Learning and development

Lasting improvement depends on managers who can lead it. Our accredited courses, on-the-job coaching and leadership programmes build practical skills in lean, service design and operational management, tailored to the challenges your teams face every day.

A framework for delivering results

Training that happens in a classroom and stays there is an expensive day out. Our courses are built the other way round: every delegate brings a real problem from their own organisation, applies each tool to it during the course, and leaves with a plan they can put to work the following week.

We offer three kinds of learning. Open courses, such as Lean Practitioner and Service Excellence, bring together managers from different organisations and sectors, which is often where the most useful ideas come from. Custom programmes are designed for a single organisation, using its own processes, language and data. Coaching on the job supports managers as they lead improvement work, usually alongside one of our consulting engagements.

Our practitioner courses are accredited by the Service Operations Institute and the Centre for Customer Practice, and our coaching programme follows the standards of the Coaching Standards Council. Our tutors are working consultants, not full-time trainers, so the examples they use are current and the advice is practical.

Delegates typically complete an improvement project within three months of their course, and many organisations measure a clear return on the training through those projects alone. We follow up with each delegate's sponsor at three and six months to review progress, and our alumni are welcome to join the Lean Service Forum to keep learning from their peers.

“Our people came back from the course with a project already half done. Six months later two of them were leading improvement work across the whole division.”

Learning and Development Director, a county council

Our approach

  1. Bring a real problem

    Every delegate works on a live challenge from their own organisation. The course is the place to practise each tool; the workplace is where the learning counts and where its results are measured.

  2. Learn from practitioners

    Our tutors are consultants who use these methods with clients every week. They teach from current examples, share what has failed as well as what has worked, and answer difficult questions honestly.

  3. Accredit the skills

    Practitioner courses are externally accredited by independent bodies and assessed through a workplace project. Delegates earn a recognised qualification for improvement work they have actually done in their own organisation.

  4. Coach beyond the course

    We follow up with delegates and sponsors after the course, and offer coaching while projects are under way. Learning that is supported back at work, by managers and peers, is learning that lasts.