History of Training and Development

By: Justin Ferriman • April 6, 2016
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I have a confession to make: I am a sucker for history.

Growing up history courses were always my favorite in school though I never really understood why.

Perhaps it’s because we can learn from people who were just like us who have faced similar challenges that we face today.

That being the case, it should come as no surprise that the infographic above peaked my interest.

First, it has to do with history.

But secondly, it is related to an industry I am very passionate about.

I’m somewhat skeptical about the starting date of this infographic. I mean, how can you really say when training and development started? I think humans have been learning, training, and developing for a very long time 🙂 .

That said, it’s still fun to have a look into the past of this every growing field.

I’m not surprised to see that some of the more formal training and development initiatives mentioned are relating to the military. It seems that (for whatever reason) war brings out a degree of ingenuity that we don’t see in other fabrics of society.

The graphic puts an emphasis on the 1900s, and probably with good reason. This was really a “boom” period for training and development.

During this time we start to see organizations dedicated to the subject outside of the standard university setting. Methodology for evaluation also started to take off with Kirkpatrick leading the charge.

Fast-forward to post-2000 and elearning starts to highly influence the training and development industry with gamification and MOOCs.

The infographic stops there. It would have been interesting to see a few predictions.

One thing is for sure: this industry is here to stay and constantly evolving along side the technology available.

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter