I have to show leadership this was worth it.
Attendance and satisfaction scores prove a session happened. They do not prove anything changed, which is why training budgets get cut by people who never saw a number they believed.
What should I measure instead of satisfaction scores?
Pick one behavior that should be different and measure it before and after. Time to complete an onboarding task. Number of manager one on ones actually held. Policy questions coming into HR. Complaints resolved at the manager level instead of escalating.
One measured behavior beats five self-reported ratings, because a ratings average of 4.6 has never once survived a budget meeting.
How long should I wait before measuring?
Thirty days for behavior, ninety for outcomes. Measuring the day of the session tells you how people felt in the room, which is not the question anybody is asking.
Set the check-in date before the session runs and put it on your own calendar. A measurement everyone agreed to in advance is evidence. A number pulled after the fact reads as a defense.
What does the one page for leadership look like?
The behavior you targeted, the number before, the number after, the cost of the session, and one sentence on what you would change. Five lines, no narrative, no slide deck.
Include the misses. A one pager that reports a flat result on one of three measures gets believed. One that reports three wins gets skimmed and filed.
How I teach it
Three things every program here comes back to.
Name the change before you build
Design backward from the behavior you want on Monday, not forward from the content you have.
Measure one thing well
A single number tracked honestly outperforms a dashboard nobody trusts.
Report the misses
Credibility is the thing you are actually building, session over session.
Where to go next
Run the Room Online
The program built around this work, run live in a cohort of twelve.
Store
Seat prices, private session rates and the reduced rate for nonprofits and schools.
Insights
Articles on running live sessions, written from HR practice.
Tell me what the room looks like.
Twenty minutes on Zoom or a call. If a program fits, I will say which one. If nothing here fits, I will say that too.