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David L. Ward

ReadyMade Answers To New Trainer Queries

Creative Thinking October 1960

As a talent development leader, you might be looking for a more curated experience at ATD’s largest annual conference. You are now in a role where instead of designing, training, and facilitating, you are leading a team of L&D professionals. When you plan your ATD25 experience in a few weeks, the sessions that will be best for you are the ones that incorporate the expectations of your leadership role.~Look no further than the Talent Development Leader (TDL) track~The TDL experience is now in its third year of helping TD leaders stay ahead of the curve with curated content, meaningful networking, and solutions tailored to your role. The comprehensive track includes interactive Forum programming, a dedicated networking room, and 10 exclusive concurrent sessions built for leaders just like you. Whether you’re looking to connect with peers, exchange ideas, or explore emerging trends and tools, this is the place to be! For a quick glance at the schedule and offerings, check out the official TDL programming page. Otherwise, here is a breakdown of what to expect at this year’s conference in Washington, DC.Forum Sessions: A Hot TicketATD25 features five exclusive Forum sessions hosted by the ATD Forum, a membership community for senior TD professionals. These interactive sessions use practical tools to ensure attendees can apply insights directly in their organizations. This is where peer insight meets innovation, as you will hear directly from established TD leaders who will provide immediate feedback, tools, and resources to elevate your own leadership and organizational learning function. Insider tip: Because of their hands-on format, demand for these sessions is high (one of the sessions is even being offered twice!). Although we wish everyone could sit in on these sessions, seating is limited. Make sure to arrive early!Sessions:Fueling Growth and Success Through Talent Investments Monday, May 19, at 11:30 a.m.Want Solutions That Work? Do a Deep Dive Monday, May 19, at 1 p.m. & Tuesday, May 20, at 1 p.m.Connect, Collaborate, Share: Unleash Innovative Performance Opportunities With Peer Benchmarking Tuesday, May 20, at 2 p.m.Unlock Your Organization’s Potential Using the Wow Factor Wednesday, May 21, at 9:30 a.m.In the Room Where It Happens (Room 102)The Talent Development Leader Networking Room is your conference home base. Open from Monday to Wednesday, Room 102 offers refreshments, a quiet space to reflect or recharge, and opportunities to engage in both facilitated networking sessions and casual conversations. Personally, the TDL networking room changed my life. It’s where I connected with another professional who held the key to solving a problem in one of my projects. You can read all about that story here, or you can take my word for it: The TDL networking room is the place to be. Room Hours:Monday–Tuesday: 9:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.Wednesday: 8–11 a.m.Facilitated Sessions You Don’t Want to MissThese sessions spotlight real-world case studies, hot topics, and tools for today’s TD challenges. (Again, seating is limited, so make sure you plan accordingly.) Session Schedule:The Power of Compassion-Driven Leadership: Insights From Japan with Tadahiro Wakasugi from GLOBIS Corporation, sponsored by GLOBIS Monday, May 19, at 1 p.m.Crafting a Dynamic Onboarding Journey for Executive Leaders with Alissa Weiher and Mackenzie Friday, UCHealth Monday, May 19, at 4:30 p.m.The Science of Great Teams: How to Create a Culture of Psychological Safety with Britt Andreatta Tuesday, May 20, at 11:30 a.m.AI in Action: Real-World Insights From TD Leaders with Markus Bernhardt Tuesday, May 20, at 2 p.m.Improve Your Storytelling – and L&D Results – With “Garlic Press” Questions with Deb Arnold Tuesday, May 20, at 4 p.m.What’s Your Organization’s Conflict Cocktail? A Guided Conversation for L&D Leaders with Karin B. Hurt and David M. Dye Wednesday, May 21, at 8 a.m.*All sessions will occur in Room 102 on Level 1 of the conference center*Invite-Only Experiences for Senior LeadersThe remainder of the TDL programming sessions are invite-only for those participating in ATD’s senior leader communities: ATD Forum, CTDO, and the ATD-Penn GSE Talent Development Executive Certificate. Learn more about ATD’s TD leader communities here.Stay Engaged All Year With ATD Talent Development Leader While the conference is only a few days long, Talent Development Leader is more than just a conference track! As ATD’s professional development brand for people leading learning in their organization, TDL provides you with cutting-edge industry insight, advice from leaders doing the work, budding research, and more. Subscribe to the Talent Development Leader newsletter and get the tools you need to lead the future of learning. Don’t miss out on monthly articles, podcasts, webinars, and special events—such as our current collaboration with Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2025!See You at ATD25!Personally, I am counting the days until the conference starts on May 18. Make the most of your time at ATD25 by fully immersing yourself in the Talent Development Leader Experience. From exclusive sessions to invaluable connections, it’s your launchpad to greater impact and innovation in talent development.

