement efforts and outcomes
To overcome these challenges, we need to shift our focus to outcome-based enablement and robust measurement strategies.
Understanding Metrics: The Key to Effective Measurement
Leading vs. Lagging Indicators
To effectively measure enablement impact, it's crucial to understand different types of metrics:
- Leading Indicators: Early signs of progress (e.g., course completion rates, training sessions delivered)
- Lagging Indicators: Business outcomes that reflect long-term impact (e.g., new logos landed, customer churn rates)
A balanced approach using both types of metrics is essential for comprehensive measurement.
Tailoring Metrics to Different Stakeholders
Remember that various stakeholders care about different metrics. For example:
- The CFO: might care about churn due to support issues
- A Customer Support Representative: might care about how many clicks it takes to find the help article they need
- A Support Operations Manager: might care about ticket escalation rate
- The VP of Customer Support: might care about Customer Satisfaction Score
Aligning your metrics with stakeholder interests ensures broader buy-in and support for your enablement initiatives.
Choosing the Right Enablement Project: A Step-by-Step Guide
Selecting an appropriate project is crucial for demonstrating enablement impact. Consider these factors:
- Business Alignment: Ensure the project ties directly to broader company objectives
- Realistic Scope: Choose a manageable project with achievable deadlines
- Measurability: Confirm access to necessary data for tracking progress and outcomes
Starting with a smaller, well-defined project helps build organizational muscle for measuring enablement success.
Access the FREE template: Tying Enablement to Business Outcomes ->
Designing an Experiment: Proving Enablement Impact
Designing a proper experiment is the best way to determine if the project you are putting into place is making an impact. It will also help your organization develop the muscle around measuring success.
Hypothesis
- The hypothesis should be connected to what end users will be DOING that is connected to their business objectives. What they are doing is the independent variable (what you are changing with the project) and the business objectives are the dependent variable (what you are measuring)
Determine Metrics
- In order to prove or disprove your hypothesis, what you are testing needs to be measurable. This also means that you will need access to this data. It’s important to have both leading and lagging indicators chosen. Often business outcomes are far down the line so choosing leading indicators that show you are making progress are important in the near term.
- Make sure that you have the ability to create reports to track the metrics you are interested in tracking. Creating these reports at the beginning of the process makes checking in on progress much easier than trying to do it all at the end.
Get Baseline Data
- Baseline data is critical to determining what kind of impact your project has. This may be a challenge if you don’t have access to the data or knowledge of how to get it. Going through the discovery and project selection process should help weed out projects where this data is unattainable.
- Also, don’t underestimate what an improvement it is to get from 0 to 1. If you don’t have baseline metrics, this project can be a chance to establish them which is valuable in itself.
Cadence for Checking In
- Setting a formal cadence for checking in on the progress of the project is important to ensure it remains at the top of mind.
Simply put, it comes down to:
- Can you measure that your learners are interacting/engaging with your enablement?
- Are they applying that enablement to produce their outputs?
- Are those outputs leading to the expected business outcomes?
An Example
Business Problem/Objective:
Our company needs needs more pipeline and is focused on increasing our number of meetings booked each month
Hypothesis:
“Doing thorough account research will help our sales team craft better messaging and lead to more responses and meetings booked”
Leading Indicators:
What are the signs that we are on the right track?
- Accounts with an Account Plan field filled out
- Views on enablement content
- Response rates to messaging
Lagging Indicators:
What are the Business Outcomes we hope to see?
- Meetings Booked (Opportunities Created)
- Reduced Sales Touches / Opps Created (Efficiency)
- Qualified Pipeline Created
By tracking these metrics and comparing them to baseline data, you can demonstrate the tangible impact of your enablement efforts on sales performance.
Leveraging Spekit: Enhancing Enablement Measurement and Impact
While understanding metrics and designing experiments are crucial, having the right tools can significantly boost your enablement efforts and make measurement more straightforward. This is where Spekit's just-in-time enablement platform comes into play.
How Spekit Transforms Enablement Measurement
Spekit's just-in-time enablement platform addresses many of the challenges we've discussed:
- Instant Content Engagement Insights: Spekit automatically tracks user engagement with enablement content, providing instant access to leading indicators.
- Contextual Learning: By delivering information right within the users' workflow, Spekit ensures that enablement is applied immediately, shortening the gap between training and outcomes.
- Personalized Content Delivery: Spekit's AI-driven platform ensures that users receive the most relevant information, increasing the likelihood of positive business outcomes.
- Works Seamlessly with your Tech Stack: Spekit connects seamlessly with your existing tech stack, making it easier to correlate enablement activities with business metrics.
- Customizable Analytics: With Spekit, you can create dashboards that align with your chosen metrics, making it easier to track progress and demonstrate ROI.
Conclusion: Embracing Data-Driven Enablement
Measuring the impact of enablement on business outcomes is challenging but essential. By focusing on the right projects, designing thoughtful experiments, and tracking meaningful metrics, you can prove the value of your enablement initiatives and drive continuous improvement.
Remember:
- Start with business outcomes in mind
- Choose metrics that matter to your stakeholders
- Establish baselines and regular check-ins
- Learn from both successes and failures
Ready to transform your enablement strategy and demonstrate its impact on your organization's success? Start by implementing these measurement techniques today!
DOWNLOAD THE FREE CONNECTING ENABLEMENT TO BUSINESS OUTCOMES TEMPLATE HERE ->
