Education and Training

Educational and Training packages are tailored to the institution’s short and long-term objectives. In addition, programmes have been designed for individuals and groups interested in certification.

The following represent our current standard offering that may be customised based on our initial business analysis and your specified objectives.

For certification, successful completion of a minimum of three courses over a pre-determined time period is essential.

Centre Training Packages (Intercultural)

In addition to actual business and management consultation, training forms an integral part of the Centre’s mandate and offerings. As with all of our services, course content provides our clients awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills but at levels customised to meet your internal needs and circumstances.

CULTURAL AWARENESS: to be ‘aware’ would signify a superficial knowledge and skill-set of a different culture. It provides the foundation to avoid cultural gaffes and would be suitable for employees who seldom encounter cultures outside their own.

CULTURAL APPRECIATION: is the in-between of awareness and competency. The individual possesses adequate cultural knowledge for short-termed meetings and communications with an intercultural group. With this level of knowledge, the individual is comfortable that they will not insult or offend the external culture while respecting accepted norms and behaviours.

CULTURAL COMPETENCY: the knowledge level is native or close to it. These are the sort of individuals that should be sent on long tern foreign assignments. The knowledge of the culture is in-depth. The individual code-switches between their culture and the next without conscious thought.

Training is available for individuals or groups, on or off-premise, week day or weekend. Schedules and timetables are designed to meet customer resourcing parameters and urgency. Participants, upon successful completion, are awarded a certificate.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS

Audience: Individuals who are required to communicate (verbal and written) using various media on a regular basis outside of their culture.

Level: Cultural Appreciation and Cultural Competency. An introductory course is also available to accommodate Cultural Awareness.

Contents: Listening, communications techniques, media use, letter (e-mail) writing, speech preparation, and the art of PowerPoint tailored to low- and high-context cultures.

Learning outcomes: How to code-switch for efficient and effective communication skills.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS

Audience: Individuals who are required to negotiate with cultures outside of their own.

Level: Cultural Appreciation and Cultural Competency. An introductory course is also available to accommodate Cultural Awareness.

Contents: Agenda-setting, cultural accommodation, individualism versus collectivism in the bargaining process, roles and responsibilities, body language.

Learning outcomes: How to develop better cultural strategies pre-, during, and post the negotiation process.

INTERNATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Audience: Individuals who are required to manage projects or are employed as members of a project team with intercultural/international components.

Level: Cultural Competency. An abridged course is also available to accommodate Cultural Awareness and Cultural Appreciation.

Contents: Project management knowledge areas (time, risk, cost, etc.) and culture, interfacing and working with virtual teams, procurement (off-shoring, near-shoring)

Learning outcomes: How to plan and execute projects in an intercultural environment while respecting cost, scope, and schedule constraints.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CULTURE IN DECISION-TAKING

Audience: Individuals who work closely with colleagues of another culture often on a daily basis —decision takers, team leads, organisers, Human Resource managers, planners.

Level: Cultural Competency.

Contents: Identifying, and interpreting values, expectations, attitudes, and beliefs; impacts of organisational internal culture interactions with external cultures; the identification and influence of stakeholders; low- and high-context cultures, individualistic versus collectivistic mind-sets.

Learning outcomes: How to cope with culturally diverse decision-taking models while lessening possible negative impacts.

CONFLICT AND CULTURE

Audience: Individuals who work closely with colleagues of another culture often on a daily basis —decision takers, team leads, organisers, and planners.

Level: Cultural Competency.

Contents: Cultural perspectives on conflict and conflict avoidance, the elements of Face, correlates of culture as determinants of conflict, and diversity.

Learning outcomes: How to identify and remedy potential conflictual situations before they occur or resolve those in progress.

CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF GLOBAL STAFFING

Audience: Human resource managers and general management practitioners.

Level: Cultural Appreciation and Cultural Competency.

Contents: Staffing or managing for control, global staffing choices: expats or local managers, balancing trust and control, retaining local management loyalty, local staffing implications.

Learning outcomes: How to develop and implement an effective culturally-conscious HR and Talent Management programme.

CULTURAL SHOCK AND THE EXPAT

Audience: Human resource managers, general management practitioners, managers scheduled for an international assignment.