Your Ultimate Guide to the Talent Development Leader Experience at ATD25

Measurement Demystified: Creating Your L&D Measurement, Analytics, and Reporting Strategy was the culmination of 10 years of work to bring standard measurement principles and reporting to human capital processes. We formed the Center for Talent Reporting (CTR) in the fall of 2012 with the mission to promote the adoption of those standards, known as Talent Development Reporting principals (TDRp), across talent functions. In 2013, we launched a two-day workshop to build measurement skills for talent practitioners and, over the next five years, conducted 22 workshops and trained more than 300 students.Before each workshop, we asked participants to assess the measurement maturity of their organization. Here is what we found:68 percent agreed that talent reporting was critical to senior business leaders.54 percent indicated that they had a defined process to align the learning organization’s priorities to business requirements.So far, so good.As we interacted with our students, however, we observed some concerning patterns. First, our students used the same words and terms that we did but meant different things. Business alignment at one firm was a robust process to identify business needs and translate them into strategic learning solutions. At another firm, business alignment was a process of mapping existing L&D solutions to business goals and declaring that L&D was aligned. We realized that L&D functions defined alignment to mean whatever they wanted it to.The second pattern was that despite L&D expressing a desire to “sit at the grown-ups table,” L&D was, in most cases, still operating with minimal accountability. Goal setting for those key performance measures was not the norm. (In our survey, just 34 percent said they set goals for efficiency, effectiveness, and outcome measures.)A third pattern was that L&D organizations did not appear to value standard and repeatable practices, measures, or methods to manage operations (only 26 percent indicated that they had such practices). Rather, each organization reinvented the wheel, using variations of the Kirkpatrick or Phillips methodologies for effectiveness measures, but they struggled to demonstrate business impact or how to integrate activity measures into the mix.Finally, despite low scores on several dimensions of our assessment, we later realized that survey respondents had unwittingly inflated their organization’s capability. During this five-year period, CTR certified a handful of practitioners in TDRp. These dedicated professionals committed to apply the practices and demonstrate adoption in their own organization. In our concluding meeting for certification, we asked candidates to assess their organization’s current measurement maturity. In all cases, their scores were lower than they had originally reported. Their organization had not lost ground in the intervening period. Rather, candidates admitted that their original scores suffered from the “I didn’t know what I didn’t know” syndrome. For example, until they learned what an actual business alignment process looked like, how were they to know that they weren’t doing it optimally?Our experiences over those five years reinforced the need, not only for continued training of L&D professionals, but also for a resource that they could use to guide them in their measurement journey. We felt that Measurement Demystified would meet an important, unfilled need in the L&D profession: a comprehensive and holistic introduction to the topics of measurement, analytics, and reporting. We authored the book to provide the foundation, framework, and language for L&D professionals to gain a basic understanding of these areas and then apply that knowledge to create their own measurement and reporting strategy. We also developed the book as a reference and performance support tool, including 120 learning measures, definitions, and formulas, as well as usage recommendations.After Measurement Demystified hit the bookstores, we reinvented our workshop as a six-module virtual program following the outline of the book. We modified our case study, incorporated knowledge checks, discussions, and Q&A. Homework encouraged students to apply the concepts to their own organization and share their insights with the group. In teaching the refreshed program, we observed that even the most committed practitioners still struggled with some key concepts.For example, TDRp provides guidance on how to select program measures. We advise L&D practitioners first to segment their learning solutions into strategic and non-strategic programs. Both types of programs should include efficiency (activity) measures and effectiveness (quality) measures to mitigate unintended consequences.However, strategic programs should also include measures to assess the business outcome the program is designed to impact. While this seemed simple enough, students were uncertain which programs were strategic. If their organization lacked an upfront business alignment process, there were no signals to indicate which programs were strategic. While students understood the concept in theory and tried to apply it, when the L&D function lacked a disciplined alignment process, practitioners found it difficult to implement TDRp as designed. We asked ourselves, How can we enable L&D professionals to build skills—particularly in L&D functions that are new to being managed like a business?When we developed the Measurement Demystified Field Guide, we committed to addressing this problem by:1. Acknowledging that advancing measurement maturity is a change effort requiring commitment and discipline.As with any change effort, leaders first must understand and describe the current state of measurement and reporting in their organization. Do they mostly monitor results with little oversight, goal setting, and action planning? Or is the organization more sophisticated in its measurement practices, and instead needs to expand what it measures and enhance the quality of and approach to reporting? Gaining an unvarnished view of the current capabilities and gaps is a critical first step in the journey.2. Recognizing that every organization has a different capacity and timeline for change. Once organizations know where they are, then must decide how far they want to go and at what speed.We concluded that a maturity model would help L&D professionals gauge the capacity of their organization to advance its measurement maturity. If the organization was immature, we recommended that L&D focus on getting its own house in order and gradually engage the business in its planning, prioritization, and reporting processes. A more mature organization could leap ahead, standardize its current practices, and then move to more advanced processes such as collaborating with business-goal owners to agree on the isolated impact of training on a specific business initiative.The Measurement Demystified Field Guide helps readers assess their organization’s maturity and serves as the bridge between the current state and where the organization aspires to go. It walks readers through the process step by step with opportunities to examine the practices of their own organization through inventories, interviews, and reflection exercises. While each volume of Measurement Demystified stands alone, together they address many of the challenges we have encountered over the past ten years and should enable organizations to embrace measurement and its ability to improve the operations of the L&D function.

