EPISODE 01: What Nearly 70 IACET Accreditation Reviews Taught Me About Learning Excellence

Posted on August 26, 2026 by Rowell Mariano

Wow, has it really been four years?

When I became an IACET Commissioner in 2022, I honestly did not expect that this role would eventually give me the opportunity to see how different organisations around the world approach learning. My journey actually started on the other side of the table. At that time, I was working with AECOM, a Fortune 500 infrastructure company, and was trusted to oversee the organisation’s IACET accreditation journey. I was practically handling the accreditation myself, so I had to understand every single standard and look closely at how our learning processes worked. More than completing documents, I had to ask ourselves if what we were saying in our policies and processes was really happening in practice.

We eventually achieved accreditation in 2022. Soon after, we applied for IACET awards and received two. Then something happened that I did not really expect. I received an invitation asking if I would be interested in applying as an IACET Commissioner. I applied, went through the process, and fortunately became part of the Commission.

Fast forward to today: after four years, I have reviewed nearly 70 accreditation applications and counting. I have worked with organisations of very different sizes and structures. I have reviewed a one-person organisation, and I have also had the opportunity to review globally recognised organisations and institutions such as NASA, Emerson, Korn Ferry, Harvard, and many others. I have spoken with organisational leaders in Australia, the Middle East, Europe, Canada, the United States, and other parts of the world. That also meant adjusting to different time zones and sometimes holding conversations at hours I would normally be asleep. But all of that became part of the experience.

What makes the journey meaningful for me is that I am not only reviewing organisations. I am also learning from them. Every application gives me an opportunity to understand how another organisation approaches continuing education and training. I review their processes and the evidence they provide. I talk with their leaders and ask questions about how those processes actually work. I look at areas where they meet the standards and areas where they may still need to improve. At the same time, I get to hear their stories and understand the thinking behind what they do.

One of the things that struck me over the years is that even some of the biggest and most respected organisations still have areas they are working on, and I think that says something about what a good organisation really looks like. Good organisations do not assume that because they are already successful, there is nothing more for them to learn. They are willing to look at their systems, listen to feedback, recognise gaps, and continue improving.

After nearly 70 reviews, you also begin to notice patterns. Interestingly, many of the things that determine learning quality happen long before a learner enters the classroom.

One of the most common issues I encounter is documentation. There are organisations that actually have good practices. Their people know what to do, and they may have been following the same process for years. The problem is that sometimes the process is not documented. It may be sitting inside someone’s head or buried somewhere in an email exchange. Sometimes the explanation is simply, “This is how we have always done it.”

That becomes difficult when someone leaves the organisation or a new person comes in. It also becomes difficult when you need to show that a process is being implemented consistently. Documentation helps organisations preserve good practices and make them repeatable. But I also want to make one thing clear. Good documentation does not mean producing a hundred-page manual.

I have reviewed organisations with very detailed policies and processes. Some have pages and pages of documentation. I have also reviewed organisations with shorter documents that are very clear and complete. They go straight to the point and already contain what is needed. Both approaches can work because the number of pages is never the real issue. What matters is that your documentation reflects how your organisation actually operates.

Sometimes I hear applicants say, “We did this because this is what IACET wants.” That is where I usually challenge the thinking. IACET provides the standards, but your processes should still make sense for your organisation. The standard should guide your system. Your system should serve your organisation and your learners.

Another common pattern is the tendency to follow whatever is currently popular in the industry. A topic becomes a trend, and suddenly everybody needs a training program about it. AI is popular, so organisations immediately think of AI training. Leadership remains a common topic, so another leadership program gets created. But before designing any training, I think there is a much more important question to ask. What problem or capability are we actually trying to address?

Training should respond to a real need. That need can come from an organisational assessment or a capability gap. It may come from changes in the market or a statutory and regulatory requirement. What matters is that there is a reason behind the learning intervention. If we simply follow what is popular, we risk creating programs that sound current but may not really help our people or the organisation.

