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