The Genesis of Measurement Demystified and Its Companion Field Guide

David Hosmer, EdM, CPTD, CCM, is an independent practitioner doing business as Cascading Coaching. He is frequently called upon for his expertise in strategic organizational redesign, leadership and management development, career services, as well as design and facilitation of micro- and macro-level interactive learning initiatives.Hosmer’s experience spans more than 25 years in varied industries, repeatedly exceeding expectations in the areas of L&D, coaching, talent management, and organizational effectiveness. For 15 years, he was a director in several renowned domestic and global organizations. He has built and transformed four OD and talent development functions aligned with company strategic imperatives. Several of his teams have won or have been nominated for internal and external awards.He has fulfilled full-time talent development and OD leadership roles at MIT, Charles River Laboratories, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Wyeth (Pfizer), Boston Edison (Eversource), Private Healthcare Systems, Fleet Boston (Bank of America), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.His clients have included MIT, Boston University, Clark University, California Community Colleges, Hult International Business School, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Medical School Primary Care Institute, Tufts University, Robert Paul Properties, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Charles River Analytics, Havas Media, Axis Communication, and the Association for Talent Development.Hosmer earned his master’s degree in education from Harvard Graduate School of Education, bachelor of arts in psychology from Boston University, and personal and professional coaching-specialized graduate studies from Cambridge College. He is author of numerous articles and book contributions. Hosmer has also served as keynote speaker and guest panelist for several professional and career conferences and webinars.

David Hosmer

Get the A-to-Z Resource on Training Evaluation Fully revised and updated, ATD’s Handbook for Measuring and Evaluating Training is the comprehensive go-to reference for talent development professionals in need of immediate measurement and evaluation (M&E) guidance. Edited by M&E powerhouse Patti Phillips, with contributions from 30 expert practitioners, this handbook provides an essential roadmap to developing effective processes to prove the value and impact of your learning and development programs.Training measurement and evaluation is one of the top frustrations of a talent development professional's job. At first glance, it appears to be a drain on precious time and resources, yet it is a critical function for understanding the results and proving the value of L&D programs. If not conducted properly, it can yield questionable results, lack of accountability, and stakeholder skepticism. All to say, TD professionals must have a solid foundation in measurement and evaluation to do their jobs effectively.With this handbook, you’ll feel confident each time you face an M&E challenge, from planning the evaluation and collecting and analyzing data to optimizing results and making evaluation efforts work in your organization. You will use the data to improve your training programs and meet the standards your organization strives for.The updated edition includes new chapters on how to tell the evaluation story to business leaders, visualize data in reports, and leverage artificial intelligence smartly as well as refreshed chapters on all the M&E fundamentals. Rich in real-life application, it offers practitioner tips, knowledge checks, and support resources and references. Your advisors along the way are an impressive array of experts from the field, each chosen for their knowledge, experience, and actual results in specific areas.Whether you’re a trainer, manager, professor, or student of training evaluation, this handbook has been designed to meet your needs. 

