Connect learning to role-based capability standards and development plans so you can show what leaders actually want to see.
Completion rates have been the default measure of learning success for years, mostly because they’re easy to measure. But executives want to know whether people are ready to do their jobs, and a completion report can’t answer that.
In this episode of Ecosystem Experts, Keith Metcalfe, President of Acorn, joins Paige Bergman, Director of Content Curation at OpenSesame, to talk about how learning leaders can move beyond completions without losing what makes them valuable. They discuss why role-based capability standards and development plans give leaders and employees a shared language for growth, and how AI is making those standards faster to build and easier to connect to learning content.
What you’ll learn
- Why completion rates became the default measure of learning success, and why they still matter for compliance
- How to frame the shift to capability measurement with your executive team
- Why 15 to 20 skills per role is too many for a meaningful development conversation—and why focusing on four to five capabilities is more practical
- How development plans turn employee and leader input into structured, measurable data
- How AI can speed up job definition, capability mapping, and matching content to development needs
- Practical first steps for building a capability-based approach that leaders will actually use
Key takeaway
Measuring capability starts with a development plan people actually use.
Completions and compliance remain a pillar of any learning strategy. By adding role-based capabilities and development plans, organizations can see where people are in their development and align learning to what each role requires.
About the speakers
Keith Metcalfe leads Acorn’s customer experience teams and has spent more than 25 years working with L&D and HR leaders to link development to business outcomes. He has held leadership roles at SAP, Business Objects, and Taleo, and regularly speaks on making development meaningful, evidenced, and measurable.
Paige Bergman leads content curation at OpenSesame, helping organizations connect with learning content that fits their people, roles, and goals. She moderates the Ecosystem Experts series.
About the partnership
OpenSesame and Acorn help organizations connect learning to the work people do every day.
Acorn is the skills and development platform that connects the capabilities each role requires to everyday work and development, so organizations have evidence of what their people can do. OpenSesame provides a broad catalog of curated learning content. Together, courses can be aligned to each person’s development plan, so learning becomes part of a clearer picture of workforce capability.
