Doug Liberati

Challenge: Reduce cost and boost effectiveness when training college-graduate new hires.

Action: A two-week national event with a focus on lecture was redesigned as two one-week modules. Week one used self-guided e-learning and study guides to teach baseline skills. Week two was an immersive simulation where these skills were applied to client situations by small teams.

Result: A more effective and lower cost onboarding program. Participants built skills in their local offices, eliminating a week of travel. In week two, the simulation provided experience with a client environment. Senior leaders served as cast members for mock interviews and other role-plays, providing teams with real-time feedback and coaching.

Challenge: A professional services firm noted an increased client focus on improving efficiency and reducing costs. Practitioners with Six Sigma and Enterprise Lean skill sets were in high demand, and more could be placed if available.

Action: Combining extensive learning materials in both areas of practice, and identifying a group of senior leaders willing to review the assessment results and on-the-job experience of learners, enabled creation of a blended certification program covering both areas.

Result: A learning portal provided participants with information on how to move through the certification process, as well as a central point of access to all learning materials. It also included forms to be completed to capture field experience.

Click the thumbnail for a larger view.

Challenge: An organization providing software development services established multiple local, near-shore and off-shore development centers. It wanted to certify each in the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute's™ Capability Maturity Model^® (CMM^®).

Action: The learning segment of the solution comprised two e-learning courses, with follow-on local-office classroom sessions.

The first e-learning course presented an overview of the CMM. For software engineers, this course laid out what the CMM was, why it was important, and how implementation of its guidelines could help them in their work.

The second, more detailed course, provided software engineers and interested client-facing pracitioners with a deeper look at the CMM and the implications of implementing its guidelines.

These self-paced courses were followed by classroom training at each development site covering how the general processes and procedures developed using CMM would be customized to the characteristics of that particular site.

Result: Software engineers and client-facing representatives had a clear understanding of upcoming changes and performance expectations.

Click on the thumbnail for a larger view.