I am a dynamic and interactive trainer and I strongly believe that preaching the subject is not the way to get adults to learn. I tend to combine accelerated, experiential learning and several strands of psychology to make mu delivery style interesting and innovative.

My core areas of training delivery are:

* Leadership & Management Development
* Team Development
* B2B Sales Development
* Innovation Development

In each of these areas, I provide ready to run courses that are internationally recognised such as “The Leadership Challenge” based on the books by Kouzes & Posner or bespoke custom designed courses that fit the exact needs of the organisation.

As well as delivering the training, Andi can support the complete training cycle:

  • Training Needs Analysis
  • Course Design
  • Experiential activity design
  • Participants materials design
  • Train the trainers
  • Course delivery
  • Course evaluation including ROI studies


Training needs analysis (TNA)

A course for courses sake is a massive waste of investment in money, but more importantly time. An effective TNA can determine the root cause of the need and what type of training and development is most applicable to the situation.

What may seem like a need for a training course for team building may only require the facilitation of a team roles clarification workshop or a short coaching intervention with the team leader.

Some of the techniques for carrying out the TNA include

  • Interviews with key people which can include the participants, training manager, HR manager and the participant’s managers.
  • Facilitated focus groups.
  • Questionnaires via mail, email or online

The final phase of the TNA is linked into the last phase of the training cycle as it is now clear what we should be learning in one of the domains of knowledge, skills or attitudes. This allows us to decide what should be included in the evaluation.

Course Design
Once the needs have been developed an appropriate training course can be developed to cover these needs can be developed into a training programme that may consist of one or a series of development courses or perhaps be blended learning that mixes more traditional training methods with online learning.

The key to successful training is to make the training interesting and dynamic to the participant. Boring school or university lectures just don’t work for adult learners. This has been borne out by various studies and theories on how we learn, so any course design must be a dynamic mixture that supports the learning requirements.

Some of the tools that I integrate into my management development and soft skills programmes includes:

  • Interactive presentation
  • Case study
  • Exercises
  • Project work
  • Simulations / Business games
  • Experiential based training (in or outdoor)
  • Video / DVD
  • Discussion
  • Reading
  • Role plays
  • Self study groups
  • Syndicate work i.e. brainstorming and presenting the results followed by discussion

Experiential activity design

Using experiential activities can significantly increase the retention of learning on a course as they blend together all of the different learning styles. Experiential learning doesn’t mean jumping off a cliff or climbing up a tree and crossing to another via a thin cable but can be a simple activity on a lawn or even an indoor activity. Andi has developed dozens of activities over the years and can support you by providing activities to slot in to your course. To do this the following has to be taken into consideration:

  • Focus of the learning outcomes
  • Time available
  • Group size
  • Location i.e. indoors / outdoors
  • Space available i.e. a room of 7m x 8m or a lightly wooded area of 400 square metres
  • Budget constraints

 

I can provide different levels of service in experiential activity design:

  • Provide the design of the activity written up in a clearly understandable format
  • Provide the design of the activity written up and the materials required to run it.
  • Run a train the trainer for the facilitators who will use the activity.

I have also worked in challenge course construction and use.

Participant materials design

Course materials serve several needs for a training programme. They can be used to support the presentations with additional information, they provide a roadmap of the course, they allow the participant to jot their thoughts down on the different parts of the course, they can contain instructions for activities or group discussions and they also help people remember what they learnt after they have finished the course.
I can develop materials to support your course in the depth of your choice or in the style of your choice.

Train The Trainer
On large scale roll-outs ensuring consistency in message, style, standards and quality are key. The best way to ensure this is through a common training programme for all people who will deliver the courses. I have ample experience of designing and running train the trainers including topics such as leadership, customer enthusiasm, teamwork, experiential learning for facilitators and safety technician training for outdoor management development programmes.

Course delivery

I am a dynamic and effective facilitator with experience of tutoring small groups over several days or delivering a conference to 200 people. This website should give you a general idea of style.

After training in a broad range of areas from 1994 through to 2010, I have decided to focus in four core areas where my knowledge and experience is greatest:

  • Leadership & Management development : from 1st time leader to executive programs.
  • Team development : for newly formed teams,refocusing & energising existing teams or developing missing competencies for teams that need to perform better
  • B2B Sales development : focusing on complex, high figure sale
  • Innovation Development : From germinating the seed of an idea through to success in the marketplace

Course evaluation

A really important part of the training process and often the most overlooked. Typically training just gets evaluated by the end of course evaluations or happy sheets. A thorough evaluation will support the HR or training department by allowing them to justify more effectively the training expenditure. It will also allow the same departments to know where funds should be invested. Finally a good evaluation should also help in develop the quality of the trainer/facilitator and the materials they provide.

I can support you by developing an effective evaluation process on a course by course process or developing a complete system for use will all of your courses up to an ROI level.