January 18-19, 2022
ROI Institute Asia-Pacific recently ran the 2-day IHRP ROI Skill Building Program with a group of committed HR professionals. This summary includes observations and insights from the workshop and is meant for anyone who wanted to but could not attend. Professionals implementing, responsible for, investing in, or otherwise involved in a change program will also benefit from reading this report.
Why Should You Measure a Program’s Value?
ROI program attendees typically run strategically important programs for their organizations. Their projects have an impact on their organizations medium- and longer-term viability: hire and retain the right talent, develop a stable leadership pipeline, build leaders who coach, mentor, and bring others up; provide cross-functional and promotional opportunities; maintain brand reputation, customer excellence, revenue pipeline, and more.
Organizations are investing heavily in talent, paying more for it than before. The strategic importance and large investment sizes have made measuring a program’s value a priority for HR professionals.
The 2-day ROI Skill Building Program is designed to break you out of the mundane and frenetic, focus on the big picture, identify the most important, and reduce noise. The participants took full advantage of this opportunity, walking away with stronger, cleaner, more targeted, and precise initiatives.
Objective-Setting
Participants set objectives at the start of the workshop, commonly identifying the following priorities:
- Identify meaningful metrics that show effectiveness and impact of programs
- Measure value and show metrics that are important to stakeholders
- Improve current data collection methods and practices
- Apply standardized, best in class design and measurement methods to all programs
Challenges
The most common challenges reported were:
- Gaining better alignment with stakeholders
- Not knowing whether a program was working
- Being able to show value when it is not obvious
- Not knowing how to start their measurement process.
Key Insights
In the program, we covered seven modules and the 12 Steps of the ROI Methodology. Key themes from the participants’ collective insights are:
1. Focus and become clear about what you are trying to achieve:
- Deconstruct a program to see how it is addressing different levels of organizational needs
- The ROI process is simple to apply to any project. The Business Alignment V-model helps in designing a results-based program, clearly linked to business metrics
- Select the right solution, data approach, and resource planning based on your focus. Reduce or remove what is neither important nor relevant.
2. Develop precision and specificity:
- Determine the appropriate evaluation depth and purpose for a program; one size does not fit all as not all programs need to measure ROI.
- Be specific about data, outcomes, and metrics to collect and analyze credibly.
- Phrase objectives precisely and ask targeted relevant questions.
- Clearly communicate the expectations from participants and other stakeholders.
3. Take small steps to make incremental progress – it is not necessary to do everything, all at once:
- Improve quality and focus of current surveys and questionnaires
- Use the Business Alignment V-Model to critically analyze major programs
- Start small and take incremental steps along the way
4. Simplify where and when possible:
- Leverage the useful tricks and frameworks in the ROI methodology for isolating impact, converting data, and calculating benefits
- Improve macro scorecards to track and show the effectiveness of a portfolio of programs
5. Engage stakeholders early and communicate frequently.
Delivering a results-based program needs the involvement and commitment of stakeholders.
- Engage stakeholders and management early. Establish metrics in advance, provide a clear road map, and present data aligned with those expectations.
- Plan ahead as implementation issues will surface, and support will be needed. Find advocates who can address roadblocks.
- Different stakeholders’ viewpoints mean it is critical to set the right perspective from the beginning. For example, top management and funders want to see business outcomes and ROI.
- Report information that is relevant to different stakeholder groups
Planned Actions
With regular reflection times during the program, participants sorted through their learning and identified opportunities and next steps to take at work. Specifically, participants committed to:
- Applying the ROI process for reliable, results-based proposals to give more confidence to stakeholders,
- Improving current data instruments and practices by using appropriate data collection methods and focused questions,
- Ensuring participants, managers, and other stakeholders are clear about the expectations from them as a program unfolds,
- Adding checkpoints with various stakeholder groups for continued alignment
- Using the ROI methodology to showcase the value of a program to stakeholders.
- Focusing the team on what is most important to use our resources effectively. Estimating resources based on the characteristics and needs of a project.
Actions that were already taken during the workshop
Many participants spoke to their teams and other stakeholders about bringing the ROI Methodology frameworks into their program investments. At least one professional successfully proposed a project to improve an important business metric to their management.
What next?
Participants overwhelmingly hoped to improve the quality of their work by applying the ROI Methodology. They also wanted to gain better stakeholder alignment and higher team satisfaction.
Confidence with the ROI Framework comes with use. We offer many possibilities to improve the quality of your work; please get in touch with us to learn more.
Up next is the ROI Certification® Program in March 2022! The program is a way to measure a project you are working on while learning the skills. Learn more here >>
The next 2-day ROI Skill Building program is scheduled for July. Learn more and register here >>