Performance First Insights
Performance First™
Training should change what people can do—not simply what they know.Performance First provides a practical framework for designing learning around the performance people must produce on the job. Start with the work, define what successful performance looks like, and build learning that prepares people to deliver it.
Start with performance, not content
Traditional training design often begins by asking what people need to know. Performance First begins somewhere else: What must people be able to do? From there, the design works backward to identify the knowledge, skills, practice, feedback, and support people need to perform successfully on the job.
Performance
Define what people must be able to do on the job.
Conditions
Identify the situation, tools, information, and circumstances in which they must perform.
Criteria
Define what successful performance looks like and how it will be judged.
Learning
Design only the knowledge, practice, feedback, and support required to produce that performance.
Design backward from the work
Once the required performance is clear, learning can be designed around the moments that matter. Instead of organizing training around everything someone might need to know, Performance First focuses on what people need to do, the situations in which they must do it, and the practice and feedback required to build capability.
The result is learning that is more relevant to the work, easier to apply, and better connected to the performance the organization needs.
Explore Performance First™
Performance First takes this approach from principle to practice, showing learning professionals how to begin with the performance the organization needs and design learning that prepares people to produce it.
Whether you’re designing a single learning experience or rethinking how your organization approaches training, the book provides a practical framework for connecting learning to work.