Develop Individuals and Team
Develop Individuals and Team
Ethiopian TVET-System
ACCOUNT AND BUDGET SERVICE
Level - IV
Learning Guide #20
Unit of Competence: Develop Individuals and Team
Module Title: Developing Individuals and Team
LG Code: BUF ACB4 20 0812
Unit Descriptor
This unit covers the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to determine individual and
team development needs and facilitate the development of the workgroup.
Elements
Performance Criteria
effectiveness of learning
3.4 Records and reports of Competence are maintained within organizational requirement
4.1 Open communication processes to obtain and share information is used by team
4.2 Decisions are reached by the team in accordance with its agreed roles and
responsibilities
4.3 Mutual concern and camaraderie are developed in the team
5. Facilitate accomplishment of organizational goals
5.1 Team members actively participated in team activities and communication processes
5.2 Teams members developed individual and joint responsibility for their actions
5.3 Collaborative efforts are sustained to attain organizational goals
What is team?
A group of people with a full set of complementary skills required to complete a task, job, or
project.
Team members need to
operate with a high degree of interdependence,
share authority and responsibility for self-management,
Be accountable for the collective performance, and
Work toward a common goal and shared rewards(s).
A team becomes more than just a collection of people when a strong sense
of mutual commitment creates synergy, thus generating performance greater than the sum of the
performance of its individual members.
Characteristics of team
2. Clear Performance Goals: What does success look like? What is the group trying to
accomplish? What work needs to be done to achieve the desired outcome? In high functioning
teams, managers make sure that all contributors understand and accept both the end goal and the
game plan for getting there.
3. Diversity of Skill and Personality: While managers should strive to have some consistencies
in teams bringing different people together who can offer different skills and perspectives will
helps drive creativity and innovation. Moreover, it will help bring balance to the team in terms of
tasks, people, risk and rules.
4. Strong Communication and collaboration: Effective communication between team
members and from the manager to the team sets the foundation for collaboration. Behavioral
data can help managers get a better understanding of communication styles and motivating
drives, all of which can help managers better predict how the group will interact, potential
challenges that may arise and how they may approach shared goals.
5. Trust and Commitment: One of the key building blocks of successful teams is a strong sense
of shared trust among team members. A lack of trust impedes on individuals ability to build
rapport and trust thereby jeopardizing productivity. It is clear much of what makes teams
successful is rooted in understanding the individual behaviors and motivating needs of the team
members. Using assessments to obtain this data can impact a manager’s ability to predict
performance and improve the effectiveness of the team.
What is Individual?
An individual is a person or a specific object. Individuality (or selfhood) is the state or quality
of being an individual; particularly of being a person separate from other persons and possessing
his or her own needs or goals.
1.1. Learning and development needs are systematically identified and implemented in line
with organizational requirements
Identifying learning and development needs is based on a formal or informal assessment of prevailing
levels of skills, attitudes and knowledge, and on any current or anticipated gaps. Such an analysis will
enable decisions about what learning provisions are needed at individual, team or organizational level.
These gaps should be interpreted and prioritized in connection with the wider organizational strategy.
Implementing a formal learning needs analysis (LNA) - also sometimes known by alternative terms such
as training needs analysis (TNA) or training and learning needs analysis (TLNA) - may be seen as a
health check on the skills, talent and capabilities of the organization (or part of the organization). It is
based on the systematic gathering of data about employees’ capabilities and organisational demands for
skills, alongside an analysis of the implications of new and changed roles for changes in capability.
Such a process should flow from business strategy, and its aim is to produce a plan for the organisation
to make sure there is sufficient capability to sustain business performance. It is also important to consider
statutory requirements, for example certain positions require specified levels of health and safety
expertise.
The six steps below, which we've adapted from the American Society for Training and
Development's Strategic Needs Analysis will help you better, understand people's training needs:
1. Reviewing team members' job descriptions.
2. Meeting with them.
3. Observing them at work.
4. Gathering additional data.
5. Analyzing and preparing data.
6. Determining action steps.
Learning and development needs
Performance evaluation
Workplace skills assessment
Recognition of prior learning
Organizational requirements
1.2. Learning plan to meet individual and group training and developmental needs is
collaboratively developed and implemented
A Learning Plan is a document (possibly an interactive or on-line document) that is used
to plan learning, usually over an extended period of time.
Any entity can have a learning plan. They are often used by individuals to plan and
manage their own learning, but they can also be used by teams, communities of practice or
organizations. An organizational level plan can be the aggregate of its individuals plans or
it can add information on the emergent learning needs of the overall organization.
The active development and maintenance of a learning plan can enrich a person's life and
the sharing of learning plans can help to strengthen a community.
1.3. Individuals are encouraged to self-evaluate performance and identify areas for
improvement
Self-evaluation of performance enables individuals to have personal development.
