Where do you find the data to make your business case for learning and development initiatives, and how can AI help you?

There are many claims about how artificial intelligence can lead to better business outcomes, including for L&D, but the question remains: Where do you start? Most organizations these days, including the L&D group, are (at least potentially) awash in data, and yet for many practitioners, the right data seem invisible, apparently unavailable, and incomprehensible even when acquired.

The challenge is to identify the available data sources, figure out which ones are most relevant, and how to do the analysis that will help you improve what you are doing and show the business benefits in a format and language that make sense to the C-suite.

Learn to tell the story in the language of business

Along the way, you will need to cut through the hype and tech jargon, do the right kind of math and analysis, and report your insights in a way that speaks to what executives care about: performance, productivity, business outcomes, and results. (See Marjan Bradeško's article, “Can You Communicate With Senior Leaders In Their Language?”) If done well, you will have proven, as Sonya Overstreet told us in her session "Learning Professionals as True Business Partners," at the DevLearn 2018 Conference and Expo, that you can align learning with business strategy and execute on business goals. The two links in this paragraph will take you to the ideas that make a difference, even before you get to the math and analysis. These are the steps that will turn you into a true business partner.

A roadmap for the journey

Learning to communicate with the senior leaders is key to your success, and you still need details. Artificial intelligence is a big, complex field, but The Learning Guild has published a lot about it in past Learning Solutions articles and in research reports. Here are three resources to guide your study.

- The Learning Guild: A Working Guide to Artificial Intelligence

- Joe Fournier: Getting Your Head Around Artificial Intelligence

- Jane Bozarth: Artificial Intelligence Across Industries: Where Does L&D Fit?

And yet there’s more

Those initial steps are important, but you will still need to identify the data sources available to you, sort them by relevance, and know the way to get the most out of the data to improve your Return on Investment.

The Learning Guild’s Measurement and Evaluation Online Conference (September 30 - October 1, 2020) offers Session 701, “Exploring Training Measurement Through Open Source and Survey Data Using AI” to help you accomplish those tasks. Jamae Allred, president of Quality Analytics Associates, and Devin Marsh, Director of Operations/Data Analyst at Bintel, will show you how to delve into the data mining world for learning and development teams. They will guide you through exploring the possibilities of using AI to gain insights and unknown connections. You will discover what data sources you have available and how to turn large amounts of data from multiple sources into actionable insights to improve your training methods.

Register now for this online conference and learn new strategies for enhancing your L&D projects! If you are interested in attending this online event, but are unable to attend on either September 30 or October 1, register anyway and you’ll receive access to the recorded sessions and handouts after the event.

You can also get a Learning Guild Online Conference Subscription to access this and all online conferences for the next year, plus much more.