Meirik Development Programmes: a commitment to transformative organisational change

Difficulty achieving lasting change at your organisation?

Often, the positive results of professional training aimed at organisational change don’t last long. This is usually because…

‍Most of the learning is retained only by the individual who attends the training, and it isn’t spread throughout the team.

Even then, as training usually takes place in a classroom or online environment, it’s often a challenge to apply the learning to real-world organisational situations.

Alternatively, if you invite a professional development consultancy into your organisation, they may resolve a specific problem, but they don’t teach you how to solve these challenges in future.  

And, on a fundamental level, if the culture at your organisation or the behaviour of your people fail to change, can we talk about any long-lasting change at all?

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Initiating transformative change at your organisation

At Meirik, we believe that the solution is already within your organisation. Our approach is to help you build your capability to make transformative change, equipping you to resolve your own challenges. This is achieved by taking a transformational journey together. It’s a step-by-step approach. On reaching this transformative change, you will have developed lasting competencies at your organisation. Though our journey may only last half a year, through to perhaps five years, the capabilities you will develop will stay with your organisation for the future.

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Development Programmes: The Meirik approach

To enable your organisation to achieve lasting, transformative change in the real-world environment, we have developed Meirik Pathways. This approach involves fully blended learning, including formal classes, plus strong emphasis on coaching and mentoring. However, training in live settings is the most powerful way of achieving practical mastery. That’s why the majority of learning experiences in a Meirik Development Programmes are gained during on-the-job training.  

Meirik Pathways are tailored to the needs of either a team or project, or a specific role.

Organisational challenges are universal, so our Pathways apply to any type of company, sector, or industry. Meirik Pathways have achieved transformative change at organisations ranging from major petrochemical corporates to national health providers.

‍Meirik Development Programmes are based on:

• Change engine identification to accelerate organisational transformation. We assess your competency gap to identify objectives, or streamline clear objectives your organisation already has, providing The Vision of what can be achieved.

• Gate and checkpoint setting with a timeline enables measurement. Tracking specific metrics provides confidence, creating a clear sense of the lasting change that will be achieved through the Pathway journey.

• Pathway development includes elements of training theory, which could include Agile methods such as Kanban or Scrum but is strongly based on a pragmatic approach for real-world results.

• The Pathway journey relies on training and mentoring at outset, yet rapidly passes responsibility to your team or nominated individuals. This puts learning into real-world practice, supported by Meirik’s expertise, that ensures lasting development within your team.

• Journey’s end - onward to transformative change. Reaching the final gate over a defined schedule, we step away, confident in your new capabilities and transformative change.

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Achieving transformative change

A global petrochemical corporation needed to develop Professional Scrum Trainers to help their teams deliver increasing value. However, recognising that it could take up to 10 years for an individual to achieve Scrum certification, the organisation wanted to accelerate the process. Through a Meirik Pathway, the company upskilled two team members to accredited Professional Scrum Trainers within just three years.

A global insurance company wanted to sustain accelerated growth and to become a fully customer-centric organisation through a digital transformation. To successfully achieve the transformation as quickly as possible, while ensuring lasting change, Meirik developed a learning pathway based on Agile methods. After concluding the pathway, the company has become more customer-centric and is providing personalised experiences to build long-lasting relationships.

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Development Programmes for a Team or Project

To achieve transformative change for a team or project, such as implementing a Scrum Framework, a learning pathway includes the following typical format.

• Planning the Development Programme: whole-team training to confirm objectives and approach, as well as development of the Scrum team. Crucially, this includes nomination of the future Scrum Master, selected from the customer organisation.
• Training the future Scrum Master: we train and mentor the future Scrum Master closely for one to two months, while developing the Scrum Framework for the whole team.
• Shadowing and support: for the next three to five months, the future Scrum Master runs the team programme while we shadow, providing the feedback and support to quickly optimise development.
• Going it alone: putting the learning into practice, the future Scrum Master now runs the programme alone for the next six months.
• Concluding our journey: we return, a year on from beginning the Pathway, for a final review. By this stage, the Scrum Master will have established practical mastery. Crucially, the wider team will also understand the learning programme’s principles and practical operation, enabling long-lasting, transformative change.  

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Development Programme for a Specific Role

A Meirik Pathway for a Specific Role is a competence development programme, resolving specific challenges that change the way individuals operate to achieve lasting improvement. This learning pathway typically includes the following format.

• Planning the Development Programme: this includes assessment of the organisation’s needs, usually with human resources department members to identify competence gaps.

• Specific challenges: Development programme delegates include professionals who are typically at the same organisational level, all drawn from different teams. The delegates highlight and prioritise specific challenges to resolve.
• Starting the Development Programme: The Pathway addresses these specific challenges, building competencies with teamwork in practical action-learning, closely supported by mentoring.

• Axchieving lasting competencies: following a series of two to three-hour sessions, across a period of a few months to one year, the individual delegates achieve mastery, helping to resolve the organisation’s specific challenges.