Then there is program design itself. I have seen programs where there is already a title and an outline of topics, and somehow that becomes the entire design. But a list of topics does not automatically make a well-designed learning program. We still need to ask what learners should be able to do after the program, how we are going to help them get there, and how we will know if learning actually happened.

This is also where measurable learning outcomes become important. When the learning outcomes are vague, everything that follows becomes difficult. How do you select the right activities? How do you assess learning? How do you know if the program achieved what it was designed to achieve? Every part of the learning experience needs to connect to a purpose.

Another area where I still see a lot of confusion is the difference between assessment and evaluation. They are related, but they are not the same. Assessment looks at learner achievement. Did the learner achieve the intended learning outcomes? Evaluation looks at the learning program itself. Was it effective? What worked? What needs improvement?

What concerns me sometimes is that organisations collect evaluation forms after every session, but the process stops there. They have the data, but nobody really looks at what the data is telling them. There may be no analysis and no recommended action. Nothing changes. If we collect evaluation results but never use them to make decisions, then we are completing a requirement rather than using evaluation as a tool for improvement.

Resources are another part of the picture. Many organisations say that learning is important, and I believe that they mean it. But at some point, that commitment needs to be reflected in how resources are allocated. Quality learning requires qualified people. It requires enough time to properly design and review programs. It may require technology and systems for learner records. It also requires resources to improve programs based on what the organisation learns through evaluation.

This does not mean that you need to have a massive training budget to achieve learning excellence. In fact, one of the things my experience has taught me is that the size of the organisation does not automatically determine the quality of its learning system. I have seen smaller organisations with limited resources that are very disciplined in how they manage learning. I have also seen large organisations with more complex systems that still have areas they need to address.

A one-person organisation and a global organisation will obviously have very different systems. That is perfectly fine. Learning excellence is not about copying what another organisation is doing. It is about knowing what your organisation needs, building the right processes around those needs, and making sure those processes actually work.

This is also why I see accreditation as more than receiving an accreditation certificate. Accreditation is the recognition. The real value is in the journey of getting there and what the organisation continues to do after achieving it.

The journey forces you to look at your organisation more closely. Are our processes clear? Are we responding to the needs of our learners? Are our learning outcomes measurable? Are we assessing learning properly? Are we evaluating our programs and doing something with the results? Are our actual practices consistent with what we have written in our policies?

These questions are not always comfortable, but they are important.

Having gone through the accreditation journey myself before becoming a Commissioner also shaped how I approach every review. I know what it feels like to be on the applicant’s side. I know the amount of work that goes into preparing the application and making sure that the organisation can demonstrate compliance with the standards. That is why I have never seen the role of a Commissioner as someone who is simply waiting to find what is wrong.

We are not there to terrorise applicants. We are there to review against the standards and help organisations through their journey. There will be gaps that need to be addressed, and sometimes there will be difficult questions that need to be asked. But the goal is still to help organisations strengthen the quality of the continuing education and training they provide.

That was actually one of the reasons I wanted to become a Commissioner in the first place. I wanted to help organisations across the world provide quality learning experiences. I know the impact that good learning can create in the lives of the people an organisation serves.

When employees receive quality learning, it can affect how they perform their work. In an academic institution, it eventually affects students. In banking, it can affect the people who trust an institution with their money. In technology, it affects the clients relying on the people delivering the service. For training providers, it directly affects every learner and client who comes to them expecting a quality learning experience.

That is why learning excellence has always been bigger than the training session for me.

People usually see what happens when the facilitator enters the room or when an online class begins. They see the presentation, the activities, and the instructor. What they do not always see are the decisions made before that session started. They do not see the needs assessment, the learning design, the selection of instructors, the resources allocated, the assessment process, the evaluation results, and the improvements made afterward.

And that is exactly what I want to talk about here.

The Backstage: Beyond the Classroom is about looking at what happens behind the learning experience. It is about the systems, decisions, practices, and sometimes difficult conversations that help turn training into quality learning.

After nearly 70 accreditation reviews and counting, one thing has become very clear to me. Learning excellence starts long before a learner enters the classroom, and the work continues long after the session ends.

There is always more happening backstage.