ASTD Consulting Skills Certificate Programme

Learning and performance professionals must exhibit strong consulting skills in order to achieve success as business partners to the organizations they serve. This new two-day program demonstrates the behaviors and processes for effective internal consulting and allows participants to practice fundamental consulting competencies with tools, templates, and checklists that can be put to use in the professional setting immediately.

In a recent analysis of application and behavior change, 85% of participants studied are applying what they learned back on the job after completing the ASTD Consulting Skills for Trainers Certificate Program.

Audience

This program is for professionals who are new to an internal consulting role or want to prepare to assume this role in the future. Experienced learning and performance professionals, as well as external consultants who want to sharpen their consulting skills will also benefit.

Course Description

Consulting Skills can be defined as “understanding the results that stakeholder’s desire from a process and providing insight into how efficiently and effectively those results can be achieved.” (ASTD Press, 1999) As experts in their organization in the areas of instructional design, training, performance improvement, and organizational development, Workplace Learning and Performance (WLP) professionals must demonstrate strong consulting skills in order to achieve success as a business partner and to guiding their organization toward optimal performance. Strong internal consulting skills have become even more critical with increased emphasis on linking learning and performance to organizational results.

The ASTD Consulting Skills for Trainers Certificate Program demonstrates the behaviors and processes for effective internal consulting, including the actions to take to achieve desired outcomes, establishing goals and managing expectations, guiding clients through the process, building credibility to influence decision-making, and overcoming obstacles and resistance.

This workshop will:

enable participants to evaluate their current strengths and identify those skills that they would like to improve
clarify the many roles of an internal consultants and the benefits of each
introduce a process model for managing consulting projects
allow participants to practice consulting competencies
provide real-world tools, job aids, templates, and planning checklists that can be put to use in the professional setting immediately
introduce strategies for success, including working across organizational boundaries, providing feedback to senior leaders, and gaining buy-in.

Learning Objectives

After this workshop, participants are able to:

Understand the functions of a Workplace Learning and Performance professional in the role of consultant
Demonstrate exemplary internal consulting competencies and the corresponding day-to-day behaviours required of an internal consultant
Apply a process model and various tools and templates to manage consulting projects
Build relationships with clients, including techniques to effectively guide clients through the consulting process
List questions to ask a client during a contracting meeting and/or data gathering meeting
Outline client goals and set expectations for success
Apply tools to analyze business needs and gather information
Build credibility through communication to increase position as a knowledgeable, client-focused partner
Model the most appropriate way to conduct a data-gathering interview and a feedback meeting
Overcome resistance and difficult client behaviors
Establish implementation targets, strategies, and solutions
Identify ways to institutionalize the solution/change, including obtaining buy-in
Evaluate the solution/change and identify areas for future improvement.

As a Workplace Learning and Performance (WLP) professional your job has most likely been changing—maybe a little, maybe a lot.

Consulting Skills for Trainers provides you with an overview of ASTD’s 5-D model for consulting. The 5 phases of the model lays out a practical step-by-step method for addressing a consulting project, beginning at the time you are contacted through the last step of process improvement.

The five phases are:

Define and Agree
Discover and Analyze
Deliver and Decide
Design and Implement
Disengage and Review

This hands-on certificate program allows you to practice the steps of the 5-D model. Collaborating in small groups, you’ll follow a case study from start to finish, apply skills to consulting scenarios, solve problems, role play meetings, tryout checklists, and make decisions just as consultants do every day. This is a great opportunity for you to experiment with new skills and behaviors. Although impossible to address every nuance for both the internal and the external consultant, we think you will find a pleasant balance between the two roles.

We’re excited about this certificate and believe it provides you with a logical model to address your clients’ needs and provides you with ideas for how to maneuver through an organization to accomplish the work. You will take with you tools, checklists, templates and examples that you can use when you return to your job. As a bonus, the program will help you identify your areas of strength and need, and allow time for you to create a personal development plan to become a better consultant.

Course Outline

Module 1 - Introduction

Predict your consulting skills
Consulting skills for trainers: what it is; what it isn't
Assess your consulting competencies
A consultant's knowledge and skills
Analysing and framing your competencies
ASTD's 5-D consulting model
The five phases
Consulting projecting planning guide
The ASTD Competency Model ™

Module 2 - Define and Agree

Comparing consulting models
What role will you play?
Your consulting credibility
Planning for the exploratory meeting
Building client relationships: the first meeting
Assessing your client's readiness
Identifying effective questions
"Clothe" the performance gap case study: Phase 1, part a
Reaching agreement on expectation
Sample project acceptance agreement
"Clothe" the performance gap case study: Phase 1, part b

Module 3 - Discover and Analyse

Discover and analyse
Data: what's so good about it?
Deciding how to collect data
Data collection methodologies
- Interviews
- Focus groups
- Questionnaires and surveys
- Observations
- Data / Record reviews
- Informal discussions
Conduct an effective interview
"Clothe" the performance gap case study: Phase 2
Interview effectiveness checklist
Data collection stumbling blocks
Analyse the data

Module 4 - Deliver and Decide

Frame the issue
Fundamental design features feedback
Data feedback planning tool
Determine feedback meeting agenda
Tips for starting and ending a feedback meeting
Sensitive information
Resistance
"Clothe" the performance gap case study: Phase 3
Last step: alignment meeting
Many hats: consultant roles and behaviours review

Module 5 - Design and Implement

Team approach to designing the improvement
Implementation: sliding into change management
Change targets
Implementation strategies
Putting it all together: tactics for consultants
Working successfully with external consultants
Suggestions for partnering with external consultants
"Clothe" the performance gap case study: Phase 4

Module 6 - Disengage and Review

Ending a contract early
Disengaging: getting closure
What are you going to evaluate?
Evaluation: a consulting perspective
Consultant reaction evaluation sample
Evaluation discussion with your client
Process measurement sample
Institutionalize the solution
Continual improvement process
Every good thing must end

Module 7 - Closing

Review the 5-D consulting model
Succeeding on the inside: advice from the pros
Advice from more pros

For more information contact:

info@thelearningsanctuary.co.uk

Telephone: 0845 833 1178 or 07886 559 669