Hello Everyone:
I'm in charge of the Quality Training Department for a major Pharmaceutical company in the US and have a goal for 2008 of the development of an evaluation system to test for training effectiveness for both technical and non technical training programs. I am familiar with the first three level of evaluation however I wish to go deeper and tied our success to the accomplishment of the company’s goals. I look to move the training department to the role of a business partner.
I see this program as an aid in doing this.

Don't know if this will help...but you can go to my website and request a free 30 day trial of our survey and assessment software. Being able to play with the capabilities might trigger some ideas about how to proceed with your project.

Good luck.

Completely agree with you, for companies to see value from training, it is important to tie the results of the training program to the actual on the job improvements. This has to be done at a program level where the results of the program are captured and monitored.

Kern is a lerning solutions company that does a lot of work on evaluating training. Have a look at this article on Kern's Learning Evaluation Methodology:
http://elearning.kern-comm.com/?m=200706

All the Best!

Regards,
Rashmi
www.kern-comm.com

I find that the only way to hope to measure impact on the business is to make sure from the beginning that training solution is directly related to a performance gap that is directly related to a business goal.

Impact has to do with performance and the organization, not really the training design/content. "Traditional [training] evaluation approaches can undermine training effectiveness and thwart efforts to achieve constructive organizational learning capability." (Brinkerhoff & Apking, High Impact Learning, 2001)

In case you are looking for methods to Isolate the effects of training, Jack and Patti Phillips have many books with guides that can step you through the process.