British Airways

QA provides British Airways with a fully managed service for the supply of technical and business skills training.

QA has worked with British Airways for over fifteen years, and has had a managed learning service contract in place since early 2002. QA provides British Airways with a fully managed service for the supply of technical and business skills training.

The challenge

British Airways required the design and delivery of a series of five skills development programmes. In response to the trend towards buying in packages and services, British Airways needed to change its mix of roles and skills to strengthen further its capability in business and data analysis, project management, technical design, and data exploitation.

One element of this was a programme to develop the personal effectiveness of staff working in the role of technical design lead. This role had changed, with a greater responsibility to present business cases and demonstrate strong project management skills, as well as working effectively with colleagues across the business.

The solution

QA worked closely with British Airways to develop a programme that would deliver the skills and knowledge required for success in this new role. Attendees would complete the programme not only with the new skills but also having gained competency through role-plays and case studies allowing them to apply their skills in the workplace. As an overall objective the programme would raise the attendees' confidence in their abilities.

• An introduction to the new environment - virtual team leading, new relationships, third-party management, leadership
• Knowledge of leadership styles - big picture communications, assessing team member needs, enabling the environment for change, communicating during change
• Cultural impact - looking for cultural clues and adapting the approach to get the best from others when working in different cultural environments including offshore suppliers
• Strategic thinking and problem-solving
• Managing meetings including practical tools and tips
• Practical experience from a case study that challenges them to solve problems, find information from unmotivated sources, decide on a solution and present it at a meeting they must also control

The emphasis would be on developing an enhanced level of self-awareness and effectiveness, encouraging the technical design leads to assess their current competence against future realities.

QA's approach to this programme was highly interactive and designed to stretch the technical design lead's personal thinking, engaging them actively in challenging activities involving personal learning and feedback. For example, role-play can be threatening, but gives people the opportunity to practise and gain feedback in a safe environment. Working on real-life scenarios helps learners to try new approaches and build confidence to implement solutions.

A three-day programme was designed and prior to the course attendees completed a 'strength deployment inventory', working with two colleagues including their manager, giving an additional perspective on how others viewed their behaviours. This was used during the course to explore the difference between motivations and behaviours. They were also asked to consider the various factors that might support a virtual team. This helped to ensure that they were beginning to think about how they could benefit from the training.

The programme was introduced by a senior contact at BA, giving an important signpost to attendees that the programme had strong management buy-in. Over the course of the three days, the training had a strong mix of traditional instruction with group exercises, discussions and interactive sessions. This meant that those who gain from different styles of learning would obtain the maximum benefit from the course.

To ensure that skills were applied when attendees had returned to the workplace, the programme included the creation of a case study with BA that recapped the whole course and gave technical design leads confidence in their new skills. This was delivered once the programme was complete for all teams, to ensure that skills were consistent across the business.