Learning and Development Strategy: Key Elements for Success

Building a learning and development strategy that drives retention and skill development requires understanding where your organization currently stands. Most L&D leaders struggle because they copy frameworks built for different maturity levels or try to advance every capability simultaneously.

This guide introduces the D2L L&D Maturity Navigator—a framework that helps you assess your organization across five pillars, diagnose core challenges and build a focused training strategy that connects to business outcomes. You’ll finish with a practical roadmap tailored to your maturity stage, not an idealized plan that can’t survive budget realities.

Introducing the L&D Maturity Navigator

Building a learning and development strategy requires understanding where your organization currently stands and which gaps matter most. The D2L L&D Maturity Navigator provides that clarity through five interconnected pillars: Strategic Alignment, Governance, Tech Architecture, Learning Ecosystem and Evaluation & Growth.

Each pillar progresses through three maturity stages—foundational, emerging and advanced. Organizations rarely mature evenly across all pillars. You might have strong governance but weak technology infrastructure, or advanced analytics without strategic alignment. Research from Deloitte shows that only 12% of organizations reach the highest maturity level, but those that do are three times more likely to retain top talent and meet financial targets.

The L&D strategy framework works as a diagnostic tool. Use it to map your current position, identify weak areas and build an L&D strategy roadmap that prioritizes the gaps blocking impact.

How to Use the Learning and Development Strategy Navigator 

Start with a self-assessment across all five pillars. Map where your organization currently sits in each one—foundational, emerging, or advanced. This learning needs analysis reveals which pillars need immediate attention and which can evolve over time.

Most organizations discover uneven maturity. Strong governance might coexist with weak tech architecture. The goal is not to advance every pillar simultaneously. Prioritize your weakest areas first, then strengthen adjacent pillars to avoid creating new bottlenecks.

Cambridge research confirms that effective employee training and development operates as a continuous ecosystem. Use the navigator to build that ecosystem strategically, conducting skills gap analysis at each stage to guide your roadmap.

Use this table to identify where your organization stands across each pillar. Most organizations find they’re at different stages across pillars—that’s expected and helps you prioritize your roadmap.

Next step: Identify your weakest pillar and use the guidance in the sections above to build your progression roadmap. Organizations that try to advance all pillars simultaneously often stall. Focus on shoring up your foundation first, then build systematically.

Foundational: Alignment and Training Are Reactive

Organizations at the foundational stage treat training as a response mechanism rather than a strategic investment.

You’re at this stage if:

• Training happens reactively, triggered by compliance deadlines or performance gaps rather than strategic planning
• Learning programs exist in isolated pockets across departments with no shared standards or coordination
• You struggle to articulate how L&D initiatives connect to business outcomes like revenue, retention, or operational efficiency

Most organizations start here. Learning needs analysis focuses on immediate skill deficiencies rather than future capability requirements. Training needs analysis addresses symptoms rather than root causes. Business alignment goals remain unclear or inconsistent, making it difficult to secure executive buy-in or budget.

How to progress:

• Establish formal connections between learning initiatives and specific business objectives—document how each program supports organizational priorities
• Conduct proactive skills assessments that identify gaps before they impact performance, moving from reactive fixes to predictive planning
• Begin tracking basic metrics like completion rates and time-to-competency to demonstrate value and build the case for more sophisticated infrastructure

Emerging: Governance and Technology Begin to Take Shape

Organizations at the emerging stage begin to formalize learning operations and introduce centralized technology.

You’re at this stage if:

• You’ve established formal governance and stakeholders with defined roles and accountability for learning outcomes
• You’ve implemented a core learning experience platform or LMS to centralize training delivery and tracking
• You’re starting to capture people analytics and measurement data, though analysis remains mostly descriptive rather than predictive

This stage marks a critical transition. LMS reporting becomes possible as training moves from fragmented spreadsheets to unified systems. Organizations can finally see completion rates, time-on-task and basic engagement metrics across departments. However, data often sits unused or generates reports that don’t drive decisions.

The Money Management Institute reached this stage when they built the MMI Learning Hub on Brightspace, centralizing programs across 200+ member firms. Their unified platform enabled consistent delivery while capturing engagement data that previously didn’t exist.

How to progress:

• Move beyond completion tracking to analyze how learning translates into performance changes and business impact
• Establish cross-functional steering committees that connect L&D priorities directly to departmental and executive goals
• Build integration layers between your LMS, HRIS and performance management systems to create a connected learning ecosystem

Advanced: Learning Ecosystems and Continuous Improvement Drive Impact

Organizations at the advanced stage embed learning into daily work and use data to continuously refine programs.

