I recently reviewed the first two articles in this series and promised a further review when the third one was published. I was looking for more convincing evidence that ‘Big Data’, one of the latest corporate buzzwords, is a major issue for Learning & Development professionals. This third and final article failed to convince me.
The
author starts off quite well, showing some of the areas in HR where Big Data is
making a difference - highlighting those who might leave, identifying high
performers and generally providing more fact based information. He then moves on to an area which is
obviously his comfort zone, showing how statistics can be mishandled and produce
misleading information. This may be true
but I could not see a close link to new trends in Big Data; it applies to all
information of whatever scale.
The
article then goes off at an unfortunate tangent. First the author makes the patronising and
- in my experience - incorrect generalisation that Learning & Development people are not ‘hot
on numbers’. He then tells a story about
how his own ‘happy sheet’ evaluations were once distorted by a mistake in the
statistical analysis. This would have
been OK as a short reference but the rather obvious error was dealt with at
great length and in unnecessary detail.
The
author then moves on with unintended irony to his next point - that ‘happy
sheets’ of the kind that he disputed, are not linked to training effectiveness;
that often the poorly rated trainer is the most effective at delivering
learning. Again the link to Big Data is
questionable but he also misses the point that evaluation - even immediately
post course - doesn’t have to measure happiness; it can and should measure
achievement of objectives and learning retention.
This
made me think that maybe the author has a touch of paranoia about course
evaluation which I have seen many times among those whose post course scores
fall short of expected levels. Our
experience at MTP is that most corporate Learning & Development professionals do care about
‘happy sheets’ and do not share the view that poor ratings equal good learning.
However I put aside these thoughts and moved on, hoping that the remainder of
the six page article would actually tell me what Big Data really does mean for
L&D.
Sadly I
continued to be disappointed. There was
some interesting comment on the dangers of employees’ personal information
being hacked or stolen and how companies could face legal problems if they
access sources like Facebook to check up on potential recruits. But there was nothing more on how Big Data is
relevant to L&D. I came to the
conclusion that the author is using the classic approach of consultants wanting
to get something published; choose a sexy topic, claim to be relating it to the
audience and then produce standard material with tenuous links. This article is not at all impressive and is
not recommended.
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