Case studies

Events

To ensure the smooth running of six Assessment Centres, designed by cda in partnership with one of their large blue chip clients, I was enlisted to work closely with their Project Administrator to help coordinate the day, greet participants, make sure facilitators and participants knew where they should be and when, that they had the right materials for the exercises being carried out and to deal with any day to day issues that arose. I also administered some of the exercises carried out during the day i.e. introducing and timing the exercise and dealing with any questions.

Coaching

MS Word and MS Excel

Rather than continue to outsource their training materials, the Learning and Development Team at NG Bailey wanted to produce them in-house. Having already set up a suite of Word and PowerPoint templates, I was then asked to review the Word skills of a member of their team and structure a coaching session to build on her knowledge, to allow her to successfully use/maintain and coach the team when using the templates. Using the new templates as examples, I structured the sessions to demonstrate aspects of Word e.g. bullets and numbering, headers and footers, page breaks and using images. I then worked with her to put these skills in to practice to create her own simple template.

I was also asked to coach the administrator in Excel, for a specific piece of work she is required to complete on a regular basis. Again, I assessed her skills and knowledge and based a short coaching session on the skills she would need to complete her work i.e. charts, simple formulae and formatting cells.

Research

As part of a small outsourced team, I was recruited to investigate into which existing pre- and post- 16, Level 1, 2 and 3 qualifications in English, Maths and ICT might be suitable for the Extended Core of the Extended Diploma being developed by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA). I was required to search the National Qualifications Database and pull out specific aspects of various pre-identified qualifications for further analysis, drawing comparisons between qualifications for inclusion in the final report.

Making the right impression

PowerPoint

I transformed some very technical information for a client into an appealing PowerPoint presentation with diagrams, charts and animation to allow my client to portray a professional image to their audience.

Proofreading

I transformed a basic, heavily worded MS Word document into a professional looking handbook my client was proud to pass to their client. I proofed and sense checked the handbook, researched and wrote up any missing or unclear information. By creating a Word template I was able to apply consistent styles throughout the document and incorporate colours to coincide with their clients branding and image. Using this template I was able to make the content come alive and look more appealing to the reader. By creating the template my client can now easily make changes to colours and layout for future clients, as the initial work has already been done.

Using templates (MS Word and MS PowerPoint)

Rather than continue to outsource their training materials, the Learning and Development Team at NG Bailey wanted to produce them in-house. After discussing their requirements, I reviewed their existing material. As several members of the team would be working with the templates to add content they needed to be easy to use. Using Styles, I designed and set up a suite of Word and PowerPoint templates. I incorporated their branding and logo and created several images (icons) to be used in the templates to illustrate tutor instructions, for example, group exercises. The team is now able to create professional looking material in-house saving on production costs.