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What do you want people to know and do when they have received the training? In our area of specialty, Management Development, we think your answers to this question can be very specific. What are the problems that you want to solve by improving the quality of your organization's management? Huge amounts of research have been done to identify what makes a good manager. We know which management behaviors cause what kinds of problems. We can help you determine if the problem really is going to be solved with management training. Taking this step carefully often saves millions of dollars by avoiding unnecessary training. If you have assessed your organization's needs, perhaps one of our successful workshops or simulations may meet your demands.
Step Two: Design
Do you have specific training objectives? Once you have the needs identified, you need to define the training objectives and the best sequence for learning them. This is the most important outcome from the work at this step. Then some preliminary attention to the constraints such as budget, methods, and timing must be defined. When this step is done well, you will be able to hit the needs of the target audience with great efficiency. If you can tell us your organization's most common problems, we will probably be able to pull from our files the appropriate management training objectives. We won't pretend to be starting from scratch. After all, we've been doing this for 30 years - at every level of management and in a large variety of industries.
Step Three: Development
Are you ready to develop and test training aids? With the training objectives well defined, you are ready to actually produce the schedule and learning-aids necessary for conducting the training. The outcomes can be everything from course descriptions for selling the program within your organization, to workbooks, video productions, websites/e-learning, exercises, simulations, tests, trainer guides and course evaluation processes. First, you scan your own training programs and then those offered by vendors to see if anything is ready-made or at least adaptable. Piloting is usually done and revisions made until you have the most efficient way possible to achieve the results you want. The outcome may be a simple checklist or a five-day, in-residence course. It depends upon the objectives and constraints defined in Step Two.
Step Four: Delivery
Do you need help offering the training courses, speeches, or management off-sites? Do you need a ready-made course or presentation to augment your current management training? At this step, you ramp up the program. You train or hire trainers. (For management development, actual managers in your own organization are some of the best candidates.) You schedule your events, facilities, and trainees, and conduct the training.
Step Five: Evaluation
How effective is your training? Because you have clear and appropriate objectives for the management training, you are able to determine if the training was effective. Did it transfer the concepts and skills? Are they being used on-the-job and are the organization's target problems getting solved? With the answers to these questions, you will know what next steps need to be taken in your management development plan.
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