Facilitated by: Samuele Lanzanova
The conversation around L&D budgets is usually stuck in a loop: attendance rates, feedback surveys, maybe a certification or two. But when it comes to proving real business impact, those numbers rarely convince a CEO.
At our table, the group wrestled with the question: how can skill data become the lever that unlocks investment in learning?
A clear theme emerged: tracking training hours isn’t enough. Leaders want to know if new skills are showing up in the work. The challenge is that most learning data is scattered — inside the LMS, in external certificates, or hidden in performance conversations. Pulling it all together is messy, and often still manual.
One participant put it bluntly: “Every other department can show business metrics. L&D still shows attendance sheets. That doesn’t get you budget.”
Another added: “If I go to my CEO with a dashboard of training hours, they’ll say, so what? If I go with data showing managers are missing critical skills for next year’s strategy — that’s when money gets unlocked.”
We explored different approaches to measuring skills:
Still, there was healthy skepticism. “Even if someone passes a test, it doesn’t mean they’re competent on the job,” one voice cautioned.
The Holy Grail is linking skills to performance data: are the people with higher proficiency also the ones driving outcomes? As another attendee noted: “That’s the kind of evidence that convinces leadership, not just the happy sheets at the end of a training.”
AI came up often, not just as a skill to teach but as part of the measurement process itself. Personalized learning journeys, adaptive assessments, and AI-driven dashboards can help L&D teams show both progress and impact without drowning in admin.
One participant shared: “We’re starting to connect personal learning goals with outcomes. AI shows us who actually applied what they learned, and what skills are emerging across the organization. That’s powerful.”