• ROI Workshops in Leicester and Cambridge
• More Steps in the Kotter 8 stage process 
• Open Evening in Leicester 
• abdi & Mitchells and Butlers to present at BILD Annual Conference 
• Completing Foundation and Evaluator workshops in one week 
• abdi to showcase in Vienna 
• In-house courses 
• Certificates awarded 
• Public course dates 2011 
• Join us on LinkedIn

June ROI Foundation workshops in Leicester and Cambridge

In June, there is the opportunity to attend the ROI Foundation workshop in either Leicester or Cambridge. 

The Leicester two day ROI Foundation workshop on 1st and 2nd June will be run in association with Steve Walker and Associates. Steve Walker and his colleague Richard Gourlay were early adopters of the ROI Methodology and have integrated the ROI approach into SWA's highly successful business training and people development services. For enquiries contact abdi on 01223 360240 or SWA on 0845 4590136

In Cambridge, the ROI two day public workshop will commence on Monday June 6th and is one of the only twice yearly opportunities for those that wish to complete the two and three day workshop in one week For enquiries and to register, visit

www.abdi.eu.com

More steps in Kotter's 8 stage process 

In this review of the  steps of John Kotter's Eight Stage process alongside a reflection from our experience, this month, we consider the error of  'Permitting obstacles to block the new vision' and the importance of Creating short term wins.  

Permitting Obstacles to block the new vision 

As Kotter points out, when implementing change, project leaders (those responsible for implementing changes in practice) often feel overwhelmed by obstacles in their way and lack the persistence and commitment to managing their way through these obstacles. An example from our experience is the issue of engaging with line management to establish measurable performance improvement and business impact outcomes before a 'solution' is designed and delivered. We hear regularly that it's too difficult to engage with line management, that they aren't interested in discussing what training is supposed to change in terms of performance. We're told that the response from line management to any discussion of performance metrics that are to be improved as a result of training is met with 'I don't have time for this, just deliver the training, I need it right now'. 

Our experience is that this is an obstacle more in the perception of and how it is handled by the project leader than a real obstacle with line management. Line managers are interested in the performance of their staff, they do want to work alongside those that want to help them achieve their (the line manager's) goals, but for many of them, the questions that should be asked when planning changes in workplace practice and developing workforce competence are quite new and so initial reaction is often 'why are you asking me this, your job is to deliver the project, not mine'. The starting point for the project manager when dealing with this obstacle is to be fully informed about the performance requirements of the line manager's team, to have considered in advance the business outcomes and targets the line manager needs to achieve and to go into the conversation with some focused ideas on what benefits your project will deliver to the line manager and the team if you can identify together the outcomes to be achieved. 

Creating short term wins. 

In our ROI Foundation Award programme, we work with clients to identify a suitable project that will immediately afford them the opportunity to demonstrate how good planning, measurable objective setting, supported with an efficient and simple data collection plan, can deliver an 'early win' of a report that provides a robust and credible set of impact outcomes and value for money results. We know of nothing more valuable in getting 'buy-in' that the delivery of a results report to senior managers as well as line management and participants. 

An early win means that you have something to show in concrete terms for the effort made to change practice. When you can demonstrate the impact and value on one project for the first time means that you can go all the way up to board level confident that the results you are able to report are based on disciplined planning, efficient data collection, rigorous analysis and reported in a conservative and business like manner, you will be asked for more of the same. We've experienced comments from senior management such as 'this is what we need every time', 'why don't we get this from every department', 'this is data we can now use to make more informed decisions about investing in people' and 'at last, these people are showing they really are contributing to the business'. 

As ever, Kotter provides simple insights with long lasting application. If you haven't read his work, I do recommend it. For those of you reading this that have been working to implement our ROI methodology, he provides an additional resource to support your work!

Jane Massy

Certificates Awarded