Level: Cultural Competency. An abridged course is also available to accommodate Cultural Awareness and Cultural Appreciation.

Contents: Stages of cultural shock, pre-assignment preparedness, acclimatisation, host country code-switching and competency-building techniques.

Learning outcomes: How to recognise the early symptoms of culture shock, cope, and develop personal strategies to combat its effects on professional, social, and family life.

CULTURAL DISTANCE AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT

Audience: Strategists, planners, executives.

Level: Cultural Competency. An abridged course is also available to accommodate Cultural Awareness and Cultural Appreciation.

Contents: defining cultural distance, culture and FDI, foreign intervention and the impact on host culture, mathematical formulae used as determinants, culture and FDI fallacies, proponents of critical thinking.

Learning outcomes: How to determine cultural distance and recognise the advantages and disadvantages in the application of FDI strategies.

MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Audience: General management practitioners, HR managers.

Level: Cultural Competency. An abridged course is also available to accommodate Cultural Awareness and Cultural Appreciation.

Contents: Culture-based definitions and perspectives of the role of the leader, of management, and their associated roles and responsibilities, comparing attitudes towards managers and leaders.

Learning outcomes: How to interact competently with managers and leaders of different cultures.

NEEDS AND INCENTIVES: CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES

Audience: General management practitioners, project managers, HR managers.

Level: Cultural Competency. An abridged course is also available to accommodate Cultural Awareness and Cultural Appreciation.

Contents: Comparing perceptions of the value of work, motivation to work, members’ changing values, needs and wants, and designing and managing incentive systems.

Learning outcomes: How to motivate employees, professionals, and managers of different cultures.

UNDERSTANDING XENOPHOBIA

Audience: Individuals who are required to work or study in regions traditionally outside what they considered to be their comfort zone.

Level: Cultural Awareness

Contents: Understanding stereotypes and their origin.

Learning outcomes: Cultural appreciation and positive reinforcement to seek similarities rather than differences.

DEFINING CULTURAL IDENTITY

Audience: Individuals who wish to increase and enrich their knowledge and study of cultural significance in a globalised environment.

Level: Cultural Competency

Contents: Analyses of the ecological fallacy of national culture. Defining the proponents of culture.

Learning outcomes: Recognition of the variety of cultures resident within one political entity.

CULTURAL ACCOMMODATION

Audience: Individuals who experience initial encounters with migrant populations or refugees.

Level: Cultural Appreciation

Contents: Methods, philosophies, and tested standards relative to co-existence within the adopted culture. Appreciation as to the socioeconomic gains attributed to cultural diversity. ‘Us’ vs ‘them’ mentality.

Learning outcomes: Learning to live positively with difference.

RELIGIOUS RADICALISM

Audience: Individuals interested in the roots of radicalism in the contemporary world.

Level: All

Contents: Cults and extremism. The roots of radicalism and the lack of critical thought.

Learning outcomes: Understanding the conditions associated with radicalism and recognition that extremism is not limited to one religious philosophy.

Centre Training Packages (Project Management)

Basics of Project Management

Introduces the participant to the initial project life cycle. At the onset of this course, project teams are formed, responsibilities and tasks are assigned and project managers, designated. The sessions enable the participant to comprehend the work cycles of the project, the leader, and team based on a case study of an actual project. At the centre of the course is a case study that is used to illustrate both Project Management fundamentals and the daily operations within a project.

Learning outcomes and competences:

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Comprehend and apply the basic concepts relative to the life-cycle of any project;
Understand the additional complexities of a project;
Understand the systemic relationship between Project Management knowledge, processes, and competencies no matter the project methodology deployed.

Course contents:

Theoretical foundations required to build the necessary critical thinking and appreciation needed for practical applications that cover the subject matter listed below. The student is introduced to current discipline theories and frameworks by an intensive case study.

Practical application comprises situational analyses based on the case study and action research. This segment is augmented with videos, hands-on practice, and the actual project simulation.

Using the case study, practical examples, and discussion, students are walked through and immersed into the integral functionalities associated with each of the following subject areas:

PM Fundamentals;
Project life cycles;
The case study complete with documented inputs and outputs;
Project Manager and team competencies, skills, roles and responsibilities.

