Course Overview

This workshop will help you to feel comfortable with saying “no”, without feeling guilty and to speak up in a confident and effective manner. Learn to distinguish between the three basic positions: passive, assertive and aggressive.

Course Objectives

After the workshop, you will be able to:

• Express what you want and assert your rights.
• Prevent misunderstandings and conflicts.
• Overcome self-defeating behaviours.
• Improve the quality of your interactions with others.

Course Overview

Many IT organizations are struggling to deliver quality services. Despite the massive investment in training, ITSM improvement initiatives are failing to deliver the hoped for value. The services are too unpredictable, unrepeatable, expensive and pose unacceptable business risks. The IT organization is still not Customer or Service focused. This simulation will help translate ITSM theory into practice, create buy-in and capture concrete improvement actions, helping to realize a customer focused culture and improve service quality.

This Apollo 13 Simulation Game will help:

• Improve your ITSM performance
• Increase Customer and Service Focus
• Get more out your ITSM/ITIL training
• Learn how improve Processes to realize demonstrated value and reduce business risk

 Do you recognize this?

With the growing importance of IT to all organizations ITSM is becoming a strategic capability. Many organizations have adopted and invested heavily in ITSM best practice frameworks such as ITIL. Many are struggling and are not achieving the hoped for value, worse still their lack of ITSM capabilities are presenting a risk to their business. Despite the massive investments in ITSM training and certification we still struggle to translate the theory into practice and translate the ITSM knowledge into results.

• Duration of the simulation 1 day
• Number of participants 8 – 12

Course Objectives

The learning objectives are dependent upon what your organization is trying to achieve, where you are on your ITSM journey and the problems and issues you are trying to solve. These are some of the objectives achieved during this training:

• Learn how to apply ITSM best practices and learn the essence of ITSM;
• Learn how to measure and improve your performance;
• Learn how to stay customer focused and set the right priorities based on customer impact;
• Develop communications and team competences.

Course Content

About Apollo 13 – an ITSM experience™Scenario 

You are the Mission Control Center of NASA. Your aim is to support the Crew during the

Mission. You must design your services, implement them, execute them and apply continual improvement practices in order to ensure mission success. In 4 rounds you will be challenged with events, problems, issues, changes and increasing business demand. You must apply the ITSM best practices in order to become successful. You will guide the crew through the launch, journey to and from the moon, to a safe return and splashdown,  at the same time realizing the strategic goals for the mission.

Course Overview

Intense competition coupled with flattened hierarchies, multi-dimensional teams and a diverse working environment characterize today’s business climate. For those leading IT teams, this reality is compounded with the challenges of:

• Realizing that most IT employees have deeper technical knowledge than their leaders
• Communicating with and supervising employees when you often can’t tell what they are doing
• Motivating IT employees who may not be interested in traditional career paths
• Coaching and developing highly technical skilled employees
• Hiring and retaining the best talent
• Bridging the communication gap between IT and the rest of the business

The Active Leadership for IT Professionals program provides the concepts, tools and practices to help overcome these challenges and to help IT leaders effectively coach, empower and lead individuals and teams to higher levels of performance.

Course Objectives

After the workshop, you will be able to:

• Assess personal leadership behaviours and attitudes that impact the performance of others
• Plan and deliver clear, concise communication to direct, guide and engage employees
• Understand what people need in order to change a behaviour or practice
• Determine how ability and motivation impact performance and outcomes, regardless of the task
• Explore three different leadership styles and when they should be used to maximize the performance of others
• Match the appropriate leadership style to individuals and specific tasks
• Explore how the foundational principles of coaching impact coaching results
• Differentiate between “coaching for job” versus “coaching for career”
• Provide behavioural feedback that recognizes and rewards employee performance
• Use a consistent approach to providing feedback that reinforces desired behaviours and helps achieve performance improvements
• Assess performance gaps and improve task performance
• Coach, reinforce and create a motivational climate for employee growth and retention
• Create a personal development plan based on assessed leadership strengths and development needs

Course Overview

Service design offers an innovative approach to creating and enhancing business services. AssistKD’s Service Design Consultancy course covers the key topics that enable consultants to collaborate with their customers and advise on how to offer the services their customers need. This course prepares attendees to sit the A4Q Certification in Service Design Consultancy examination and contributes to the achievement of the A4Q Certified Service Designer Award.

