WHAT IS A CUSTOM DESIGNED TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME?

Tailored, bespoke, custom designed. These are all common terms, used by training consultants to describe the programmes that they offer to clients. All of them are, in effect saying, "I am offering something special, something that is not standard or off the shelf". Having at one stage in my life been on the other side of the fence, as a purchaser of training programmes, I can relate to many people's scepticism about the claim, quietly asking the question, how far away is it from something standard?

Now I am with hr TEAM, and a core message of our business is clear. We work with clients in developing programmes that are designed against a specific brief, with the objective of developing the skills and knowledge of the people and contributing to the achievement of the client's business goals and strategy. That is describing a custom design approach, the term we use, as opposed to tailored or bespoke.

A question we often get is "what do you mean by custom design?

Let me start off by stating what we do not claim! We do not reinvent concepts, models, and philosophies for each project. That would not be practical, and would probably mean that we were getting into areas where we have no prior experience or competence.

Over a number of years we have researched, designed and continuously developed a range of materials in the training areas that we operate in, namely;

• Leadership, management, team development
• Sales, negotiation, business skills
• Personal development

A core Bank of Knowledge

The ideas, concepts, models, and processes are stored in what is a core bank of knowledge. This knowledge base can be used as the foundation building blocks for a custom program.

The models and processes themselves can be adapted for specific programmes. For example we have a well developed account management process. However, a client's market may mean that the sales process has a number of specific elements and stages that are key, in which case we would share our existing knowledge base and jointly develop a model that is right for that sales team.

What are the other elements of custom design?

We call these the six areas of context:

The final element of custom design is that we develop LEARNING PROGRAMMES, not training courses. A learning programme can exist of a number of elements and learning mechanisms. But of course some learning mechanisms may not be relevant for a particular client or participant group. So, as part of our design process we define with the client which mechanisms will be included in the learning programme.

To find out more about our custom design approach visit the client case studies section of our web site...