Education Strategy Planning

Our client-centric methodology is designed to actively engage your team, leveraging their insights alongside our expertise, fostering a dynamic learning environment that not only meets but exceeds your corporate training objectives.

A high-quality, cost-effective training program meets the needs of its target audience in an agreed upon timeframe, with agreed upon results. To be effective, the program must be based on an educational strategy that considers:

• The high-level organizational outcomes the training is expected to influence
• How participants are expected/incented to apply what they have learned during training when they are back on the job
• The knowledge, skills, and attitudes that participants are expected to acquire based on the training

Every organization has unique needs and is striving to find the right balance based on factors such as its environment, resources, technologies, and management practices. Similarly, every organization has the need to improve competencies: knowledge, skills, and behaviors.

When designing training plans with our clients, we use a competency framework which considers the theoretical understanding of a subject (knowledge), the practical abilities to perform tasks (skills), and the attitudes and actions exhibited (behaviors). Together, these elements form the core competencies required for effective performance in any role.

We start with the RACI Model as our guiderail.

RACI = Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed.

Not every individual needs to fully master all new areas of skill and knowledge. Simply moving to the first stage, awareness, provides benefits to both the individual and the organization in terms of their ability to collaborate and contribute to the attainment of organizational goals. An individual's progression from there will depend on their role and responsibilities.

Role Relevancy

An effective education strategy provides leaders, managers, and staff the knowledge and skills needed to understand the role they play within the organization (or aspire to play within the organization), along with expected behaviors. This approach allows learners to focus on the competencies needed to attain role proficiency and also allows trainers to tailor classes to the needs of their audience.

The skills covered as part of an education strategy may include:

• Business skills - the skills people need to work successfully in the business world and to understand and solve business problems in the context of an organization's strategy
• Technical skills - the skills people need relative to the specific technologies called out in the organization's strategy
• Soft skills - the personality traits and interpersonal skills that enable people to navigate their environment, work well with others, perform well, and achieve their goals with complementing business and technical skills
• Self-management skills - the skills, such as stress and time management, the ability to get and stay organized, and the ability to continuously and quickly learn new skills that people need to complete their work effectively, feel job satisfaction, and avoid frustration and burnout

Learners advance through levels of knowledge and skills as needed:

• Aware - Understands the concept and why it is important
• Core - Can use the concept as needed in the performance of a given role and set of responsibilities
• Advanced - Can mentor others, lead teams, and improve or transform the concept

The types of education and training that may be provided as part of an effective education strategy include:

• Awareness education: Highly relevant at the start of a transformational effort, or when the goal is to create a sense of urgency. 'Key concepts' courses or simulations are ideal for promoting awareness. Awareness courses can also be used to solidify understanding as your initiative progresses, provide an opportunity for participants to reflect on lessons learned and understand the next steps, and bring in a new round of stakeholders. These courses should be ongoing to accommodate cross-functional collaboration and to introduce emerging trends.

• Foundation-level education: Offers IT professionals a basic understanding of terminology, key principles and practices, and context. This type of education helps people to understand their evolving roles and the practices related to those roles.

• Practitioner-level education: Builds on foundation-level skills by taking a deeper dive into relevant concepts and practices. As practitioners become aware of shortcomings in their current ways of working and better understand the organization's strategy, specialist education is needed. Particularly for people who will play a major part in the organization's transformation or in the execution of the organization's strategy. If previous educational experiences have been positive, people's ability and willingness to learn - and ultimately to teach and lead others - increases. These courses should be ongoing, as there will be attrition both when people are promoted, as well as when they leave the organization.

• Non-certification workshops & simulations: Provides the opportunity to combine theory with real-world action planning. Helps answer the questions, how do/can we apply this to the circumstances, needs, and goals of our organization? Most effective when facilitated by a matter expert, a workshop setting is where education meets the real world. Outputs of these workshops include actionable plans and a clear understanding of any outstanding considerations, constraints, or concerns.

This layered approach to education builds and maintains momentum and prepares and equips people to meet the needs of your organization. This approach can also help to minimize change fatigue and resistance.

 

 

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Fostering a Learning Culture

Creating a learning culture is possible! Working with the exerts at ITSM Academy our goal is to help maximize your investment with abundant returns. When advocated correctly, a thriving workplace environment allows learning to be ingrained in every endeavor. This fosters an atmosphere where employees are not only empowered but also educated & inspired to learn through a blend of formal education and hands-on experience.

McKinsey & Company stated recently, "Only 40 percent of companies report alignment between their learning strategy and business goals."

This means that 60% of organizations are investing time and money in training programs that don't work. ITSM Academy, understands why and how this happens. And we are here with an Education Strategy that will help you beat those odds.

Make work educational and make education productive.