Events
Development Centre - Wednesday 5 April 2006
(Mount Conference Centre, Belfast)Details
As part of the Women in Local Councils Initiative senior women managers participated in a Development Centre on the 5 April 2006 in the Mount Business and Conference Centre.
Aim
The Development Centre is designed as a workshop which will measure the abilities of participants by stimulating roles or situations and it will require them to demonstrate abilities in a number of management competencies appropriate to their jobs. These are all management competencies rather than professional or technical ones.
The Development Centre would be used to identify personal development and training needs either in participant's current jobs or for a future role.
There will also be a further session to give each participant feedback on an individual basis. The feedback session will allow participants to devise a plan to improve performance or look at future career possibilities.
The timetable for the day will ensure that it is challenging and stretching but also enjoyable! and will be forwarded to participants along with the pre-course exercises.
We would propose that this development process includes five exercises plus a personality profile questionnaire and a review interview. We would aim to test ten competencies through this process.
Exercises
The exercises we propose are:
Written Exercise
This would be undertaken by participants as preparatory work before the day of the development centre.
Briefing Exercise
Participants would have 30 minutes to prepare for this exercise and the briefing itself would last fifteen minutes. It would complement the written exercise and allow us to probe the written work undertaken by the participant.
Presentation Exercise
Participants would be given the topic in advance so that they can bring a prepared presentation to the development centre with them – we would expect these to be PowerPoint presentations.
Group Exercise
This is typically undertaking a task with a number of the other participants within an allocated time span and under certain rules of engagement.
Structured Interview
Interviews enable us to follow up on some specific issues with participants. They also enable us to ensure full coverage of the competencies.
Personality Questionnaire
We would administer a computerised personality questionnaire, either the OPP (Occupational Personality Profile) or an instrument called ISFQ plus. We would provide the computers needed for this.
Review Interview
Finally we would include a short review interview. This is a highly structured one-to-one process with one of the assessors which allows participants (and us) to step outside the structure.
We would propose that this development process includes five exercises plus a personality profile questionnaire and a review interview. We would aim to test ten competencies through this process.
Competencies
The competencies we propose to test would be as follows:
1. Change management
Ability to successfully lead, manage and sustain culture change
2. Current issues
Ability to manage issues , including the successful prioritisation and targeting of resources, the management of human resources and continuous improvement of service provision
3. Partnership working
Ability to build and enhance partnerships with a wide range of organisations and individuals in the pursuit of corporate objectives
4. Strategic skills
Ability to formulate, implement and monitor strategic plans to achieve Council objectives and advance a Council's position at a community and regional level
5. Equality and diversity
Ability to understand the implications of promoting equality and diversity and to ensure that the development of policies and procedures reflects these needs
6. Staff leadership
Ability to lead, support, motivate and develop individuals and teams
7. Innovation and decision making
Ability to apply and encourage innovative thinking, to make valid judgements and reach sound decisions based upon good analysis of relevant information and to solve complex problems
8. Sensitivity
Ability to recognise and deal appropriately with a wide range of issues which require sensitive handling because of their impact on others, media sensitivity, or importance to stakeholders
9. Working with councillors
Ability to work in partnership with all elected members with political impartiality recognising the political impact and importance of issues
10. Communication skills
Ability to deploy highly developed and effective written, oral and presentational skills including the ability to act as an advocate for the Council
Feedback
We would then need further time to give each participant feedback on an individual basis - we would set aside one and a half hours for each participant for this on a separate day. This would include the feedback on the personality questionnaire.
These feedback sessions also enable us to talk to participants and to devise a plan to improve performance or look at future career possibilities. The outcome will enable participants to address their personal development needs. We introduce participants to personal development plans and have some diagnostic tools we offer to participants as part of this.
