Mike Debenham, CQI director of policy, has a clear vision for quality professionals. ‘In the future, quality professionals will be less “doers”, solving other people’s problems for them, and more and more “mentors”, sharing knowledge and helping them find solutions,’ he says.
Mike is looking to a very different future for the quality professional. Quality is evolving, taking into account the current economic climate and the change in priority from business growth to best practice. For example, as shown by the 2007 ISO survey, while the increase in ISO 9001 certificates has slowed down considerably, the number of ISO 14001 certificates for environmental management systems has shot up. The rapid uptake of BS 25999 for business continuity heralds the arrival of risk as a major concern. Quality professionals must learn to cope with the increasing demands being made of them.
‘There are many changes going on in the wider environment,’ confirms Paul Simpson from Bywater Training. ‘It’s important that quality professionals keep up-to-date in terms of new standards, new legislation and new tools and techniques.’ And this is where training and development takes centre stage. For quality practitioners to become the mentors that Mike anticipates, they must build their armour from training and development.
However, training must also adapt. ‘Members are being pushed outside their comfort zones,’ Mike says. ‘There are requirements for a different set of competencies. So we are thinking about their development needs and how to support them through learning events, branch meetings and training courses. A lot of our training at the CQI is now aimed at helping people to be mentors, and still develop their own knowledge.’
By acting as mentors, quality professionals can help others to take ownership of their problems. ‘If you tell people what they should be doing, you tend to create resistance,’ Mike says. ‘If you tell them you have some useful tools that can help them with a particular problem and support them in the use of these tools, then you tend to get ownership of the solutions they develop, rather than resistance.’
Tips for effective training
- Link your training needs to your department or organization’s objectives
- Identify what precise knowledge and skills you want to gain before picking a training course When choosing a trainer, use firms recommended by colleagues, or ask for help from the CQI
- Jot down your training objectives in advance and tell the trainer if possible: be clear in your mind whether you wish to acquire knowledge, a skill or both
- Check that the content of a course is what you need – course names can sometimes be misleading
- Do any recommended preparation, such as advance reading
- Turn up to your training rested and try to avoid distractions during it, such as having to answer emails
- Make the most of the trainer’s broad experience – ask questions
- Complete any feedback requests at the end of a training session
- Put what you have learned into practice on your immediate return to work, even if you have to invent an excuse to do this
- Try to measure the impact of the training a few months later – have your knowledge and skills improved and has your behaviour changed?
CQI training support
By developing their skills and expertise, quality professionals can raise their profile. ‘The idea behind all the training we do is that it is about helping quality professionals to take their development seriously so their voice is stronger in their organization,’ explains John Weston, CQI head of training.
The CQI offers a large variety of training. ‘We have about 50 individual courses,’ John says. Some are aimed at helping individuals improve performance. They include ‘The Quality Toolbox’, which contains training on topics such as process design, problem-solving through root cause analysis and quality tools and techniques. There is also ‘The Customer Care Toolbox’ that looks at customer-focused issues.
Another group of training courses address how to implement management systems such as ISO 9001 and how to address business continuity issues. A third batch focuses on the auditing of management systems and a fourth builds expertise in the development of professional quality management skills.
This final group includes training on essential management skills, effective communication and successful presentations. John says: ‘The fundamental questions these courses address are: how do we help the quality professional to deliver better value? And how can that quality professional make his or her business better?’
Open and in-company training
‘We run a lot of courses on an open basis,’ John says. ‘We also run courses in-company for organizations and can tailor them to meet their particular needs.’ CQI courses are led by CQI approved trainers. ‘They all work as quality management consultants, as well as deliver our training programme,’ John explains. ‘This ensures that they are up-to-date with current practice, have the opportunity to apply the knowledge they teach and can illustrate our training programme with case studies from their practical experience.’
Open and in-company courses both have value. Paul says: ‘A lot of delegates welcome the opportunity to network outside their organization and see how other people do things.’
Jim Wade, an experienced trainer and director of Advanced Training, is a strong advocate of in-company courses. ‘Most open training has to generalise,’ he says. ‘If an organization wants to send three people on an auditing training course, I would rather come in-company. You can tailor things to the organization. And why only train the auditors? Wouldn’t it be good if the people being audited, or the management, understood what’s happening too?’
‘With much of our base training we invite delegates to bring material from their workplaces into the course environment,’ says John. ‘This is incredibly powerful when we are delivering in-company training, such as in our problem-solving and decision-making course. Delegates initially assume that they will have two unproductive days during the week of training, but then discover that they will work on a workplace problem during the course and take a fully justified solution away with them – often for a problem they believed to be almost unsolvable!’
What to expect from a trainer
Certainly for in-company courses, trainers should put time and energy into trying to understand what the training is intended to achieve – from the perspective of the commissioner of the training and the trainees. Their aims and perceived needs may not always be the same. ‘If I am designing a course for a company, the first thing I ask for is the job descriptions of the people attending the course,’ explains Nina Abbassi, a management systems trainer, consultant and auditor. ‘Then I ask what they want to be able to do after the training. So I find that gap and design the course to fill it.’
Trainers may have different styles and approaches, depending on the subject matter. If knowledge transfer is the key aim, that may involve more of a presentational approach. Some training is geared towards developing greater insights or understanding among people who are already versed in a topic. ‘Most of the work I do is with qualified professionals who would maybe benefit from a new perspective,’ says Jim. ‘A lot of it is to do with allowing people to ask questions and challenge things. With quality, that’s a good approach. There is much to challenge.’
To get the most out of training, Professor Tony Bendell, managing director of Services Ltd and a well known quality trainer and speaker, believes there should be more of a ‘training-needs analysis’ approach in the quality area. ‘We have a lot of standard products,’ he says. ‘People see these as commodities and don’t go through a “needs analysis” in terms of their requirements. People need to know why they are going on the training course, and what they expect to get out of it. That will mean they behave as intelligent consumers, as opposed to taking away standard products that don’t really do the job.’
Getting the most from training also requires simple common sense. Participants need to make their training session their immediate priority and leave their work distractions behind. ‘A lot of people are so busy that when they have training, they are still trying to do other things,’ says Nina. ‘You should give yourself an opportunity to have a free mind.’
Assessing effectiveness
‘Training isn’t just about sitting on a two-day course and getting a certifi cate,’ Paul warns. ‘It’s about applying that training in the workplace. I have been to companies where a person has course certificates, but isn’t that competent in some areas. There’s a difference between training and developing competence.’
‘Organizations should measure the effectiveness of training a few months on, not just the day the course ends,’ Nina says. The appropriate method of measurement also needs to reflect the nature of the training. If the subject matter is knowledge-based, you can test individuals. If the training is aimed at skills, those can be monitored through workshops or role plays. ‘But it’s not until you apply the skills that you know if the training has been effective,’ Nina adds. ‘Knowledge, people can show. Skill is what they can do with it.’
The ultimate measure of training effectiveness should be its ability to affect behaviour. ‘In what way are people’s behaviours changing?’ asks Jim. ‘Is that having an effect? Generally speaking, why are you spending money on training, if not to have a positive impact?’