ATD’s Handbook for Measuring and Evaluating Training, 2nd Edition

What is Demo Day?

This free, half-day event is back by popular demand! Join us to check out live demos from five leading learning management systems (LMS). Each 30-minute demo allows you to see the platform in action, ask questions, and request additional information. Selecting an LMS is a tough decision and a big investment. Let ATD Demo Day help you learn about the benefits of a variety of options at once.

Who is it for?

Anyone who is currently looking for a new LMS, soon to be in the market for a new LMS, or simply interested in staying current on the latest LMS suppliers and features. Whether you're looking to streamline training, scale L&amp;D programs, or are seeking more sophisticated analytics, customizations, and personalization features, join us to discover the latest updates from these leading LMS providers. 

Demo Day Agenda: (All times below are Eastern Standard Time)


	11:55am-12:00pm ATD Introduction &amp; Welcome
	12:00-12:30pm Deliver High-Impact Learning Experiences to Frontline Teams (Schoox)
	12:45-1:15pm Supercharge Business Results Through Structured Hard Skills Curation (Seertech)
	1:30-2:00pm Scalable Enterprise Training Across Diversified Audiences (imc)
	2:15-2:45pm Transformative Learning Strategies for Business Impact and Employee Engagement (LearnUpon)
	3:00-3:30pm Litmos LMS – AI Powered for an Effortless Learner Experience (Litmos)