You’re at this stage if:

• Learning pathways design connects formal training with on-the-job application using a blended learning approach that includes microlearning, social learning and experiential projects
• You’ve implemented competency framework mapping that tracks skill development across roles and creates clear learning objectives setting tied to career progression
• Your content curation strategy balances proprietary and third-party resources, with continuous improvement loop mechanisms that update programs based on performance data and learner feedback

McKinsey research shows that future-ready organizations integrate development directly into project cycles and workflows rather than separating it into formal sessions. The 70 20 10 model becomes operational reality rather than aspirational theory. Learning culture initiatives permeate the organization, with managers acting as coaches rather than gatekeepers.

Smith University exemplifies this maturity. Using D2L Brightspace, they reduced new-hire training time by 50% while building 250 custom courses in seven months, blending proprietary expertise with curated content from Open Sesame. Their skills gap analysis drove continuous content refinement and custom interactive features increased learner autonomy.

Advanced organizations also apply the kirkpatrick evaluation model systematically when evaluating training programs, measuring reaction, learning, behavior change and business results. They don’t just track completion—they measure competency gains, performance improvements and ROI for employee training.

How to progress:

• Use predictive analytics to identify skill gaps before they impact business performance, shifting from reactive to anticipatory L&D
• Build talent mobility frameworks that connect learning data with internal opportunities, making capability development visible to hiring managers
• Establish agile experimentation practices—pilot new approaches quickly, measure impact and scale what works while sunsetting what doesn’t

Building an L&D Strategy Roadmap While Overcoming Common Barriers

A learning and development strategy is not a list of programs or a technology wish list. Following Richard Rumelt’s framework in his book “Good Strategy, Bad Strategy”, a good strategy requires three elements:

• A diagnosis of your key challenges
• Guiding policies that define how you’ll overcome them and
• Coherent actions that implement those policies.

Your L&D strategy roadmap must start with honest diagnosis. Use your maturity assessment to identify which gaps actually block business performance versus which are merely inconvenient.

Diagnosis: Identify the Challenge Preventing L&D Impact

Your diagnosis should be specific and evidence-based. Weak diagnosis sounds like “we need better training.” Strong diagnosis sounds like “our customer service escalation rate (22%) exceeds industry average (14%) because frontline agents lack product knowledge for our three newest offerings and our current training delivers generic content 90 days after hire when context has been forgotten.”

Write your diagnosis by connecting maturity gaps to business problems:

Our [specific maturity gap] prevents us from [business outcome] because [root cause].

Examples of strong diagnosis statements:

• “Our foundational Strategic Alignment prevents us from securing executive investment because we cannot demonstrate how learning initiatives connect to our company-level OKR of reducing customer churn from 8% to 5%.”
• “Our foundational Governance structure creates program duplication across regions—the sales team in EMEA built product training while North America built similar content simultaneously, wasting $85K and creating conflicting messaging.”
• “Our emerging Tech Architecture limits program scale because manual enrollment and tracking consumes 15 hours weekly per L&D team member, preventing us from supporting the planned 40% headcount growth.”

Guiding Policy: Define Your Approach to Overcoming the Challenge

Your guiding policy is not what you’ll do (that’s coherent actions). It’s your chosen approach—the philosophy that guides decisions.

For the diagnosis “our foundational Strategic Alignment prevents executive investment because we cannot demonstrate business impact,” your guiding policy might be: “We will prioritize measurement and business-outcome alignment over program volume, launching fewer initiatives with clear ROI tracking rather than expanding our program catalog.”

For the diagnosis about governance duplication, your guiding policy might be: “We will centralize program design authority while decentralizing delivery, creating reusable content frameworks that regions can adapt rather than allowing independent program development.”

Your guiding policy becomes the lens for all subsequent decisions. When someone proposes a new program, you ask: “Does this align with our policy of measurement-first, limited programs with clear ROI?” If not, you decline regardless of how interesting the program sounds.

Coherent Actions: Build Your Strategic Initiatives With Clear Business Alignment

Now translate your guiding policy into specific initiatives. Each action should connect directly to business goals—typically company-level OKRs shared at all-hands meetings or strategic priorities from your CEO’s quarterly update.

Use this format for each strategic initiative:

