Feature


An evidence-based future


Robin Hoyle, senior partner at Learnworks, on why he prefers the proven approach to L&D


an era where evidence of effectiveness and impact is becoming the norm.


I


Now you may think we’ve always been an industry that relies on a strong evidence base; however, a cursory look at what appears in much of the L&D press and on the dedicated websites reveals that a fair bit of wishful thinking and slavish belief in the power of technology to deliver the odd silver bullet has been prevalent in my years of practice. Of course, there will also be the tech fans in our midst. The current intrigue surrounding


t seems that we are in a new age of learning and development (L&D). The fads and techno-hype that have a tendency to pop up in the industry seem to be slowly waning. It would appear that we are moving into


artificial intelligence or machine learning – alongside both virtual and augmented realities – still seems to be somewhat light on details of real implementation and even lighter on robust studies concerning return on investment. I hope they do deliver results. I’m looking


forward to hearing from organisations like the BBC about how they’ve been able to harness the potential of some of these technologies. But I’ll also be looking for evidence of how these approaches are scalable outside the world of 21st century media production. Until any technological advance has been shown to add efficiency and effectiveness to our performance improvement endeavours, I’ll happily stay on the leading edge and leave the bleeding edge to others. This year’s conference programme for the


Stories shared by those who have learnt in the cauldron of live experimentation and incremental innovation are always great learning experiences


World of Learning Exhibition is especially rich in evidence-based thinking and proven


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