Skills for Working in Development (SKWID)

Introduction

I am writing this on the last evening of the course. This means, despite a hair raising first two days of information over load, we have survived. Tonight is our one and only free evening........and we are going out for a curry!

The training split into two quite distinct parts.

First evening and Day 2.

The first part of the training is rather heavy on information-giving with some tasks to illustrate the points made and to make natural breaks in the material presented. The most interesting tools for me were, Stakeholder Analysis, Facilitating Techniques, and approaches to help the Participation of ALL the stakeholders. I know, heavy stuff but I found it interesting to relate these approaches to those used in education, or even manufacturing. So much crossover.

Days 3, and the last morning.

Now the fun really started and most people found themselves out of their comfort zones. I certainly did!!!! Lots of roll playing to exercise the techniques and tools received on day 2. The bridge building on the morning of day 3 was great fun. Because of the trainers total commitment to their rolls, the exercise took on a certain reality. You could not help but be pulled into the scenario.

The afternoon saw the first of two identical session, the second being on the last morning. Essentially, you had to facilitate a meeting which you had set up with 3/4 other course participants. The topic, structure and tools used in the meeting were in your gift. In other words, you had to set up a roll play. And in next to no time!!!! No pressure then!!! But it was enormous fun. The idea is to run the exercise again on the last morning with a different topic, structure and tools to see if you can improve on your first attempt.

Day 4

Another great day out of my comfort zone. Playing parts as different stakeholders in roll-plays covering conflict resolution, negotiation and networking. By the end of the first 'play' I was getting more comfortable with the process and it did become good fun. It also dawned on me that I would be feeling this way for real very, very soon!!!! But we were all getting better at spotting when to adopt strategies and techniques to enable us to cope and be more effective.

In Conclusion

Another well put together and delivered training course with the emphasis very much on simulating real situations in which you could try/practice/discuss the effectiveness of different approaches in a safe, non-damaging way.