Personal development includes the following activities:
improving self-awareness
improving self-knowledge
becoming a self-leader[2]
improving wealth
spiritual development
improving health
fulfilling aspirations
Getting feedback from multiple sources helps employees know when they are doing something
really well, and when it would be helpful to do something a little differently. Multiple sources of
feedback could include one or more of the following:
Self-evaluation
Upward feedback (people who report to you)
Peer feedback (people with whom you work)
Customer feedback (people you serve both in and outside the unit).
Work environment surveys (an expanded form of upward feedback)
Every employee should receive feedback from at least one other source in addition to their
supervisor and their own self-evaluation.
Gathering feedback information from multiple sources regarding an employee’s performance can
serve the following purposes:
To determine instances of great or poor performance
To identify the causes of performance problems
To ascertain the factors behind excellent performance
To provide evidence to determine whether the employee has achieved his or her
objectives and met standards
Strong leaders are very good at aligning individual interests, strengths, and goals with the
work that needs to be done.
When a team member approaches the leader with an improvement suggestion, the leader
will first probe to see how deep his or her passion might be for the change. If it’s
reasonably strong and the idea merits testing, the leader will often give the team member
responsibility for trying out or implementing the change. This creates higher ownership
and nurtures a team of people who get directly and actively involved in making
improvements. This high-involvement leadership sharply contrasts with the traditional
approach of frontline people making suggestions for management or other departments to
implement — and then grumbling in the hallways that nobody ever acts on their
suggestions.
Leaders care deeply about the people in their organization. Team members feel their care
and reciprocate it.
2.1. Learning and development program goals and objectives are identified to match
the specific knowledge and skills requirements of Competence standards
Each training session should have a clear goals statement which introduces the concepts
that will be delivered in the session – in general terms, an answer to the question “why is
this session occurring?”, for example, ‘To define the concept ‘violence against women
‘or ‘To facilitate an understanding of the variety of human rights legal instruments for
addressing violence against women’. The model session contains example of a goals
statement presented in the facilitator’s [introduction to the session] [link to the model
session “What is Gender-Based Violence intro].
The next step in developing a training program is to identify the training objectives. The
training objectives should be based on the findings of the needs assessment and the goals
statement. They should be the central focus of the facilitator's preparation and should be
explained clearly to the participants. Clarifying these objectives will aid in the process of
selecting the appropriate content and structure for each session.
a goals statement;
a course title; or
What the instructor intends to do.
There are numerous methods and materials available to help you prepare and equip
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Teachers Teaching and Learning Materials Development
employees to better do their jobs. Indeed, with so many choices out there, it can be
daunting to determine which methods to use and when to use them. And using several
methods for each training session may actually be the most effective way to help
employees learn and retain information. In this article, we take a close look at each of the
myriad techniques, and examine their advantages and disadvantages. We also explain how
you can combine the various methods into an effective blended learning approach.
Overall Considerations
Your answers to these questions begin the narrowing process for your training choices. Now let’s
examine those training methods, their pros and cons, and where they best fit in a training
program.
2.3. Workplace learning opportunities and coaching/ mentoring assistance are provided to
facilitate individual and team achievement of competencies
2.4. Resources and timelines required for learning activities are identified and approved
in accordance with organizational requirements
All managers have a prominent role in encouraging and developing an environment that
brings work and learning together.
Requirements
a. Identify the learning needs of individuals in relation to team needs and available
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Teachers Teaching and Learning Materials Development
learning opportunities.
b. Identify potential formal and informal learning opportunities
c. Develop written learning plans and implement them as an integral part of individual
and team performance plans. They also need to improve the performance of your
organization.
d. Develop strategies to ensure that learning plans reflect the diversity of needs.
e. Make sure that your organization's procedures give individuals and teams
maximum opportunity to learn.
f. Negotiate learning arrangements with training and development specialists, and
then make sure that:
o you or your staff liaise effectively with them and
b. Share the benefits of learning with others in the team and organization
c. Encourage team members to assess their own skills and identify what they need to
learn. (Follow your organization's policies and procedures to do so.)
d. Select work activities to create learning opportunities and use them to develop
learning plans.
e. Use coaching and mentoring to support learning.
f. Make sure that workplace learning helps your team members to develop
appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes. (Follow your organization's procedures
to do so.)
g. Recognize your team's workplace achievement by giving timely and appropriate
recognition, feedback and rewards.
b. Make sure that your or others keep written records and reports of competency to
inform future planning. (Follow your organization’s systems and procedures.)
c. Use feedback from individuals and teams to identify ways of improving learning
arrangements and make them more efficient and effective. (If necessary, negotiate
these changes with training and development specialists.)
d. Introduce the improvements.
