Training

Management Development - Passport to Success

In August 2004 a large London based Housing Association went out to tender for a supplier to design and deliver a Management Development Programme.  At that time the organisation was facing a number of people and business challenges:

• Limited Government funding
• Achieving Mission, Vision and Key Aims
• Demonstrating commitment to shared values
• Budgetary constraints
• Diversity of client group
• Diversity of staff and multi-site operation
• Impact of restructuring
• Identified areas for improvement.

The organisation needed to provide a Management Development Programme (MDP) that would enable managers to meet the current and future business and people challenges.  The programme needed to provide their managers with the knowledge, practices and skills to manage their staff consistently and effectively in achieving the organisation’s Mission, Vision and Key Aims.

Following a rigorous selection process I was selected to design and deliver their Management Development Programme.  There were four phases to the project:  diagnostics, design, implementation and evaluation.

The diagnostic phase involved review progress and feedback from existing interventions primarily a leadership programme which included a 360 profile and a core skills programme.  I also looked at the Employee Satisfaction survey results, an Audit Commission review and Investors in People review which gave me a great insight into the training needs.  Having identified some common themes I ran a series of focus group at all levels to validate my findings and also to act as a consultation exercise.

The output of the diagnostic and design phases was their Management Development Programme “PASSPORT TO SUCCESS”.  The programme was a continual learning journey consisting of:

• 21 subjects in total - all aligned with the organisations competencies
• 7 subjects formed a set of core modules – the balance were role/need specific.

The design of the Programme included an evaluation process consisting of validation, evaluation and an annual review.

1. Validation–This step was achieved by using Learning & Developments standard questionnaire, which was completed at the end of each module.  This is the typical “happy sheet” process used on the majority of training programmes.
    
2. Evaluation– Has the learning been used and has it brought about any benefit?  A unique and robust evaluation method was designed.  It consisted of participants setting themselves objectives.  They then self-assessed their performance against these objectives and repeated the self-assessment two months later to identify any improvement and benefits.  Additionally the participants nominated up to five colleagues to assess their performance, against the objectives, immediately after the module(s) and again two months later.
    
3. Annual review– Is the programme making progress towards achieving the overall purpose and objective?  This was an evaluation report consisting of an analysis of the validation forms and evaluation process.  It also included an overall assessment by the participants. 

The results have been excellent.  In all categories the ‘scores’ were 80% or more with the overall satisfaction rating being 87%.  Significant benefits were identified and the organisation demonstrated improvement in 70% of instances where objectives were set following the modules.  There were 14 cohorts in total enabling some 168 managers to complete the programme.