Contemporary Methods, Standards, Models, and Frameworks

Introduces the participant to the state of project management in the second decade of the 21^st century. The course investigates why many projects have failed in the past, how failure is remedied today, as well as the latest trends in project management. For this course, participants will develop a new Project Management model based on the material reviewed during the sessions. This course concentrates on four project management perspectives that are used currently in industry and government. The intent of this course is to examine the fundamentals of each in their common goal to deliver successfully to the customer. International standards relevant to the profession are also analysed.

Learning outcomes and competences:

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Comprehend and apply the basic concepts relative to the life-cycle of any project based on various methodologies and standards;
Identify unique characteristics to methods and standards used widely within the industry;
Compare and contrast standard and methodology components;
Understand the systemic relationship between Project Management practice and theory.

Course contents:

Theoretical foundations required to build the necessary critical thinking and appreciation needed for practical applications that cover the subject matter. The student is introduced to current discipline theories and frameworks.

Practical application comprises situational analyses based on case studies and action research. This segment is augmented using videos, interviews, and simulations.

The course presents the basic concepts and principles of each analysed practice. Core to this discussion is how the latter views project management and in doing so, how it strives to accomplish the four basic tenets of any programme: time, quality, budget, and scope. As this is an interactive course, students are encouraged to share their own first-hand experiences in project management, identifying both the advantages and disadvantages of certain techniques deployed in praxis. Emphasis is also placed on adapting methodologies to meet organisational and national cultures as well as specific industry requirements. At the onset, students will form into groups to work with each method while contemplating a specific project to develop a case study.

Visualising Project Management

At the centre of the course is a case study that is used to illustrate the daily operations within a project. The course affords students an opportunity to implement the knowledge of project management basics and project manager competencies into practice in a concrete simulation. Participants form project teams to reinitialise the project, and modify the actions taken so that it becomes a success. The case study, developed from an actual project, demonstrates that without sufficient planning and control, any project endeavour is doomed to failure.

Learning outcomes and competences:

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Comprehend and apply the basic concepts relative to the life-cycle of any project;
Understand the additional complexities of a project;
Understand the systemic relationship between Project Management knowledge, processes, and competencies no matter the project methodology deployed.

Course contents:

Practical application comprises situational analyses based on the case study and action research. This segment is augmented by videos, interviews, and the actual project simulation.

With the case study, practical examples, and lectures, students are walked through and immersed into the integral functionalities associated with each of the following subject areas:

PM Fundamentals;
Project life cycles;
The case study complete with documented inputs and outputs;
Project Manager and team competencies, skills, roles and responsibilities.

The Art of Consultancy for Project Managers

Consultancy in this regard entails both business and requirements analysis; requirements acquisition; contract compilation; customer and stakeholder negotiations as well as hard skills used in workplace practice that emphasise communication techniques and listening. In addition, contemporary trends in praxis promote the project manager no longer as team leader but rather, coach and mentor. The course addresses these issues in a practical fashion.

Learning outcomes and competences:

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Coach customers on existing industry trends thereby, providing proactively practical problem solutions;
Recognise the role of a business analyst and its implication in requirements acquisition and their feasibility;
Comprehend the complexities associated with effective communication; possess the ability to decipher the difference between needs and wishes;
Gain awareness of customer-centric needs often ignored in traditional project management practice;
Appreciate the need of a consultancy as the innovative approach to Project Management rather than previous notions as provider.

Course contents:

With the advent of Industry 4.0 and an increase in IT-based products, projects become more complex, and the desire to implement solutions that not only meet requirements but deliver business value increases, project managers and teams must develop a more in-depth understanding of their clients to be successful. To accomplish this, each week participants are presented with a unique business dilemma. To remedy the presented situation, the subject matter includes: consultancy competencies, effective consultation techniques, action research, process evaluation, learning needs assessments, and ethical reviews.

Project Management

Provides participants with a deeper appreciation of the project life cycle and introduces knowledge areas. The method of instruction is self-directed to a great extent and uses a team-based project designed to meet a specific and innovative business need. At the centre of the course is the participant-developed case study that is used to illustrate project management barriers encountered in praxis.

