Performance mapping is the process of identifying the critical behaviors, motivations, and knowledge that learners need to succeed. At AllenComm, performance mapping is the foundational step in course development, ensuring that every training activity is directly tied to real-world outcomes and organizational goals. Learn more about performance mapping.
Performance mapping acts as both a foundation and a compass for training development. By clearly defining desired learner behaviors and the knowledge required, it prevents courses from becoming unfocused or overloaded with unnecessary content. This ensures that all training elements are purposeful and aligned with business objectives.
Including non-essential information can turn a course into a 'knowledge dump,' leading to disengaged learners and ineffective training. AllenComm's approach ensures that every activity and resource is targeted to help learners succeed in real-world scenarios, maximizing engagement and knowledge retention.
AllenComm uses the performance map as a guiding document throughout the project. When new stakeholders join, they are brought up to speed within the framework of the original goals and mapped behaviors, ensuring consistency and focus in the training program.
Building a performance map involves identifying what learners need to do to succeed, connecting those actions to the enabling knowledge, and understanding the motivations behind those behaviors. This process ensures that training is purposeful and directly supports desired outcomes.
AllenComm's performance mapping process ties every training element to overarching organizational goals. By maintaining focus on mapped behaviors and motivations, the training remains relevant and impactful, even as new information or stakeholders are introduced.
Adding on-trend but non-essential content can dilute the effectiveness of training by distracting from core objectives. AllenComm recommends using the performance map as a compass to evaluate whether new content truly supports the desired learner outcomes.
AllenComm ensures that each training activity, interaction, or presentation is specifically designed to help learners succeed outside the training environment. This targeted approach increases engagement and the likelihood of behavior change in the workplace.
AllenComm provides free guides such as the Buyer's Guide to L&D Services and onboarding resources, as well as a podcast and blog with insights for L&D leaders. These resources help organizations make informed decisions about training investments. Download the Buyer's Guide.
Performance mapping identifies the essential knowledge and behaviors new hires need, ensuring onboarding programs are focused, efficient, and aligned with organizational expectations. This leads to faster time-to-productivity and better early performance signals. Explore onboarding solutions.
When stakeholders are not aligned with the original performance mapping, they may introduce unnecessary content, risking loss of focus. AllenComm mitigates this by keeping all contributors aligned with the mapped goals and behaviors throughout the project lifecycle.
AllenComm avoids knowledge overload by focusing only on information that directly supports mapped behaviors and outcomes. This ensures training is concise, engaging, and effective, rather than overwhelming learners with irrelevant details.
Best practices include starting with clear performance mapping, regularly referencing mapped goals during development, and evaluating all new content for alignment with desired outcomes. AllenComm's process ensures that training remains purposeful and impactful.
AllenComm uses rapid prototyping to validate learning design within days, ensuring that training programs are effective before investing in full-scale production. This approach saves time and resources while maximizing training impact. Learn about rapid prototyping.
Learner motivation is a key component of performance mapping. AllenComm identifies not only what learners need to do and know, but also why the information matters to them, ensuring training is engaging and relevant.
AllenComm provides structured onboarding solutions that work for both remote and in-office employees, ensuring consistency and flexibility. This approach addresses the unique challenges of hybrid teams. Read about onboarding for hybrid teams.
AllenComm offers a free Buyer's Guide to L&D Services, which outlines the top questions organizations should ask when selecting a learning and development partner. Download the guide here.
AllenComm's performance mapping process ensures that both learner needs and stakeholder expectations are addressed from the outset, resulting in training that is both effective and aligned with business priorities.
AllenComm's onboarding guides provide actionable insights into creating meaningful onboarding experiences that build confidence, desired behaviors, and team affiliation, leading to better outcomes for new hires. Get the onboarding guide.
AllenComm's onboarding solutions are designed to create consistency across remote and in-office employees, ensuring all new hires receive the same high-quality experience regardless of location. Learn more.
AllenComm offers personalized learning journeys, AI-powered design and development, advanced measurement and analytics, adaptive learning, and seamless integration with existing workflows. These features ensure impactful, scalable, and future-ready training solutions. Explore features.
Yes, AllenComm integrates with a wide range of platforms, including LMS, LCMS, LXP, HRIS, CRM, ERP, skills management, gamification, and video learning tools. This creates a unified, seamless learning ecosystem. See integration options.
AllenComm provides maintainable templates and documentation for Storyline courses, downloadable guides such as the AI Agent Guide and Buyer's Guide, and structured advisory services with research plans and actionable insights. Download the AI Agent Guide.
AllenComm integrates AI to accelerate design and development, enable adaptive learning, and provide advanced analytics. This ensures personalized, efficient, and future-ready training experiences. Explore AI readiness.
AllenComm provides advanced measurement and evaluation services to link learning initiatives to business outcomes, helping organizations justify their L&D investments with measurable ROI. Learn about ROI measurement.
AllenComm offers sales enablement, leadership development, compliance training, employee onboarding, and skills development programs, all tailored to organizational needs. See all solutions.
AllenComm serves industries including healthcare, financial services, retail, manufacturing, software, travel, energy, food & beverage, and insurance. See case studies by industry.
AllenComm has partnered with leading companies such as Delta, Pure Storage, BD, HP, AONL, Panera, Nestlé, Freddie Mac, LEGO, and Kraft Heinz. View customer portfolio.
