News

Future open-booking workshops

Dates for the two-day introductory workshop
2008
17-18 November
2009
9-10 March
15-16 June
21-22 September
16-17 November
Dates for the three-day certification workshop
2008
19-21 November
2009
17-19 June
18-20 November

abdi welcomes two new directors

As more and more UK companies and organizations recognize the ROI Methodology as the global standard for impact measurement we're growing. To help us manage the strategic implications of that we've recruited two new board members.

Dr Patti Phillips is joining as a non-executive director.

Patti is president and CEO of the ROI Institute, Inc. She is also chair and CEO of The Chelsea Group, Inc., an international consulting organization supporting organizations and their efforts to build accountability into their training, human resources, and performance improvement programs with a primary focus on building accountability in public sector organizations. She helps organizations implement the ROI methodology in countries around the world-including South Africa, Singapore, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Turkey, France, Germany, Canada, and the United States. Her background was in the electrical utility industry. Since 1997, she has embraced the ROI methodology by committing herself to ongoing research and practice, implementing ROI in private and public sector organizations. She is currently spending a good deal of her time on public sector accountability, and on the application of the ROI methodology in community- and faith-based initiatives, including Citizen Corps, AmeriCorps, and the Compassion Capital Fund. She has authored and co-authored more than a dozen books on ROI, and speaks and teaches worldwide

Chris Paveley has joined as an executive director, working part-time for abdi.

Chris started work as an apprentice in West Thurrock Power Station and having completed his indentures went on to continue his training and work in Japan for the NEC Corporation, where he developed an open and consultative management style. On his return to the UK in 1983 he started his own IT maintenance company called FLS (later Uniter) of which he is currently the non-executive Chair. In 1997 he joined the DTI 'Wings' Project mentoring young entrepreneurs and at the same time became interested in training and the effect it has on economic development. In 1998 he joined the board of the Essex TEC, becoming the Chair in 2000. He joined the Essex LSC at its inception and became Chair in 2003. He was appointed Chair of the East of England Regional LSC in June 2008. He was also a member of the Tomlinson Committee 14/19 implementation working group. In 2001 Chris was appointed to the Board of The East of England Development Agency and the Thames Gateway South Essex Partnership where he was the Skills Champion. He is currently a non-executive director of the Thurrock Urban Development Corporation, Chair of the East of England LSC Regional Council and Chair of a new £19 million visual arts facility in Colchester called Firstsite. He also holds a number of non-executive directorships in the private sector. Through his work with Uniter and many of the NDBPs he has been heavily involved in many training initiatives including Train to Gain and its pilot "Profit from Learning" and Modern Apprentices where he has been the champion of demonstrating the value of Training

abdi announces new alignment and business value diagnosis service

abdi now offers a service giving companies and organisations a comprehensive report on how well their L&D and HR investments are aligned to their business. It shows them how they can make informed decisions to improve alignment and value. It highlights recommendations for improvements to current practices and processes.

Jane Massy reports, "Many organisations find the hardest aspect to adopting a measurement strategy for their human capital investments is getting the upfront diagnosis and planning right. We have experienced over and over again, that for many organisations this means some challenging changes in practice and the role of the HR/L&D professional and the in the planning requirements from senior and line management."

The service combines expertise building on the ROI Institute planning processes, and also draws on work on performance improvement from Gary Rummler, Dana and Jim Robinson, Dave Ulrich and John P Kotter.

The core diagnosis requires 3 days on site consulting/interviews, off site analysis and reporting culminating in a 2.5 hour presentation. It can be customised to very specific organisational requirements. For more details and a quotation, please contact abdi

Autumn Events

Executive breakfast briefings on the benefits of real and robust measurement of impact and value in HR, L&D and other human capital investments - in London, Leeds and Edinburgh

Jane Massy is holding three executive breakfast briefings at Institute of Directors (IOD) premises in London, Leeds and Edinburgh in November and December. abdi always encourages HR and L&D professionals to bring their senior board, function, operations and finance colleagues along with them when making decisions to adopt rigorous systematic measurement of performance and business impact and ROI. When board members and senior management sign up, the task of implementing the ROI methodology becomes significantly easier. If you would like to attend or to invite one or more of your senior colleagues to come along, please contact us to request an invitation.

World of Learning Conference, November 20th, Birmingham

Sara Powell, Head of Training & Professional Development, Fidelity FundsNetwork will be presenting. Sara has been a champion of the need to plan for and measure business impact and value since her days at the Financial Services Skills Council (FSSC) where she set up with Jane Massy of abdi/the ROI Institute a partnership with the Skills Council that remains an extremely important facilitator of good practice in ROI measurement to the sector. Sara will be discussing "Evaluating and Managing Expectations of Learning & Development" and lessons learned from measuring business impact and ROI. Jeremy Harrison, Director abdi, who will also be at the World of Learning conference is encouraging conference delegates to attend the session "Sara has not only championed the need for good impact measurement but has led the way by deploying the methodology widely in her professional practice; delegates will learn a great deal from her experience which can be applied not just in the finance sector but across all sectors".