Training update – scheduling dates for your location
We are currently reviewing and scheduling in modules for the 2018-2019 financial year. This means that we have looked at each location to ensure that members can complete IAP2A’s Certificate in Engagement in about six months and those who have completed it will also have access to the new modules. We welcome Newcastle (NSW), Wangaratta/Wodonga/Albury (NSW), Cairns (Qld) and Canberra (ACT) to a full program.
Ask… and we might be able to organise it
A couple of Darwin members have asked for the Online Engagement course to be offered “ASAP please because everything we do in the Territory needs an online capability.” A few phone calls and trainer reshuffles later, and Darwin members now have access to the new Engagement Facilitation (10 July) and Online Engagement (11 July).
Teleconference focus groups – first stage of program development
We have commenced the process of developing a higher-level program for more senior engagement specialists. After submitting their position descriptions, 20 members participated in one of three teleconferences to consider a ‘compilation’ role specification, what their ‘next level’ engagement challenges could be and the features of other courses they had done or had heard about that were described as ‘excellent’ or recommended as ‘you must do’.
The next step is to develop a framework for the program, based on US management academic and thought provoker, Henry Mintzberg’s, ‘Five contexts’ (Self, Organisation, Relationships, Context, Change) to develop the skills (competencies) and key deliverables of the challenges facing senior engagement practitioners (capabilities).
The third step is to develop the ‘academic’ framework in terms of the key models or theories to underpin the program and the ‘graduate attributes’ – the educational term for ‘what the person will be able to do and at what level of performance’. At the Trainers Forum in July our current trainers and those selected from the new applicants will work in groups to consider the applications (what IAP2A will attest as the learning outcomes and the case studies, tasks, mentoring, projects etc that will be the preferred way of learning). The proposed program will be put to the IAP2A board in July.
It is likely that previous courses offered – Strategic for Complex Engagement and Becoming an Engaging Organisation – will be incorporated into the ‘content’ of the new program and, of course, those who have previously completed it will receive recognition of having completed that course (RPL).
If you have not been involved with developing courses that are the flagship of a professional institute, this may seem a lot of work and jargon. It is. But it guarantees that the course developed is relevant (as it is based on the needs of the target market because they have been involved), robust (because it receives layers of review and input from different stakeholders) and will use available methods of learning and delivery to ensure that all members, regardless of where you live and work, can access the course.
Members will be updated on our progress through Engagement Matters.