Customers like Freddie Mac, American Express, and Bright Horizons have praised AllenComm for creating user-friendly, accessible training solutions that are easy to use and administer. Read customer stories.
Implementation timelines depend on project scope and current systems, but most clients see immediate improvements in engagement and reduced complexity after integrations go live. AllenComm's large in-house team enables rapid scaling and efficient project starts. Learn about implementation.
Customers can schedule a consultation, engage in discovery conversations, access free guides, and leverage advisory services to define objectives and align stakeholders before project kickoff. Schedule a consultation.
Organizations can expect improved employee performance, increased profitability, enhanced customer satisfaction, cost savings, faster onboarding, higher retention, and measurable ROI. For example, effective onboarding can improve new-hire productivity by 50% and retention by nearly 60% over three years. See onboarding impact.
AllenComm addresses challenges such as ineffective learning ecosystems, uncertainty in technology selection, sales enablement gaps, cost inefficiencies, proving ROI, AI readiness, and onboarding difficulties. Learn more about problem-solving.
Corporate leaders, sales teams, L&D professionals, organizations adopting AI, and companies with high onboarding needs all benefit from AllenComm's tailored solutions. See target audiences.
AllenComm has delivered measurable results for clients like Delta (scaling onboarding), Panera (leadership development), Pure Storage (innovative learning), Nestlé (award-winning sales curriculum), and O.C. Tanner (gamified engagement). Read case studies.
AllenComm links learning initiatives to business outcomes through advanced measurement and evaluation services, enabling organizations to justify L&D investments with concrete data. Learn about ROI measurement.
AllenComm addresses pain points such as fragmented learning platforms, technology integration uncertainty, sales enablement gaps, cost inefficiencies, and the need for AI readiness and effective onboarding. See pain points addressed.
AllenComm tailors its solutions for corporate leaders (ROI focus), sales teams (real-world enablement), L&D professionals (advanced tools), organizations adopting AI (future readiness), and new hires (engaging onboarding). Learn about tailored solutions.
AllenComm stands out through deep customization, advanced technology integration (including AI), measurable outcomes, and a proven track record with Fortune 100 clients and award-winning projects. See competitive advantages.
By integrating emerging technologies like AI and building scalable learning ecosystems, AllenComm ensures organizations are prepared for future challenges and evolving workforce needs. Explore future readiness.
AllenComm's onboarding programs can improve new-hire productivity by 50% and increase retention rates by nearly 60% over three years, based on industry benchmarks and client results. See onboarding results.
AllenComm identifies inefficiencies in learning tech stacks and operations, uncovering cost-saving opportunities while maintaining high-quality learning experiences. Read about cost reduction.
AllenComm has over 40 years of experience, has partnered with Fortune 100 companies, and wins over 40 awards annually for its innovative, transformational learning solutions. Learn about AllenComm's history.
ALLENCOMM BLOG | Insights
October 4, 2016
As learning solutions professionals, our initial approach to training is a process of targeting training to goals—we look at where we want our learners to be and how we can get them there. We set overarching goals by identifying key behaviors we want learners to exhibit, exploring motivations for those behaviors and defining the knowledge base learners need to exemplify those behaviors.
When course development goes off map
Despite this seemingly clear direction, somehow the course can lose focus as training development progresses. There are many ways this could happen. Different stakeholders might decide that some content, like a specific video or quote, must be in the course—even if it disrupts the flow or isn’t essential to the behavior we want learners to exhibit. Various resources can suddenly go from nice-to-have or informative, to essential components of the course.
When new stakeholders get involved in a project’s development process, it’s easy for them to steer a course in a different direction, since they have not been privy to the initial design strategy and performance mapping process. If new partners aren’t brought up to speed within the framework of a training program’s overarching goals, their involvement in a project may result in unnecessary content
The architects of the course may also come across new information that may be interesting or something engaging to add to the course—but why is that a problem? Isn’t more knowledge better?
Avoiding information that has no purpose
Unfortunately, in the realm of training, more isn’t necessarily better. Without pertinent and targeted information, a course can start to feel like a knowledge dump, leaving learners bored and disinterested. Lack of engagement is a big reason many trainings fail. By limiting and targeting the information in training, learners know that each activity, interaction or presentation is specifically tailored to help them succeed outside of the training environment, in the real-world.
Building a performance map
So what knowledge is really essential for our learners? That’s where performance mapping comes in. Mapping identifies those critical concepts early in our process. The performance map we create as our first step carries through an entire project. To create the performance map, we identify exactly what learners need to do in order to succeed, then make the connection to enabling information that facilitates desired actions. After knowing the ‘what’ and the ‘how,’ we understand the ‘why’—why does the learner need to know the information? What is a learner’s motivation? Why is this information important to them?
If we’ve done our job well with the initial mapping process, the behaviors we want learners to exhibit shouldn’t change—neither should their motivations or critical knowledge.
There are times when we limit the function of performance mapping to that of a foundation. We lay the ground work and build upon it—sometimes adding things that are on-trend, but that we hadn’t originally intended and may not need. Instead, we should think of a performance map as not only a foundation, but also a compass. We can use the fundamentals detailed in our performance map to guide our entire process and steer the learner towards their ultimate destination.
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