Learning outcomes and competences:

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Apply the basic concepts relative to the life-cycle of any project;
Apply the basic concepts relative to a Project Management methodology;
Understand the additional complexities of a project;
Understand the systemic relationship between Project Management Knowledge Areas and Process Groups no matter the project methodology deployed.

Course contents:

Practical application comprises situational analyses based on case studies and action research. This segment is augmented using videos, interviews, and simulations

With case studies, practical examples, and lectures, students are walked through and immersed into the integral functionalities associated with each of the following subject areas:

Project Management Professional ethics and behaviours
Project Management processes and Knowledge Areas;
Project Manager and team competencies, skills, roles and responsibilities;
Participant-developed case study and subsequent project, deliverables, and artefacts.

International Project Management

The central elements to a successful project are related to time, cost, schedule, and quality. Each one of these elements are culturally driven. This course deals with aspects specific to culture, virtual teams, and cultural knowledge management.

Learning outcomes and competences:

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Communicate effectively and efficiently across national borders;
Apply various negotiation techniques to deal with other cultures;
Deal successfully with virtual teams;
Comprehend the concepts of ‘time’, ‘commitment’, ‘face’, across various national cultures
Handle circumstances that require conflict resolution and basic tenets of team building across cultures.

Course contents:

Theoretical foundations required to build the necessary critical thinking and appreciation needed for practical application that cover the following subject matter: fundamentals of Project Management and associated knowledge areas (risk, cost, time, etc.), and fundamentals of Cross-Cultural Management relative to the findings of various cultural anthropologists. Discussion centres on the cultural work ethic, perception of time, business behaviours, as well as the ad-hoc cultural components of language and religion.

Practical application comprises situational analyses based on case studies and action research. This segment is augmented with videos, interviews, and simulations:

Communication skills
Business and work ethics
Notions of time and its management
Team building in individualistic/collectivistic cultures
Conflict management
Negotiation across cultures
Leadership across cultures
Evaluating performance across cultures

Advanced Project Management

Concepts change over time and with it, best practices reflect the momentum of the industry. This course reviews the preliminary circumstances prior to project initiation, project financial evaluation systems, contracts, risk management monetisation, and other contemporary applications relevant in the Digital Era.

Learning outcomes and competences:

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Develop and implement a business case;
Comprehend the procurement processes as well as the legal issues associated;
Understand the importance of the role of the Project Management Office (PMO) and that of project governance;
Implement Earned Value Management (EVM) as an integral part of monitoring and controlling project time, cost, and risk;
Identify risk triggers and build effective contingencies;
Implement efficient quality programmes and standards;
Devise effective change management plans.

Course contents:

Practical application comprises situational analyses based on case studies and action research. This segment is augmented using videos, interviews, and simulations

With case studies, practical examples, and lectures, students are walked through and immersed into the integral functionalities associated with each of the following knowledge areas and related processes:

The role of the PMO and other organisations;
Procurement and Legal Management;
Business Case
Cost and Time Control Management (EVM, Budget, Finance);
Change and Integration Management;
Rick Management;
Lesson Learnt and Project Management repositories.

Project Management for IT

IT is commonplace whereas, in many instances, traditional Project Management has not evolved sufficiently to accommodate projects relative to the IS and IT industries. Today’s IT projects present unique challenges to the project manager, requiring coordination with many stakeholders and integration of various technological capabilities. This course addresses all areas of IT Project Management: hardware, software, systems integration, communications and Human Resources.

Learning outcomes and competences:

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Define the role of the IT project manager;
Develop a results-driven project management team;
Identify, interpret, and manage the real project requirements;
Develop a focused project plan to manage IT projects;
Estimate IT project costs and schedules using proven techniques;
Find solutions to problems specifically related to IT projects.

Course contents:

From a variety of technical business cases, participants select one from which to develop a product and project management plan to address the business problem. Upon completion of the initial phases of the project (Definition and Concept), the teams then continue to complete all subsequent phases: Requirements Phase; Planning Phase; Design Phase; Construction Phase; Delivery Phase and finally, Installation, Integration, and Deployment. In addition, the project utilises a methodology conceived specifically for IT projects.