Education and Training Courses 2008

To support Major Step Change including Programme & Project Management, Business Process Re-engineering (BPR), Change Management, Benchmarking, Culture Change, and adoption of Lean and Agile thinking in the Service Sector.

Our Training Philosophy and Approach

The following 13 training courses (indexed to details below) are available. They can be readily tailored to suit individual requirements for in-house workshops.

To discuss your consulting or training needs with one of our independent consultants or trainers please Contact Us.

More Best Practice and Training Links below

Major Step Change Course Summaries

S01 Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) Executive Overview (1½ days) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed principally for executives & senior managers, about to embark on Business Process Reengineering Projects, or decide if BPR is appropriate, this overview course will enable you to:

• Articulate the need to consider organisational change, process improvement, or IT development
• Understand the objectives of Business Process Re-engineering (BPR)
• Show how to scope, plan, execute and implement the result of a BPR programme safely
• Understand the methods of managing a BPR project
• Overcome the barriers to change & reduce implementation risk

S02 Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) (Detail) (4 days: modules 1 & 2 scheduled together as a 2 day course, then 2 days for module 3) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for the BPR project team and managers affected by a BPR project, or those who are seeking to make a significant difference in operational performance in a short space of time, this detailed course which is split into 3 self contained modules, aligned to the stages of a BPR project, will enable you to:

• Articulate the need to consider organisational change, process improvement, or IT development
• Understand the objectives of Business Process Re-engineering (BPR)
• Show how to scope, plan, execute and implement the result of a BPR programme safely
• Understand the methods of managing a BPR project

• Overcome the barriers to change & reduce implementation risk

• Module 1: (Day 1) Objectives: Covering stage 1 of a BPR project, this module lets you discover how to:

  • Identify, prioritise, & scope development needs to improve processes by the application of process development

  • Overcome barriers to change

  • Identify opportunities presented by the application of IT

• Module 2: (Day 2) Objectives: Covering stage 2 of a BPR project, this module lets you discover how to:

  • To understand the current methods and record them in such a way to facilitate analysis, and improve the process

  • To motivate staff to change their process

  • Apply simple general purpose analysis techniques to improve processes as part of a BPR process

• Module 3: (Day 3/4) Objectives: Covering stages 3, 4, & 5 of a BPR project, this module lets you discover how to:

  • Align processes with business objectives and identify new process needs

  • To analyse the current process against future business needs

  • Remove waste from current processes and design the new process

  • To organise processes

  • Design processes in detail

  • Minimise implementation risk, institutionalise the change and allow the process to improve in future

S03 Vision of a World Class Organisation (2 days) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for the management team to provide a vision & an executive overview of approaches to developing a word class organisation, this course will enable you to understand:

• The characteristics of leading companies / benchmarks
• The 21 wastes
• World Class Products & Services
  • Judging competitive performance (“SQAIRPAD” paired comparison)
  • The 6 drivers of performance (“SCOPER analysis”)
  • The five characteristics of resources which drive or inhibit performance (“CARAT analysis”)
  • Measuring performance (“Balanced SCORECARD”) (Overview of “C02 Setting KPI’s & C03 Measures of Performance Detail”)
• World Class Processes
  • Capacity strategy (Extracted from “S04 Strategic Capacity Management”)
  • New products & their introduction (Overview of “D01 New Product Introduction”)
  • Lean Processes (Overview of “S10 Applying Lean Thinking To Service Providers”)
  • Agile Processes (Overview of “M15 Agile Manufacturing”)
  • The 13 principles of Lean and Agile Supply Chains (Overview of “S07 Lean & Agile Supply Chain Management”)
• World Class Change Mechanisms / Implementation
  • The four types of change
  • Benchmarking (Overview of “S07 Benchmarking Detail”)
  • Developing a development process (Overview of "S05 World Class Change Management")
  • Step change implementation (Overview of "S02 Business Process Re-engineering Detail")
  • The eight stages of identifying waste & establishing durable continuous improvement (Overview of "C01 Focused Improvement Systems (FIS) (Identifying Waste & Establishing Durable Continuous Improvement")
  • World Class Culture (Overview of “OM01 Organising & Engaging The Team”)
• Prioritising the issues

Note: Includes a copy of our unique 92 point Agility self-diagnosis checklist

S04 Strategic Capacity Management (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed as an executive workshop, and as a part of business planning, this course discusses the strategic considerations relating to capacity management, namely:

• The four levels of capacity management
• Strategies for improving output or responsiveness
• Core competence:
  • Competitive performance & Critical Success Factors (CSF's)
  • Resources capability: ("CARAT" analysis & the weakness of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (O.E.E.)!
  • Make vs. Buy (A balanced strategic checklist)
• TAKT time & Capacity (line) balancing
• Four steps to create workflow (The Capacity 4S's)
• Capacity strategy & segmentation
  • Simplifying the process & creating value streams
  • Reducing the need for scheduling
  • Resource Domination Analysis
• Replacement theory (Repair or replace?)
• Lean & Agile approaches to capacity management strategy
• Constraints / process flexibility & strategies to reduce fixed costs
• Creating resilience & consistency of service:
  • Managing volume change & variety
  • Managing seasonal demand
  • The capacity battery principle
  • Risk / Business continuity
    • Process FMEA
  • Softening capacity constraints: (ceilings; floors; walls)
  • Capacity exchange curves
  • Redundancy & Bandwidth
  • Reducing the impact of long term forecast error in strategic capacity decision making
• Turning the business plan into a capacity plan
• Creating simple capacity simulation models

& finally getting more output for free!

