... getting value for your time
27 May 2008
Technical professionals, such as engineers, architects, designers and project managers, have a great deal of pressure placed on their time, particularly regarding continuing professional development (CPD). Professionals have pressure coming from three primary sources – market forces encouraging personal and technical development, industry associations and companies themselves.
These pressures can be eased by balancing the activities you choose to engage in and by using a consistent review and action plan. By using this approach, you will derive greater value from your CPD activities and achieve a greater number of goals.
Source of pressure 1: Increasing need to update knowledge and communication skills
The information age has placed a certain pressure on professionals. Ease of distributing information and rapidly changing technology means you have to keep on top of a greater number of changes in your field faster. The other side to this is an increasing call for professionals to improve their ‘soft skills’, such as management, leadership, negotiation, business writing and general communication skills. See the article written by Dr Nancy Longnecker of University of WA, reproduced in this issue’s Bulletin. This is an example of the growing pressure for science and technical professionals to improve the way they communicate what they do and how they do it.
Source of pressure 2: Industry organisations stride ahead
Industry organisations or associations, based on a membership group, have a duty to lead and guide their members to be on par with international counterparts and with other professionals in Australia. One way they do this is by imposing a CPD-points requirement. This means, to maintain membership, you have to undertake a minimum number of hours to further one’s technical knowledge. Most often, these CPD points have to be collected each calendar year, so the pressure builds on your time and the true value you derive from the seminars you attend.
Source of pressure 3: Employers invest in their people
In the face of a skills crisis, particularly in technical knowledge areas, employers need to show that they respect and value their staff. Intelligent businesses display this by investing in the professional and personal development of their staff. They can do this through three different mediums – in-house workshops that develop the team, courses for the individual’s own self-improvement and public seminars and events, where you can further your industry knowledge, network and develop stronger business relationships with clients and suppliers.
The issue here is companies have a financial budget that has to be justified by the value derived from workshops and seminars. This value is called return on investment (ROI) and it is not easy to measure how much return an individual, team or entire business unit derives from one seminar. Thus, there is pressure to prove the value you have gained from attending training courses and conferences. You know it is valuable, but the question is how do you convert the value into a tangible measure?
Easing the pressures through balance
Striking a balance is the key to juggling the different pressures on your time and to complete the professional development activities you have to do and the ones you really want to do. Try this process: review your options and select a range from in-house workshops, courses hosted by associations and industry seminars run by external providers. Your purpose for attending each type of event should be different, as each will give you a different outcome.
Getting value for time
Time is the most valuable commodity and it is important to derive tangible value from your CPD activities. When you attend your next continuing education event, try the following steps.
- Review the key performance indicators (KPIs) or goals that you have set. Most firms, large or small, set goals for staff that tie into the company’s overall financial and business targets.
- Match the events you selected in the previous step (see sub-heading ‘Easing the pressures through balance) to your KPIs.
- Set up to three goals to achieve from each seminar, other than ‘learn something new’. If you match it to your KPI, this should come easily. Always make one goal to ask the speaker a question about a current problem. Nine times out of ten, the solution will exceed your investment of time and seminar fees three times over.
- When you return to the office after the seminar, schedule 15 – 30 mins to review the notes and action items you wrote down. Read through key points made by the subject matter experts.
- Also, take time to contact people you met at the event. These contacts form your network of potential clients, suppliers and future projects and jobs.
By balancing the types of education events you attend and being consistent with your follow-up after the event, you will ease the pressures on your time and help you get the most out of your continuing professional development activities. You may begin enjoying your learning experiences for their relevance to what you do now and who you want to become.
Kite Events & Conferences organise and deliver Professional Development events for a variety of industry associations and skilled professionals. Our motto is 'Learn, Share, Fly' and we chose these words to describe our core philosophy of consistently adding value to our clients and their teams in an exciting way that ensures learning sticks.
Shuba Paheerathan
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