Course Objectives

Upon the completion of this workshop, candidates will be able to:

•    Describe the purpose and role of the Service Design Consultant.

•    Understand the principles and ethics of Service Design.

•    Understand the qualification and initiation of a consultancy assignment.

•    Analyse service value propositions.

•    Apply situation diagnosis using causal loop diagrams.

•    Explain option appraisal and principled negotiation.

Course Content

Introduction to Service Design Consultancy and the SD Consultancy Service Framework

Service Design Principles and Ethics

Initiating and qualifying a service design consulting assignment

Investigating a business service situation

Business service performance measures 

Appraising and diagnosing a business service situation

Generating service design options

Techniques to evaluate service design options

Techniques to implement a service design solution

Course Overview

Learn how to apply a creative, human-centred design mindset to business challenges and meet the needs of all stakeholders with our Design Thinking course.

Course Objectives

Design thinking is a creative and human centred approach to business innovation. It’s about applying the design mindset to business challenges, making sure solutions are customer-centric and focused on meeting the needs of all stakeholders. 

This Design Thinking course covers the underlying principles of design thinking, bringing the strategies and techniques to life by applying them to a range of real life scenarios. Delegates learn how to empathise with and engage with the customer, unlock key insights, question assumptions, explore strategies and test ideas.

Course Content

During this course, you will cover:

• The rationale for Design Thinking
• The Design Thinking mindset
• Core design thinking practices
• The Design Council Double Diamond
• The d.School 5 stage approach (Stanford)
• Design Thinking techniques including:

– Service safari

– Empathy map

– Customer journey map

– Problem framing

– Service blueprint

– Assumption reversal

– Prototyping

– Feedback capture grid

• Organisational culture and Design Thinking
• Cultural aspects that may inhibit or enable Design Thinking
• The Culture Pyramid 

Course Overview

Take an in-depth look at the key area of customer experience with our CX Analysis course. Learn how to transform business processes and to offer engaged, responsive and connected customer experiences.

Course Objectives

CX analysis is critical to business success. It looks in depth at the customer experience, and how an organisation can transform its existing processes to offer engaged, responsive and connected customer experiences. 

CX Analysis course examines every touchpoint of the customer journey. Key areas include analysing the organisation’s view of CX; the difference between CX and UX and why it matters; customer gains and pains and organisational maturity.

Learn how to tune in to your customers, action your insights and add value across multiple touchpoints to take your customer experience from good to great.

Course Content

During this course, you will cover:

• The rationale for analysing Customer Experience
• Core principles and components of Customer Experience analysis
• The stages of the CX Analysis and Design Framework
• The elements of the Business Scorecard
• Business values, strategy and core CX competencies
• Using the Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Maps
• Value co-creation, alignment and misalignment
• Analysing and defining the elements of a Value Proposition
• The Customer Experience research context
• CX research techniques including storytelling and focus groups
• ‘Voice of the Customer’ research and analysis including personas, customer journey maps and empathy maps
• Models to represent the voice of the customer, including customer journey maps and empathy maps
• Organisational Barriers to Customer Centricity  
• The Five Dimensions of Service and Accessibility
• Frameworks for UX requirements definition; usability and accessibility
• Techniques to enhance CX/UX including affinity diagrams, Kano, wireframes, service blueprints
• CX quality measurement techniques

Course Overview

Our Business Service Design course is ideal for anyone engaged in designing services offered to internal or external clients. The course explains and links the four key mindsets required for effective service design and organisational success.

