Competence (or competency) is the ability of an individual to do a job properly.
A competency development program could mean improving the ability of an individual to do his job properly!
Generally, most of the training program begins with a title of “competency development” program but ends up with training imparted or training completed status. This in reality is incomplete learning and often the essence of competency development is lost!
Fortunately, i have been a part of many successful competency development programs. In this article, I would like to share one such successful program.
It was sometime during the year 2012, I received a training requirement in Progress OpenEdge technology from the head of the global delivery center of a large IT services company in India. He was the sponsor for this program and requested me to submit a proposal for the same. The sponsor was keen to know and implement our competency development approach.
The objective for this program was to develop ready-to-be-deployed resources! And the challenge was that, their client would decide – who is ready-to-be-deployed?
In the initial discussions with the sponsor and his team, the account executives and with a couple of days of on-site training made me realize that there was someone who was owning this program! This meant to me “success is around the corner! Any competency development program, I feel yields best results when the ownership lies within the organization sponsoring the program. As a training providers can only ignite sparks within the students!
The approach applied was conventional, like those of in good old school days i.e.,: explain the concept, demonstrate with an example and give students practice assignment as class work (sometimes homework). Full day non-stop technical sessions could be exhaustive for the trainees, so as a recreation interval, I entertain the students with some of stories of my developer days and at times use motivational videos etc., (especially in post lunch sessions) to get them back in action.
So as a result, the program was laid out well in terms of intentional study breaks (for self reading or practice assignments) and formal assessments. The first formal test went on average. I had similar experience in my previous assignments as generally it is seen that the students take up the first formal assessment on as warming-up sessions.
It was somewhere during the second week of the training period, I was told that there will be an internal interim assessment and they called it play-back session! I was not prepared and I guess even the students weren’t. When asked for the objective, I was told that this would help make mid-way course correction and also prepare the students for future formal assessments. I found sense in it! I, however, requested that the objective of the session should be, to give pointers in the individual areas of improvement and never a fault-finding session. I was given the privilege of assigning play-back topics and sequence. I assigned the topics and the play-back session was to be carried out in my absence on my request. . The students were very much excited. Each one prepared their presentation in a chart-paper. The entire room was pinned up with colourful chart papers. I heard they all did very well and the play-back session worked out really well. Excellent work students!
Thereafter, in a surprise test given to them, all the students did really well. On the final day of the program the students were divided into teams of two and given a small development project to be submitted in about 5 days effort. They all completed and submitted on-time. All did really well and I was now confident that they all were ready for assessments and subsequent deployment in projects.
It was a treat to hear from the sponsor that the deployment success rate was over 85%! Their client was surprised on the competency of resources in just 4 weeks. In other words, their client was convinced on competence of the selected students i.e. on their ability to do a job properly.
Tell me this now, What made the program successful?
I feel the following played pivotal to program success;
- There was a partner – the Sponsor.
- Key stakeholder support – the account executives and the students.
- Structured learning approach.
Author: Raghuraman Kadambi
Proofreading by: Hemalata K. K.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competence_(human_resources)