• Business Goal: [Specific company objective]—this should be something your CEO or exec team has specifically stated to your team as important. For example, “increase average contract value from $45K to $65K by year-end” or “expand into healthcare vertical with 15 new clients by Q4” or “reduce time-to-productivity for new sellers from 180 days to 90 days.”
• L&D Strategic Initiative: [What you’ll build]—describe the specific skills development strategy or capability-building program. For example, “design and launch enterprise sales methodology training for all account executives” or “build healthcare compliance certification program for client-facing roles” or “create role-based new hire orientation pathways with just-in-time product training.”
• Success Metric: [Measurable result tied directly to business goal]—avoid learning metrics like “completion rate” and use business metrics instead. For example, “ACV increases to $58K+ for reps who complete training vs. control group” or “healthcare pipeline reaches $2M qualified opportunities within 90 days of certification launch” or “new hire quota attainment in month 4 reaches 75% vs. current 45%.”
• Timeline: [When measurement begins]—specify when you’ll start tracking impact and when you’ll report results. For example, “begin measurement 30 days post-training completion, report results in Q2 board deck” or “weekly pipeline tracking starts at program launch, full impact assessment at 90 days.”
• Resource Requirements: [What this needs]—be specific about budget, headcount, technology and vendor support. For example, “$35K for instructional design contractor + 120 hours internal SME time + integration of LMS with Salesforce for automated enrollment” or “hire one learning experience designer (approved headcount) + $15K annual content licensing + Brightspace Analytics module.”

When determining resource requirements, calculate the ROI for employee training by comparing program costs against projected business impact. This calculation becomes your business case for executive investment.

Build 3-5 strategic initiatives maximum. The Money Management Institute didn’t try to solve everything at once—they diagnosed that inconsistent leadership development across 200+ member firms was the core barrier, established a guiding policy of centralized design with flexible delivery, then built coherent actions starting with three career-stage programs using D2L Brightspace.

Map Initiatives to Maturity Priorities Using This Decision Framework

Your maturity assessment tells you which initiatives are feasible now versus which require foundation-building first. Use this logic:

If you’re foundational in Strategic Alignment, your first initiative must establish business goal connections. Don’t launch ten programs—launch two with obsessive measurement that proves L&D impact. This builds the credibility needed for future investment.

If you’re foundational in Governance, your first initiative should create decision authority and accountability structures. Document who owns what, establish a steering committee with cross-functional representation and define approval processes before scaling programs. Cambridge research confirms that manager accountability drives learning transfer more than training hours—your governance must assign managers specific responsibilities.

If you’re foundational in Tech Architecture, your first initiative might be choosing an LMS that centralizes tracking and reporting. Smith University took this approach, building 250 custom courses in seven months on D2L Brightspace while integrating curated content from Open Sesame. They reduced new-hire training time by 50% by fixing infrastructure before expanding programs. When evaluating business LMS platforms, prioritize integration capabilities and analytics depth over feature volume—you need systems that connect to your HRIS and performance tools, not standalone course libraries.

If you’re emerging in Learning Ecosystem, your initiatives should focus on blended learning approaches and skills taxonomy design. Define the competencies each role requires, map learning pathways that combine formal training with social learning and on-the-job application and build content curation strategies that balance proprietary expertise with third-party resources. This is where enterprise learning scales from functional programs to organization-wide capability building.

If you’re emerging in Evaluation & Growth, your initiatives should establish systematic measurement using frameworks like the Kirkpatrick model—tracking reaction, learning, behavior change and business results rather than just completion rates.

Include Quarterly Strategy Reviews With Decision Triggers

McKinsey found that agile experimentation produces more effective learning innovation than rigid long-term planning. Build review checkpoints into your strategy with specific “if/then” decision rules:

• “If Strategic Alignment initiative delivers ROI above 200%, we will reallocate 30% of compliance training budget to strategic capability building.”
• “If governance structure reduces program duplication but slows time-to-launch beyond 90 days, we will add pre-approved rapid-response budget for urgent business needs.”
• “If manager adoption of coaching expectations falls below 60% after six months, we will add manager development time as a performance review metric.”

This approach ensures your employee training and development strategy remains a living document that adapts to business reality rather than becoming obsolete the moment priorities shift.

Your One-Sentence Strategy Statement

Once you’ve built diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent actions, distill it into a single sentence that anyone in your organization can understand and repeat:

“We will [guiding policy] by [top 2-3 coherent actions] to overcome [diagnosis] and achieve [business outcome].”

Example: “We will prioritize measurement-driven program design over catalog expansion by launching role-based sales training with integrated CRM tracking and manager coaching accountability to overcome our inability to demonstrate L&D’s revenue impact and achieve the company’s $65K average contract value target.”

This clarity prevents the most common L&D strategy failure: trying to be everything to everyone without diagnosing what actually matters.

Turning Strategy Into Measurable Workforce Impact

An effective learning and development strategy evolves through maturity stages by systematically aligning learning to business goals, building clear governance, adopting scalable technology and measuring outcomes that matter to executives.

Use the D2L L&D Maturity Navigator to identify your weakest pillar, build your diagnosis around that constraint and execute focused actions that address real gaps. Deloitte’s research shows that high-maturity organizations are three times more likely to retain talent and meet financial targets—the difference comes from treating L&D as strategic infrastructure, not a support function.

When you’re ready to scale your corporate learning strategy, D2L Brightspace provides the integration capabilities and analytics that organizations like the Money Management Institute and Smith University use to progress through maturity stages.