ItsDevelopmental - content + technology + people

Guerilla training

A few of us at work - Adam, Andrew and Karl - have been working on a programme of short, sharp and very regular (weekly) training sessions. The media is changing rapidly so there is a need to show and tell what we are up to. We are a large company - with many brands - so there are a) lots of people doing interesting things and b) huge opportunities to share knowledge.

BUT - we are a corporate so tend to be conservative in our approaches to learning and develepmont. 

The issue of rooms and timings seem to have stifled plans to get the programme off the ground. So far, that is.

With Flashmob activities in the back  of my mind, I am thinking we add a bit of spontanaeity to proceedings - different venues, posters/fliers around the place. Obviously this is not radical - but it is more radical in a corporate setting.

And we are a media company. We are meant to be creative, so why not in the way we enagage and develop our people? 

Who knows if we can get some guerilla training off the ground. I am up for trying though.  

Effective brainstorming

Attended an all day brainstorming session yesterday which was very productive. Why?

• Attendees knew what was expected of them before the event - we received topics we were due to brainstorm around, were given some related background reading and a timetable for the event

• The plan for the day involved morning divergence (opening out the discussion to brainstorm new ideas) and afternoon convergence (organising the ideas and  turning them into achievable actions)

• First part of the day was spent capturing insights around the topic areas ie our thoughts on the topics

• From this we then spent some time brainstorming around selected insights.

• In the afternoon we reviewed the morning, set out all ideas on the table mapped them to domains - there were three that grew out of the ideas

• We then mapped these clusters of ideas on to a time/competencies graph

We left with tasks that we had the competencies and time to complete and development strands that plotted development of more complex and time-consuming project.

Training needs analysis for media law

Been given a nice little project by our OD director to do some analysis on what our editorial community needs from media law training.

Thought I would start by talking to a couple of chief subs (those at the coal face) to get a temperature check on the issues and then do a quick and dirty survey of chief subs and editors to see the knowledge gaps on media law.

I'll share the plan in our new Linkedin editors group and then get going. I hope this approach will highlight the knowledge gaps and provide me with an accurate analysis of what kind of traing we require.

Timeline: UK redundancies

Wow, this is powerful. My first stab at Dipity - have created a timeline of a 'UK redundancies' feed from Google news UK. needs some refining but it's a start . . .

 

Press release: Train to Gain cash for leadership and management training

As unemployment spirals towards two million (1.92 million), the Learning and Skills Council is urging employers to take advantage of a leadership training fund to protect themselves and staff from redundancy in the tough times ahead.

The Learning and Skills Council’s (LSC) Train to Gain service has dedicated a pot of money for leaders and managers to improve their skills. Now, more Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) can benefit from it, including the most vulnerable companies with just five to 10 workers.

Chris Banks, chair of the LSC said: “These are clearly turbulent times. No one can be in any doubt as to the global impact of the credit crunch. It is on our doorsteps and UK businesses are clearly suffering.

Links

Leitch: the Aftermath

KPMG staff told to take sabbaticals to save jobs

Future bright for jobs in education and business

A bank too far

Job boards or job networks

Resources for team exercises

I'm building up set of tools in Deilicious and was just going to link to Teampedia there but thought it worth a mention as it is a wiki full of team exercises. loads in there and a great collaborative project.

Training exercises on my Delicious page are here - not much to look at just now!

Take note of what the kids are doing online

Some research carried out by Childwise and reported on by the Guardian shows what children are up to online. Nothing surprising in the fact that children are web savvy and are using it in a way non web-savvy parents just do not understand.

Aside from increased usage of the web, what is really interesting is the use of the web for networking and collaboration. Messaging, social networking and blogging are the norm for many children.

The way they use the web will have a direct and disruptive influence on the workplace - especially workplaces that do not allow social networking!

I recently had a chat with a 20 year old who showed me how he collaborates online. It was a great insight into ways of doing things that seem so alien to my workplace and probably many others too.

Employers need to get their heads around this and very quickly as there is a new breed of worker who has new skills, attitudes abnd aspirations.

Facilitation skills a must for managers

Back in December I attended the first of three facilitation workshops at Bath University management school. My aim is to develop skills as a facilitator to use as a manager taking a team through change. Maybe one day I will become a facilitator. Who knows?

The workshop was great. Twenty people from a range of backgrounds who worked well together.

The main theoretical framework was that of group theory (see Wikipedia definition on groups). We worked through the 5 stages of group development - forming, storming, norming, performing and ending.

We split into groups and then carried out tasks to demonstrate each of these stages. Our group covered storming, the point at which a group shapes its identity, so we staged a conflict. It was all good fun and we managed to get our point across to the rest of the group.

More training tools

Great list of free tools for trainers on Training Zone. Check out the additions in the comments.

Next job for me is to start tagging theses tools propoerly. There seems to be a huge range of free training tools online.