- What have you learned about the evaluation of projects/events/processes from the course?
- What tools will you take from this course and use in your career—now or in the future?
I have always been interested in behavioral neuroscience and economics; looking at how that applies to work and industry is what led me to pursue the OD Masters. In the United States especially (and some countries are even more drastic), we spend an enormous chunk of our lives, and derive so much personal meaning and identity, from what we do for work – why would we not take it seriously and try to make it as productive, fulfilling, and impactful as possible? Especially with COVID-19 shaking things up so much in the sense of re-defining work as not necessarily linked to an office, and forcing questions of innovation and work-life balance, the business world is becoming increasingly ripe for change.
This course really helped me with being able to visualize and execute the process of making the intangible tangible. I am from a startup background, and so am used to the concept of “soft” skills and KPIs on company culture and design and whatnot; however, this is an entirely different ballgame when your company is not just 4 people sitting at a table and you can talk to the CEO whenever you want. Being able to bridge the gap between being able to identify what needs to be improved, and being able to measure them, has been the biggest gift of this course to me. I’ve always been analytical and been able to identify improvements in process and culture that are not necessarily “on paper” but are important; however, learning how to translate those into KPIs with metrics (through concepts like the business scorecard) has been a great addition to my skill set.
Understanding the different models for measuring the things that I already knew were important for companies and organizations – but did not know how to really define, discuss, or assign values to – is undoubtedly the biggest tool I can use moving forward from this course. The quick dip into HR metrics in Lesson 9 was very informative, as were the models discussed throughout the class (Kirkpatrick’s, CIPP, 7 Rs, etc.).
