Engagement Planning and Your Return On Investment

[ErinMR]

Throughout this blog series, we have discussed how the Instructure Success Model forms the center of our consulting approach. In this post, we will discuss how to analyze your return on investment through engagement planning — part of the “assess” section of the model .This phase allows institutions to examine successes and areas for improvement. 

What is Return on Investment and How Is Engagement Planning Connected To ROI?

The Return on Investment (ROI) for Credentialing programs includes the program cost relative to its efficacy and value. To evaluate this, we aim to track data relative to our goals and success measures. However, planning for active engagement before we begin collecting this data is crucial. Engagement planning lays a foundation for active participation, commitment, and success among program participants.

What Does Engagement Planning Look Like?

Engagement planning invites participants — which might include faculty, staff, administrators, and students — to be part of the Credentials program’s success, beginning before its launch. This helps create buy-in and anticipation for the rollout. This can be as simple as providing small previews of the program via social media or email campaigns. Once the program launches, effective engagement includes ongoing solicitation of feedback via discussions, surveys, or other mechanisms.

Before and during the program launch, effective engagement requires motivating participants and managing their concerns. Many successful programs develop an incentive plan to encourage participation while also predicting pain points or objections from those who might be hesitant to participate.

Some ideas for providing incentives and tackling challenges can be found at the chart below:

Providing Incentive and Recognition	Tackling Challenges
Create challenges or contests with prizes	Identify source of concerns to remove barriers
Carry out public acknowledgement of superusers through communication channels	Share the vision  (the “why”)
Award internal certificates or badges by reaching different levels of knowledge	Communicate choices
Create microlearning courses and award badges for completion	Show empathy

How Can We Measure ROI?

A good engagement plan will boost ROI and provide more “bang for the buck” when it comes to a program. Once the program has been in place for a designated period, it’s time to consider gathering information to measure its effectiveness.

One great place to start is to revisit your success measures. What data can you collect to support the program’s effectiveness in these areas? Some ideas include:

• Candidate enrollment 
• Application process
• Program completion rates 
• Candidate satisfaction 
• Job placement 
• Employer feedback
• Program budget

While Canvas Credentials can provide a number of useful data points, others might require additional measurement tools, like feedback surveys or other internal tracking. (Note: It may be useful to consider who will be responsible for gathering this data on a regular basis.) Once we have identified what aspects of our program are most successful and which need more development, we can revisit our strategic plans to make adjustments.

The Program Is Working — What Next?

The Instructure Success Model is an iterative process. As your program grows, you will find new successes and challenges, and your engagement and ROI metrics will adapt over time. We suggest revisiting and updating your success measures on a regular basis, and making changes as needed to your engagement strategies and your ROI measurements. 

We’d love to partner with you to create an engagement plan and ROI strategy that reflects your goals and success measures. Reach out to your Customer Success Manager for more details on our consulting services.