ATD Demo Day: Find Your Next LMS

In January, OpenAI’s conversational platform, ChatGPT-3, became the fastest-growing app in internet history. This is just one indication of growing curiosity about GPT (generative pre-trained transformer) and other chatbots in the past few weeks. As one of the first learning professionals to see the potential of conversational AI and one of the few designing the applications for years, I’m excited to see the recent attention paid to this engaging technology.In my book, AI in Talent Development, I outline several ways chatbots can be used as part of a robust learning experience, and ChatGPT-3, the third version in OpenAI’s ChatGPT series, demonstrates most of them. When ATD asked me to write a post on this subject, I struggled to find the value I could add to the exploding conversation. I decided to do what people say I do best: Give you the bottom line and point the way towards practical applications. Let’s start with the basics.How ChatGPT-3 WorksChatGPT operates on an autoregressive model. It’s not as complicated as it may sound. A transformer is a program, model, or algorithm that converts code into something else—in this case, human language. The autoregressive part means the software uses prior events to predict the most likely future events, which is what your brain does all the time. It allows ChatGPT and similar applications to simulate a conversation between two humans. Learn the two keys to making an application like this work:1. Natural Language ProgrammingNatural Language Processing (NLP) allows the bot to recognize input through human speech or writing, eliminating the need for menus or code to engage with it. This same ability enables the bot to reply through text. Before the development of NLP, most chatbots were menu-driven, and the bot responded by selecting the best fit from a database of pre-written options. Conversational AI represents a new way for humans to use computers; it’s a user interface requiring less hardware and prior knowledge than any previous UIs.!CAUTION! Don’t confuse Natural Language Processing with the pseudo-science term using the same acronym. Neural Linguistic Programming is widely disproved and an invalid practice.2. Massive Training DatasetsLike any neural network (including your own), AI models must be effectively trained using a technique called deep learning. Quite frankly, the stunning capabilities of ChatGPT-3 are nothing new. As David Chalmers points out, there is no new technology here. There are many bots with similar abilities, and I described them in detail in 2020. How this bot is trained and how well this approach works is innovative. First, Open AI used the largest training dataset, combining a database containing much of the internet, a huge library of books, and Wikipedia.Then, after refining the bot in-house, Open AI released it free to the world. As we all started to play with it, we were training it further for them. Think of it as a crowd-sourced training effort. The sheer size of the training database resulted in what everyone always expected: Impressive results that can mimic human expression so well it is hard to tell a machine generated it. However, there continues to be an underlying problem: Chatbots are only as good as their training (like us humans). If you consider the source of GPT’s training, you can see why it sometimes makes mistakes.What Can We Do With ChatGPT-3?Because this product is still being explored, there may be new use cases by the time this post publishes. Below are a few applications that can save time and make your work as a learning professional more efficient and productive.Write ContentIf you ask the bot to write a paragraph introducing a subject, it comes back almost instantly with plausible, grammatically correct text. Because its training included unvalidated sources like the internet and Wikipedia, some of the content it produces must be corrected. Still, you can get excellent first drafts and refine your content from there.Summarize DocumentsLooking for a “Reader’s Digest” version of a book or article? Paste the text into a prompt to ChatGPT, and it returns a nice summary that should hit most of the highlights.Write and Troubleshoot Computer CodeBecause ChatGPT was built to analyze and produce output in human language, it is also great at computer languages. Programmers are using it to troubleshoot code. It can even generate new code if you ask it to develop a new capability.Translate DocumentsFar more effective than other translators out there, ChatGPT can take a website or article and translate it into another language.Write and Grade QuizzesYou can feed your content into GPT and ask it to generate a quiz with answers. Or, give it a general subject, like world history, and it will do the same. Feed your student’s quiz responses into GPT, and it will grade them (even essays!).Create GamesI asked GPT to create a game teaching sixth-grade students about the solar system, and the bot came back with a fun adventure through space.Improve Your WritingI didn’t do this for this article, but I could have asked GPT to review my draft and suggest improvements.Conduct ResearchI asked the bot to provide a list of current peer-reviewed studies on chatbot use in education using APA style and received a properly formatted list.Why Does ChatGPT Have Some People Worried?While most of the comments about GPT are positive, you will find a few educators deeply concerned about this new tool’s capabilities.Mimicking Human WritingTeachers are worried about GPT’s ability to write plausible text reading like a human created it and write in a known author’s style. A student could ask the bot to write a paper in the same style as one of their previous works, and it would be hard to tell the GPT paper wasn’t an original student effort. But, again, this mimicking ability is nothing new. AI has generated art in the style of great artists for years. ChatGPT applies the same predictive approach to language.ChatGPT Makes MistakesAnother concern is the bot’s ability to present false information so convincingly that some users forget to validate the response with research. For example, I asked the bot to calculate the mean of five numbers, and the result was interesting. I received a detailed explanation of the statistical definition of “mean” and how to calculate it, which I did NOT request. However, the bot added the five numbers incorrectly.To be fair, ChatGPT wasn’t built to perform math problems. But it didn’t tell me that or report the result might be incorrect. Like any willing assistant, it did its best to provide an answer. If I had been a student relying on GPT’s help, I would have been wrong. The reason for most of these mistakes is the same reason that it is such a stunning improvement in the chatbot experience: It’s primary sources of information are the internet and Wikipedia.I asked Vince Han, one of the pioneers in building chatbots for learning, to sum up the challenges presented by GPT’s new capabilities, and here’s his response:“One of the effects of ChatGPT & increased quality in Artificial Intelligence in general is shifting the skills users need. For example, most users have developed a skill for how to search which is knowing how to craft keywords and how to sift through search results. Now, people will need the skill of discernment, or learning how to decipher truth and views from a chatbot that provides what reads like a definitive answer. So, from a performance support perspective, yes, one can now get an immediate response to a question but how accurate and relevant that response is will be up to them to determine. “As educators, we must now confront a problem that has been boiling for decades—the decline in critical thinking across most domains, demographics, and workgroups. In my opinion, ChatGPT makes this gap more visible and increases the urgency for closing it quickly.Closing ThoughtsBecause Microsoft owns the license for the exclusive use of the model, we’ve all been working for them, revealing exciting use cases that may find their way into AI-enabled Microsoft products. For now, the platform consists of both free and professional versions. It’s an excellent way to begin learning about the promise of AI and our place alongside it. As machine learning expert Santiago Pino says, “AI will not replace you. A person using AI will.”Where Can You Learn More?There are so many articles about this subject right now that I’ve limited myself to a few favorites:Under the Hood of Chat GPT With Myra RoldanHow ChatGPT3 Impacts the Future of L&D in an AI WorldChatGPT Has Educators Scrambling to Keep UpWhat Is ChatGPT and How to Teach With ItWhat Is ChatGPT and Why Does It Matter?What Is ChatGPT? Is It the Beginning of the End?Ger’s Learning Notes #51 - ChatGPTFor more information and resources, Check out ATD's AI Resource page.

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