Low completion was killing my leadership coaching track inside the academy. I didn’t have time to rework assessments, so I delegated to a junior designer. She removed the final knowledge check and left two reflection questions. Completion went 41% to 63%. We celebrated. Six months later a department head asked which behaviours changed. I had nothing. We traded proof for completion. Now I’m rebuilding a lighter check that still shows transfer. Don’t make that trade.
We cut assessment to raise completion. It backfired.
Case study
Author-reported results.
- Starting situation
- Corporate leadership coaching track with 41% completion. Lars had no time to rework assessments himself and delegated to a junior designer.
- What changed
- Replaced the final knowledge check with two reflection questions to reduce assessment friction.
- Result
- Completion rose to 63% in one cohort. Six months later, there was no data on behaviour change; department heads asked what the programme actually changed.
- Limitations
- Single programme, no control group, and completion was treated as success. The mistake was removing assessment instead of designing one that captured transfer.
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