Why Virtual and Why a Team Project?

An important part of leadership is ensuring that your team continues to learn and develop. This is especially true when it comes to your current and emerging leaders. Senior Strategic Partner, Laura Dillingham, takes this opportunity to use an example out of HPISolutions. We took a bold step to move from a company who delivered primarily live classroom learning, to delivering completely online, saving our clients time and money while still retaining learning that sticks and that can be used in the real world. We hope you will find some ideas in here as you think about and approach continuous leadership learning for your organization.

While training isn’t a new concept, the way it’s being delivered has changed dramatically in recent years. HPISolutions is a performance improvement company and like many we asked, how can we deliver learning in the best way and still continue to get results? We piloted new ways to deliver processes and they worked. We then asked ourselves… how can we deliver training using similar methods?

HPISolutions launched the Virtual Management Development Program (VMDP) last year. The program is completed 100% online (live with a facilitator) and is 40+ hours over a twelve-month period. The first seven sessions are foundational and delivered once a week for two hours. The remaining nine sessions are once a month for two hours. In the last session each team presents a team project.

What is the value of the program and what is the value of a team project?

The value of this approach is:

• Using a learning system called spaced repetition. (Spaced repetition is a learning technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent reviews of previously learned material in order to exploit the psychological spacing effect.)
• Participants work with a partner and present the learning modules during the monthly online live sessions; participants work with a different partner each month to increase their ability to learn more about the different styles of the various members of the team.
• Participants work in teams to complete assignments, applying concepts and skills such as conflict management, crucial conversations, etc.
• There is no travel time or expenses incurred in this online experience for the participants or the facilitator.
• Through pre and post assessments, results are proven.

The value of doing a team project is:

• Project teams receive training in Team Dynamics and have to apply the concepts.
• Participants serve on two teams, a work team and a project team.
• Project teams are required to complete a team project approved by their organization’s leadership. Teams participate in the choice of their team project.
• Organizations assign a Sponsor to work with each project team who serves as the liaison between the project team and leadership.
• Project teams provide participants an opportunity to work with managers in other companies/industries; participants learn from each other.
• Project teams provide participants with an opportunity to learn and apply new concepts and/or skills such as developing SMART goals, doing research, developing materials and Power Point Presentations, Public Speaking, etc.
• Team projects have to result in either process improvement and/or cost savings for the organization.

In order to challenge your teams, you want to get out of the box and think about ways that you can deliver continuous learning, spaced over timed intervals to guarantee results that can be used over the long term. To learn more about our VMDP program, click on the link below.

Virtual Management Development Program