How many people make up a cohort?

We generally create cohorts of between 8 and 16 people. This range is optimum for running team-based exercises and activities and maintaining cohort identity and team spirit.

Can new starters be added to a cohort?

Yes. As long as the time left in the programme is enough to get then up to speed, we can bring new people into the cohort. If the addition takes the cohort over the recommended maximum, we will work with you on the most practical approach. If multiple people are joining, it could be better to initiate a new cohort. If it is only one or two people, we will evaluate with you whether it is better to bring them into a running cohort and how we support them to catch up with the rest of the cohort.

Can anyone in the organisation join a cohort?

No. We have designed this specifically to help professional services professionals who are working directly with clients. This includes PS staff who are fully focused on delivery work and those who also support services pre-sales activities. We expect that cohort members have also gone through any organisation onboarding activity and have some field experience before joining the cohort, as they need to be familiar with the business.

What sort of topics get covered in the Professional Excellence Sessions and how are these different to the event-based courses?

The Professional Excellence Sessions are short interactive workshops and webinars that cover a single topic to introduce the cohort to a specific technique or mindset shift (see table below for examples). They typically run between 60 to 90 minutes in duration, delivered remotely. The event-based courses are more comprehensive skills development exercises around a specific skills area.

Are there limits on the number of event-based courses, professional excellence sessions and skills adoption clinics in the programme?

No. There is no limit on the number of any of the components of the programme. As part of the initial programme plan, we will work with you on a recommended approach for content delivery. In practice, the programme needs to minimise impact on other business priorities and also give cohort members opportunities to apply what they have learned between sessions. We would recommend that content is spread fairly evenly across the 12-month duration to improve skills adoption and knowledge retention. Although we will work with you on this initial plan, we can be flexible to accommodate changes as we progress to make sure that content and cadence meets your needs.