Course Objectives

This Business Service Design course takes you through the four key strands of thinking leading to innovative, customer-centric business change: Systems Thinking, Service Thinking, Design Thinking and Lean Thinking. 

The course discusses how these four strands of thinking are interconnected and how they collectively support effective business change. You will develop an understanding of how to apply key business service design techniques.

Course Content

During this course, you will cover:

• The 4 core thinking approaches of Business Service Design:

– Systems thinking

– Service thinking

– Design thinking

– Lean thinking

• Business Service Design and business strategy execution
• Systems thinking practices and techniques including: 

– The classes and characteristics of systems

– Reductionist thinking

– POPIT(TM) and the Business Model Canvas

• Service thinking principles and concepts including:

– Co-creation of value

– Service ecosystems

– Service blueprints and Value streams

• Design thinking techniques including:

– The Design thinking Double Diamond

– Empathy mapping

– Customer journey mapping

– Service blueprint

• Lean thinking principles and concepts including:

– Quality control and quality assurance

– SIPOC

– Kaizen

– Waste identification techniques

• Lean improvement lifecycles: PDCA, PDSA and DMAIC
• Organisational agility definition, elements and domains
• Organisational culture and business agility 

Course Overview

This course explores the service ecosystem, looking at service architecture in the context of enterprise, business and solution architecture. Topics covered include value stream modelling and analysis; capability requirements and modelling; the T shape professional concept; service agility and double loop learning.

Course Objectives

Explore the service ecosystem and grow your understanding of the key elements of a service architecture with our Business Service Architecture course.

Course Content

Business Service Architecture

Course content

Service Architecture in the context of Enterprise, Business and Solution Architecture

The relevance of architectural principles

The elements and artefacts of a Service Architecture

Key service actors/stakeholders within the service ecosystem, and their concerns

Value stream modelling and analysis

Capabilities, capability requirements and capability modelling

How capabilities are leveraged to offer services

Capability and value stream integration

The T-shape professional concept

Service information concepts

Service economics

Service measures and controls

Service agility and double loop learning

Course Overview

Explore the service ecosystem and grow your understanding of the key elements of a service architecture with our Business Service Architecture course.

Course Objectives

This course explores the service ecosystem, looking at service architecture in the context of enterprise, business and solution architecture. Topics covered include value stream modelling and analysis; capability requirements and modelling; the T shape professional concept; service agility and double loop learning. 

Course Content

During this course, you will cover:

• Service Architecture in the context of Enterprise, Business and Solution Architecture
• The relevance of architectural principles
• The elements and artefacts of a Service Architecture
• Key service actors/stakeholders within the service ecosystem, and their concerns
• Value stream modelling and analysis
• Capabilities, capability requirements and capability modelling
• How capabilities are leveraged to offer services
• Capability and value stream integration
• The T-shape professional concept
• Service information concepts
• Service economics
• Service measures and controls
• Service agility and double loop learning

Course Overview

Gain the knowledge, skills, understanding and confidence you need to deliver effective business design consultancy to internal and external clients.

Course Objectives

This course covers the key skills required to deliver effective business design consultancy, including the consultancy lifecycle and service portfolio, the consultancy mindset, stakeholder engagement, investigation and negotiation techniques, and situation diagnosis. 

Presented by one of the expert training consultants pictured below. Each member of our Business Design Consultancy training team brings substantial internal and external consultancy experience to the programme.

Course Content

During this course, you will cover:

• The business design consultancy assignment lifecycle
• Rationale and business context for business design consultancy
• The consultancy service portfolio
• The consultancy mindset and key skills
• Qualifying consulting opportunities
• Procurement and contracting consultancy assignments
• The OSCAR framework for initiating a consultancy assignment
• Quality management, quality assurance and quality control
• Stakeholder analysis, influencing and management
• Outcome-based negotiation and conflict resolution
• Situation investigation techniques, situation diagnosis and solution definition
• Risk management and impact analysis
• The economics and ethics of consultancy
• Change control and configuration management
• Assignment disengagement and expansion