If the Training Isn’t Tied to a Business Goal, Why Are We Building It?

“We need training.”

I’ve heard that sentence more times than I can count.

My next question is usually some version of:

Why?

Not because I don’t think training is needed.

I just want to understand what we’re actually trying to change.

• Are people making too many errors?

• Is a new system launching?

• Are employees not following a process?

• Has something changed in the business?

• Are we trying to improve productivity, adoption, customer experience, compliance, quality, or performance?

• What’s happening now that we want to be different afterward?

  
  

If we don't know the answer to these types of questions, it could cause teams

to start with the deliverable too quickly. This could result in building something that looks good, launches on time, gets completed—and doesn’t solve much of anything.

I’ve worked on enough learning projects to know that sometimes the request really does need training.

Sometimes it needs training plus something else.

And sometimes training isn’t the problem at all.

• The issue might be a confusing process.

• A system that’s difficult to use.

• Employees who don’t know what’s expected of them.

• Managers who aren’t reinforcing the change.

• Or people who know exactly what they’re supposed to do but don’t have the time, tools, or support to do it.

A course isn’t going to fix all of that.

That’s why I like to understand the business goal before we get too far into content.

Once that is clear, the learning objectives become much easier to define.

And measurement gets better too.

Instead of asking only whether people completed the training or liked the session, we can start asking whether the thing we were trying to influence is actually moving.

That doesn’t mean every learning program needs a complicated business case and twelve KPIs.

Sometimes the goal is very straightforward.

But there should be a goal.

Otherwise, how do we know what to prioritize?

And how do we know if the training worked?

I’m all for creating a great learning experience.

I just want to know what we need that experience to do.

Because the goal isn’t really the course.

The course is there to help the business get somewhere.