4. Communicate well
Evaluating outcomes
The reason for monitoring achievements is to evaluate the outcomes. In
practice the two activities go hand in hand and are often one and the
same. However, we will now focus on evaluation by itself in order to
get a clearer view of it. Essentially, evaluating means comparing
something in terms of something else. In our discussion we are
comparing the outcomes of learning experiences against the outcomes
of others or against an objective standard. We look first at evaluating
people, then teams. We briefly consider the ultimate standard-what
stakeholders expect.
Norm-referenced assessment
This is where we compare learners with each other. The test results of a
group of trainees or class of students or participants are ranked. This
sort of ranking is called norm-referenced assessment because it is based
on an idea of what constitutes the norm, or the average performance.
This norm is dependent upon the nature of the group; so if you have a
group of very good performers the norm will be high, and if you have a
group of poorer performers the norm will be low.
Norm referenced assessment is more suited to large scale formal
assessment situations where statistics can be employed to determine
means and standard deviations. It is not applicable to individual training
and rarely suitable in small group training, particularly in the vocational
context.
Criterion-referenced assessment
This compares learners not with each other but against some agreed
standard of performance or criteria. For example, if you were
considering buying a car you would probably make a list of the features
you wanted. For example:
These become your criteria for evaluating or assessing each car you
consider.
In the same way, criteria can be developed for measuring a trainee's
performance. For example, if the task is to write a report, the desired
criteria might be:
Commitment means acceptance of the responsibilities and duties and cooperation means
help and assistance. By developing team commitment and cooperation in a work team you
are assisting the team to meet its goals and objectives. Work teams that are committed and
cooperative are more likely to achieve the goals the business has set.
There are a number of signals that indicate the work team is committed and cooperating.
These include:
4.1. Open communication processes to obtain and share information is used by team
Good communication skills are essential for any team leader. An ability to communicate
with supported employees according to their preferences is a first step in developing team
commitment and cooperation. Without the skills and knowledge to talk and act in ways
that acknowledge the needs of supported employees in the work team, obtaining
commitment and cooperation in the work team is difficult.
Knowing how each member of your team prefers to gather information and how each
member prefers to get advice and to be given instructions will help you to communicate
the team goals appropriately to each team member.
No, at times you may find it difficult to identify the communication requirements as well
as the communication preferences of your team members.
A number of things can affect how a team member communicates with you and with other
team members. A specific style of communication, as a consequence of the supported
employee's disability, may be a constant factor. There may be other situations which may
arise, however, which have unexpected results. These could include such things as a
change in the medication or the side effects of a medication, the team member may be ill,
or there may have been changes in the work routines.
Team leaders are the people who spend the most time working with and observing team
members in the workplace, therefore they are usually the best person to identify
communication preferences and requirements. There will be situations where you are
unable to determine a supported employee's needs and will need to seek advice from other
people.
4.2. Decisions are reached by the team in accordance with its agreed roles and
responsibilities
Team commitment and cooperation is also based on the team's capacity to make effective
decisions. Many teams need assistance to learn how to make effective decisions and it is
part of a team leader's role to provide this assistance.
Team leaders can help teams make effective decisions by encouraging a work environment
that supports the team and its members to make considered choices, act on them and
review the results of the action.
There are degrees of team involvement in decision making. Your knowledge of the skills
and abilities of the team members will guide your decision about the extent supported
employees can contribute to making a decision. There are no rules for when and how team
members should be involved. It is a matter for your judgement. The following diagram
shows the degrees of involvement team members may have. At the highest level of
involvement the team identifies and solves problems, and brings recommendations to the
supervisor. At the lowest level of involvement the team plays no role in the decision
making at all. Between these two extremes the supervisor and team may make the decision
together, or the supervisor may outline the problem and constraints for solving it (time,
money,etc) and hand it over to the team to solve.
Involving team members in decision making, which can include problem solving, should
be based on whether one or more of the following is met:
The need for acceptance. The greater the need for the team to accept your
decisions, the more you should involve them.
The effect the decision will have on the team. The more the problem or decision
affects the team, the more you should involve them.
Their involvement in implementing the decision. If the team will be implementing
or carrying out the decision, involve them.
The ability and desire of the group to become involved. If the team wants to be
involved, consider involving them, particularly if they have sufficient knowledge or
expertise in the issue involved. Even if they do not, it could be useful for training and
development purposes.
Shared concern and camaraderie means team members support each other to complete the
team's work. Your words and actions will do much to assist the development of this shared
concern and camaraderie. Team members need to trust each other and you can act as a role
model for this through your work with the team.
behaving consistently
behaving with integrity
sharing control by delegating
including team members in decision making
providing accurate, clear information
explaining decisions
respecting the team's diversity
Demonstrating consideration and sensitivity.