When helping your or your client's organisation articulate its goals, questions to ask are:
What is the organisation really trying to achieve?
What data is already available that may serve as indicators of goal achievement?
Who will be responsible for collecting and reporting the data?
It is advisable to keep the number of goals to a minimum, otherwise your organisation may suffer from paralysis by analysis. For large improvement programmes, use a mix of leading and lagging indicators, that is, in-process indicators and outcome indicators. An example of a leading indicator is machine downtime whilst a lagging indicator might be number of late deliveries. And remember that the responsibility for achieving the organisational outcomes is not solely that of the HR/training department. Far from it. Systems thinking shows us that achieving targets is a shared responsibility with line managers and supervisors.
Readers familiar with Kirkpatrick's model for evaluating the effectiveness of training programmes will recognise that assessing the extent of behaviour change is a Level 3 evaluation, whilst determining progress toward achieving organisational targets is a Level 4 evaluation. The point here is that evaluations at these two levels are not evaluations of the training programme per se, but evaluations of the organisational improvement programme in which the training programme is embedded as just one element.
For some programmes, there may appear to be no "bottom-line" goals applicable. What are the measurable organisational outcomes for team-building and leadership development programmes and legislative awareness programmes such as EEO and unfair dismissal? For professional/interpersonal skills programmes and the like, I suggest soft measures as can be gained from survey instruments, such as 360 degree questionnaires. For legislative compliance, OH&S training and the like, I would suggest avoidance goals, such as no or reduced EEO complaints, safety incidents and so on.
If we cannot say what we expect as the outcome of an improvement programme, in measurable terms, we ought to think twice about devoting resources to it. The funds may be better used elsewhere. This is another reason for ascertaining the measurable goals first. It provides a valuable reality check on the utility of the proposed programme.