Organizational learning has evolved rapidly alongside the progression of globally dispersed workplaces, rapid technology advancement and shifting workforce preferences. The rise of learning technologies coupled with expansive new learning and development (L&D) roles drove organizations to lean into culture development during the pandemic and, while many things have changed since then, a focus on crafting valuable learning experiences remains a priority at many companies.

Despite the importance of this organizational focus, identifying and defining what makes experiences “valuable” is a challenge that L&D professionals navigate daily.

To assess value, many learning teams have done one of the following:

1. Taken a “sentiment-based” approach and shared the qualitative feedback from their programs as means of justifying the value of the program.
2. Taken a “reactive” approach and provided an analysis of their programs only when asked, with high-level themes and little room for stakeholder input.
3. Taken a “more is more” approach and openly shared all available data from the learning management system (LMS), facilitation of content and any other sources they have with anyone who asks, often missing the greater question of what makes the program valuable.

To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with any of these approaches, as the organizational culture and context heavily influence what matters most to stakeholders. However, each approach leaves something out of the picture that, if included, would promote better and more organic L&D partnerships throughout the organization.

To achieve these strategic org-wide relationships, learning professionals and teams must balance their data with compelling narratives to provide a well-developed answer to the organization’s definition of valuable learning experiences.

The Shift: Moving From Metrics to Narratives

Capturing, monitoring and evaluating learning analytics have become critical tasks for many L&D teams. These metrics, such as participant surveys, assessments and the documentation of in-role application of content, all provide essential insights for the learning function and, in the case of some metrics, for those who collaborate with L&D. While their importance cannot be understated, the metrics alone do not determine the value of learning programs, nor do they independently justify organizational investment in programs.

To elevate the conversations surrounding learning metrics, L&D professionals must make them one part of the greater narrative. Doing so ensures L&D becomes or remains a key strategic partner and driver of organizational culture. However, starting these conversations presents many hurdles.

Here’s a data-driven storytelling framework you can use to customize a narrative for your organization.

A Narrative-Crafting Framework

Let’s review a common learning metric and how it might be shared with key stakeholders within an organization using the “reactive” approach from above:

“The new system training has been completed by everyone in your department. The average score on the preassessment is 75% and the average score on the post assessment is 90%. This indicates that learners came to training with a good base level of knowledge and that learners feel more comfortable with the content post-training.”

While this does provide key information and a quick analysis of the metrics, it leaves stakeholders with little room to discuss their own findings and does not answer the core question of what value was added.

Turn this metric into a narrative that resonates with the business using the following steps:

1. Define the audience and the core objective. What should business stakeholders walk away from the narrative knowing? In our example, the audience is the head of the department. The core objective is to ensure they walk away knowing that that training is complete and that the assessment shows positive pre- and post-training averages, indicating the department’s readiness to use the new system.

2. Anchor the narrative to an existing business risk. In the example above, the narrative should focus on the risk of not adopting the new system. Depending on the context, this might mean a drop in employee productivity, a lack of change readiness within the team or increased customer concerns during the system transition.

3. Introduce the data catalyst. This can be qualitative and/or quantitative data depending on the context of the program, audience and core objective. In our example, the metrics remain the same (100% training completion, 75% pre assessment average, 90% post assessment average) but the narrative gives them deeper meaning.

4. Create a compelling data visual. A simple bar graph comparing assessment averages acts as a compelling “at-a-glance” visual that bolsters the narrative for the audience. If the story being told by the data is not clear, refine the visual and inputs until it is.

5. Deliver a strategic recommendation or analysis based on the core objective. Leverage your team’s expertise to clearly identify the next steps. A strategic recommendation moves beyond today’s metrics to address tomorrow’s risks.

Putting this together could sound like:

“Our recent system training successfully concluded with all required participants, raising the department’s average assessment scores from a solid 75% baseline to an impressive 90% mastery. (Insert bar graph here.)

This highlights your team’s knowledge gain and readiness to adopt the new system into their work practices. In turn, this readiness should translate to consistent or improved productivity when full integration of the new system begins.

We can continue to protect operational productivity beyond the transitionary phase by offering condensed ‘system refreshers’ and continued collaboration with leaders in the department to support in-role system proficiency. With any additions, questions or suggestions, please reach out.”

This balanced approach and framework shifts the necessary L&D and stakeholder relationships from transactional to consultative. It also fosters open communication with the audience by offering to comment on the findings and collaborate on the recommendations. Finally, and arguably most importantly, this approach subtly speaks to the value of the experience using metrics to provide context to the narrative.

Implementing this system of thinking surrounding metrics is critical for teams of any size or capacity. By customizing this framework to specific audiences and programs, L&D professionals continue to evolve as key organizational partners that use data-driven storytelling to solidify their value within the organization.