Note: Includes a copy of our unique 92 point Agility checklist & an MS Excel capacity modelling starter pack

S05 World Class Change Management (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed as an executive workshop this course helps you to construct a business plan & then helps you to turn this into an action plan by adding World Class Change Mechanisms from S03 (above) and will enable you to answer the following questions:

• How do you construct a business plan to help you, rather than the bank manager and then turn it into a development programme?
• How do you implement it, rather than letting it gather dust until next year?
• What is "world class" and how do you get there (from S03 above)?
• What are the barriers to change?
• How do you sustain the improvement momentum (overview of S08 below)?

Note: a full half day of this workshop discusses the compilation of the business plan using competitive positioning analysis tools such as "SWOT", "FAB" and "Z charts", "USP" / "key buying criteria"

S06 Introduction to Benchmarking (overview) (½ day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for directors and senior managers, this overview course will enable you to answer the following questions:

• How do you create an atmosphere where change is possible?
• How do you take benchmarking beyond the metrics?
• How do you acquire totally new ideas for change?

S07 A Guide to Benchmarking (detail) (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for directors and senior managers, and benchmarking team members, this course will enable you to answer the following questions:

• How do you establish a Benchmarking programme?
• How do you run it?
• What are the methods, tools and techniques of Benchmarking?
• How do you achieve the bottom line benefit?

S08 Programme Management (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed in conjunction with S09 (below) for directors, development managers, change programme or project managers and operational mangers, this course  focuses on the management process and human change management aspects of ensuring safe and successful major product or process development as a continuous stream of projects.  The course will enable you to answer the following questions:

• What is a "world class" development process? (overview of S05 above)
• How do you create & manage a stream of projects in a coherent development programme?
• How do you identify the human obstacles and resistance to change and overcome them?
• What contingencies are necessary?
• How do you keep major projects and programmes on time, budget, and still deliver all the deliverables?
• Which of the three implementation strategies is appropriate?
• How do you ensure that change is institutionalised & the lessons are learned?

S09 Project Management (1 Day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed in conjunction with S08 (above) for beginners to this subject, this course is not a conventional project management by rote course. It covers the four key stages of a project life cycle, 18 detailed planning steps and 10 tools & techniques to ensure project success. It will enable you to answer the following questions::

• What are the key project roles and organisation?
• How do you write terms of reference for a project?
• How do you identify major risks & minimise them?
• How do you keep major projects and programmes on time, budget, and still deliver all the deliverables?
• How do you get the bottom line benefit?
• How do you identify the true objectives?
• How do you identify the tasks to be done?
• How do you estimate tasks you have never done before?
• How do you put the tasks into a logical and priority sequence?
• How do you minimise project lead time using "chunking", "critical path networks", create the most favourable cash flows during the project and set the project budget?
• How do you communicate the project plan effectively?
• How do you keep a project firmly on the rails and manage timely control actions?
• How do you ensure project closure and proper handover to operations?
• What project documentation is necessary?
• How are the following four stages of a project managed?
  • Project Initiation
  • Project Planning
  • Project Execution
  • Project Close

S10 Applying Lean Thinking to Service Providers (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for directors, managers and Business Process Reengineering teams in non-manufacturing businesses this course is intended to provide a road map to a "Lean" business and will enable you to answer the following questions:

• What is leanness?
• How can it be achieved?
• How will "lean" thinking benefit non-manufacturing companies?

Note: This course translates lean principles outlined in course M20 Lean Business Overview to the service sector.

S11 Applying Agile Thinking to Service Providers (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for directors, managers and Business Process Reengineering teams in non-manufacturing businesses this course is intended to provide a road map to an "Agile" business (This course translates the agile principles outlined in course M15 Agile Manufacturing Detail to the service sector) and will enable you to answer the following questions:

• What are the key features of an Agile Business?
• How do I create a task list to generate an Agile business and prioritise it?
• What are the important techniques used to create an Agile Business?

S12 Value Stream Mapping (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

As a part of S02 above we also recommend that all operations staff should participate in a process redesign to avoid the "Not Invented Here" problem, & in particular in documenting the current process to ensure that nothing is missed in the current process. This course is designed to teach beginners to Business Process Reengineering or staff engaged in trying to remove the waste from their process the use of  a subset of the full toolkit provided in S02 above, namely "value stream mapping". This course aims to provide practical experience of using process mapping tools and techniques to enable you to answer the following questions:

• How to you align business processes with the needs of the organisation?
• How do you understand processes in sufficient detail to improve or adapt them?
• How do you remove wasteful activity from a process?
• How do you organise the process better?
• How do you design a new and better process?

Note: Contains content from S02 (above)

S13 Culture Development Methods (1 day) (Course Schedules), (Request course details)

Designed for managers who wish to change the culture of their organisation. It will enable you to answer the following questions:

• How does culture contribute to the efficiency & effectiveness of organisations?
• Who creates and modifies culture?
• How do you understand you business's current culture?
• What aspects of culture need developing and how?
• How do you create a successful, engaged, motivated, self-managed team?

Note: Contains content from S02 (above) & OM01 Organising & Engaging The Team

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Links to courses mentioned above:

M15 Agile Manufacturing Detail

M20 Lean Business Overview

OM01 Organising & Engaging The Team

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To discuss your consulting or training needs with one of our independent consultants or trainers please Contact Us.

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© SM Thacker & Associates (Consultancy and Training Specialists) Original January 2000. Version 16: February 2008