Tool Kit

European Training Foundation

The Management Tool Kit

The process of management development is an integral part of both enterprise restructuring and ongoing corporate growth, as well as the wider economic and political transition taking place in Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States. As such, it is a critical process for the individual or group of individuals involved, for the development of the company for which they work and for the wider socio-economic area in which the project is taking place.

The main sources of expertise and resources for management development in the CEEC and NIS are usually divided into four categories:

· In-company management training units, which are usually prevalent in multinational companies such as Coca Cola, Unilever or similar enterprises;

· Business schools, that offer a range of both degree programmes such as the Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) or the Master’s of Management as well as Executive Education or specialised training programmes;

· Management consultancies, that offer ad-hoc or regular training programmes, or implement enterprise restructuring projects in which management development plays a key role, and

· Technical assistance programmes, such as those implemented by the European Commission’s Phare or Tacis programmes, USAID’s CARANA programme, and others.

While generic or standardised management development offerings are well-established, the process of designing and implementing customised programmes within a specific company is often less optimally handled. Many training or consultancy providers apply (or re-apply) standard curricula without implementing a rigorous needs analysis or assessment of corporate needs. Similarly, many companies choose training programmes or management development curricula based on a review of what is offered in their particular region, rather than what is actually needed by their managers.

This Management Tool Kit is intended as a planning resource for corporate managers, business schools, consultants and trainers interested in designing, implementing and monitoring management development programmes. It has been designed with the needs of companies in the CEEC and NIS regions foremost in mind, and is based on lessons and experience from the region in the first decade since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the former planned economies.

The Tool Kit was development by the European Training Foundation within the framework of project CFT/00/ETF/0010 “Strengthening of Partnership between Management Training Institutions and Companies, Ukraine – Kazakhstan – Kyrgyzstan”. It is part of a series of contributions by the ETF to management development, and builds upon several important projects, including:

· Re-designing Management Development in the New Europe: Report of the Torino Group (1998)

· Assessing Management Training Needs in Central & Eastern Europe: Survey of Selected Enterprises in the Moscow and Urals Regions, Russian Federation

· The Kyrgyz Enterprise Study: A Report from the Training for Enterprise Development Project (2000)

· Assessing Management Training Needs in Ukraine: ETF / CEEMAN Study, 2000.

How the Management Tool Kit was Developed

The Management Tool Kit was developed within the framework of the ETF's project “Strengthening of Partnership between Management Training Institutions and Companies, Phase I”. The project focussed on Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and was implemented by DEMOS Group S.A. of Paris and NAVIGATOR Development Consulting International Ltd. of Athens.

Four leading management training institutions were selected from the countries in the region: Kiev Mohyla Business School; the Dnepropetrovsk Academy of Business, Management and Law; the International Academy of Business of Almaty; and the Academy of Management of Bishkek. In a next step, 10 companies were selected to serve as a test case for diagnosing training and management development needs, and thus forming the basis for the approach featured in the Management Tool Kit.

Teams of EU consultants and trainers from the region implemented comprehensive needs analyses within the 10 companies. From this, it was possible to recommend detailed training needs and programmes. These needs were presented to each company in a management conference and a detailed report.

It is this process of analysing management development, training and organisational development needs that is documented in this Tool Kit. While this process has often been applied in a variety of in-company development situations, it has rarely been documented in an operational, “hands-on” manner specifically for company managers and management training institutions.

The Target Group

The Management Tool Kit is intended as a planning resource for corporate managers, trainers and consultants to support the design and implementation of in-company management development and wider strategic human resources management programmes. While management development can take many forms, the main form addressed in this Tool Kit is that of management training.

This Tool Kit has been developed for use in transition or developing economies, and specifically for companies operating in the New Independent States. There are four key publics for the Tool Kit:

· Corporate executives and top-level managers who have decided to embark upon a management development programme;

· Corporate unit managers or directors that are responsible for the design and implementation of the programme;

· Managers of training institutions as well as individual trainers interested in offering customised services to companies;

· Consultants, officials of international development programmes and other people involved in either offering services or contracting services in the field of in-company management development.

The Tool Kit does not presume an extensive prior knowledge of management development, strategic human resources management or other discipline. It is intended as a practical guide to defining and implementing such programmes, taking the needs of a specific enterprise and management group into account.

Using the Tool Kit

The Tool Kit comprises seven core Chapters:

· Chapter 2 describes the Management Development Framework and establishes the basic terms, understanding and processes of the Tool Kit. It also describes the different actors in management development; the challenges faced by companies in the transition economies in the CEEC and NIS regions, and the role of business schools and other management training institutions.

· Chapter 3 outlines the process of Management Development Needs Assessment and gives specific process on three core processes: Needs Assessment Methodology; Sources of Information and Analytical Methods; and Interview Methods. This section is of interest for trainers and consultants designing a needs analysis process. This section should be linked with Annex III: The Analytical Framework, which offers advice on what elements of corporate strategy, organisational structure or business processes should be analysed.

· Chapter 4 explores methods of Defining and Prioritising Training Needs. This is a critical area of training needs analysis and prioritisation, and the contents are intended to be as practical and applied as possible.

· Chapter 5, Training Programme Design, outlines methods of designing, budgeting and assessing training programmes. A format has been developed for use by trainers, consultants and companies in defining the contents, budget, target groups and curricula of training programmes. It also includes an assessment and evaluation component as a standard part of any training programme.

· Chapter 6 gives a Sample Training Programme for human resources management for a hypothetical company.

· Chapter 7 reviews the process of Training Planning, including costing and budgeting, evaluation, monitoring and assessment. This includes sections on selecting training providers and evaluating training impact, which are critical to ensuring the short- and long-term success of any training programme.

The Tool Kit also contains three Annexes:

· Annex I: Principles of Successful Project Design and Management, outlines methods of designing and implementing a management development project. It covers the roles of different parties, including corporate managers and training institutions.

· Annex II: The Basis for Assessing NIS Corporate Operations, reviews some common issues affecting the operations of a “typical” company in the NIS, and warns against complacency or a theoretical approach to analysing training needs.

· Annex III: The Analytical Framework, presents some elements that should be analysed during the course of an in-company needs analysis or gap analysis. These elements include corporate strategy, organisational structure, and main management functions as well as the human resources system at work within a company. Trainers and consultants are free to choose from, adapt and add to these elements as needed.

It is hoped that this Tool Kit will complement, guide and support company managers, HR directors, trainers and consultants in designing and implementing in-company management development and training programmes. The Tool Kit is very much a work in progress, and will be updated to reflect ongoing work by ETF as well as comments by other parties.

About the Author

The Tool Kit was developed by Philip Ammerman, Managing Partner of NAVIGATOR Consulting Group. Philip specialises in enterprise restructuring and development, and has implemented numerous projects in CEEC and NIS regions for the European Commission, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank,sectoral associations and organisations and the private sector.

The Tool Kit is the result of a broad collaboration between EU consultants, trainers from the NIS region and staff of the European Training Foundation, and as such is very much a group effort.

The author would like to recognise Tatyana Trofimova of the ETF for providing rigorous and helpful guidance in the Tool Kit development process. He would also like to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to Joseph Prokopenko and the contributors to Management Development: A Guide to the Profession (ILO, 1998); to Michael Armstrong, author of A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practise (Kogan Page, 1999) and to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).