This guide was developed to help small business owners and managers select effective programs for their companies. Seven guidelines to help the small business manager analyze and compare programs and predict training effectiveness are presented in the forum of questions. They are: (1) Are the training objectives specific? (2) Is the structure logical? (3) Can you measure the learning? (4) Does the training method suit the content? (5) Does the program allow active participation? (6) Does the program use examples and materials from employees' jobs? and (7) Do employees get feedback on their performance? These guidelines are based on training principles derived from many years of research with adult learners and from the experiences of professional trainers and educators. As each guideline is introduced, its corresponding training principle is described, and examples from real training courses are provided. The book is organized in four chapters. The first two short chapters deal with preliminary considerations: chapter 1 asks if training is the answer to improving the situation, and chapter 2 helps the manager define the company's constraints on cost and scheduling and then presents some ideas about where to find potential programs and how to collect information about them. The third and central chapter introduces the seven guidelines, showing how they can be used to analyze and compare the training and education programs that have been identified and discusses each guideline and the training principle on which it is based. The final chapter discusses several techniques for making certain that employees apply what they learned from the training to their jobs. The book also includes a checklist of the guidelines that can be used to analyze and compare different training and education programs. (KC)