We’re getting close to the time where we start looking at planning our business and training goals for next year. So now is a good time to ask: how are you doing with the goals you made for training this year?

We don’t know the specific goals that you set for this year. But here is a list of generic training goals that many companies make when they are planning to revamp and improve their training:

• Conduct a top-to-bottom review of our training methods and processes.
• Organize our training using a Learning Management System.
• Deliver more of our training on mobile devices.
• Take a fresh look at the metrics we use to measure our training success.
• Conduct a complete review of our older training materials and update where necessary.
• Determine what training our instructional designers need that will freshen and update their skills.

But What Did You Really Get Done?

If you are not making enough progress on your 2022 training goals, here are some questions to ask:

Did we set goals that were really important, or only what we thought would be nice to reach?

Often when we are setting goals, we think “Gee, that is something that ought to be important to us, so we’ll add it to the list.” But does that goal move you toward your most important real-world goals? If not, chances are it will remain undone.

What has stopped you from moving ahead with achieving your goals?

Was a resolution too big and complex? Or maybe it got stalled because your internal team lacked an expert who had the specific skills the project required. If the goal is genuinely important, consider starting over again after hiring a new team member or partnering with an external training development consultant.

Are you failing to delegate some of your training goals to people who can handle them better than you can?

This can happen when you think, “I’m the only person who knows how to do this, so I’ll put it on hold until I have the time to take it on.” If you have fallen into that pattern, the solution is to hand off parts of the project to other members of your team.

Why not just cross some of the training goals off your list and forget them?

That might seem like a funny suggestion. But crossing off a goal can sometimes trigger more progress than you expect. Deleting an unmet goal from your list could cause you to learn that it was not that important in the first place. Or you might decide to dust it off, really get going on it, and attack it with renewed energy and planning.