The Structure First Method
The Learning
Design Audit
20 questions that reveal whether your training changes behaviour, or just fills a room.
Most organisations believe they have a training problem when they have a design problem. Training that people sat through and enjoyed, but that changed nothing in how they work, is one of the most expensive things a business can quietly keep paying for. This audit exposes where learning is being delivered instead of designed, and why so little of it survives contact with real work.
A session people enjoyed and a session that changed how they work are not the same thing.
Before you begin
Answer for the learning you actually deliver, not the version in your head.
Select Yes only when it is true of your programmes as they really run today, consistently, and not just at their best. Each section scores out of five. The gaps are the point.
Section 01
Purpose and Outcomes
Training is not the goal. A change in behaviour or performance is. Most learning fails here, before a single slide is made.
Before designing any training, do you define the specific behaviour or result it must change, not just the knowledge it will cover?
Can you tell the difference between a problem training can solve and one that is really about process, tools, or management?
Is there an agreed way to know whether the training worked, decided before it is built rather than after it is delivered?
Does each programme have a clear owner accountable for the outcome, not only for delivering the session on the day?
Learning gets measured by whether people liked it, because that is the easiest thing to measure. Enjoyment is not evidence that anything changed.
Section 02
Learner and Context
Content designed for no one in particular lands with no one in particular. The learner and their real work come first.
Is the training designed around what learners already know and do, rather than starting everyone from zero?
Does the design account for how and when people will actually use this, in the flow of their real work?
Have you designed for the reality that attention is limited, rather than assuming people will absorb long sessions?
Are learners given a reason to care before they are given content, or does it open with the material itself?
People do not switch off because the content is bad. They switch off because no one told them why it was theirs to care about.
Section 03
Design and Structure
There is a difference between informing people and teaching them. One transfers content. The other changes what someone can do.
Is the content sequenced so each part builds on the last, rather than being a list of topics in any order?
Does the design include real practice and doing, or is it mostly telling and showing?
Are people given the chance to get things wrong safely, where a mistake teaches rather than costs?
Is complexity introduced gradually, so learners are stretched but not overwhelmed into switching off?
Nobody has ever learned to do something well by being told about it once. Practice is not a nice addition to learning. It is the part where learning actually happens.
Section 04
Delivery and Experience
The format should serve the learning, not the other way around. Habit and convenience quietly decide most of it instead.
Is the format chosen because it suits the learning, or because it is simply what you have always used?
Does the experience respect the learner’s time, or does it stretch short content into long sessions to fill the slot?
Is there consistency in quality and tone, so learning does not depend on which trainer happened to deliver it?
Does the material work without you, or does it fall apart when someone else has to run it?
If a programme only works when its creator delivers it, you do not have a programme. You have a performance that ends when they leave.
Section 05
Transfer and Reinforcement
The session is not where learning is won or lost. The weeks after it are, and they are almost always left to chance.
Is there a plan for what happens after the training, so learning is reinforced rather than quietly forgotten?
Are managers equipped to support the new behaviour, or is the learner sent back into an unchanged environment?
Do you check whether behaviour actually changed weeks later, not just whether people enjoyed the session on the day?
Is the programme improved based on evidence of what worked, or delivered the same way each time out of habit?
Answer all 20 questions to reveal your result.
0 / 20
Where the design is weakest
You have just seen where your learning stops short of changing behaviour. The next step is designing it so it does.
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