i-Fundi/3M Management Development Programme

The i-Fundi/3M Team Business Management Development Programme is a 5 day, SETA-accredited business improvement programme that helps your key personnel understand their role in creating value and driving success in your organisation. The programme incorporates Team Business simulation methodologies used by business schools internationally to enhance the learning experience. Combining training in theoretical management principles with hands-on, experiential action learning provides a unique approach that stimulates creativity, team work, problem solving and innovation.

About the programme

Successfully used by over 300 companies and 400 000 participants to date, 3M Training’s Team Business simulation methodology is an ideal vehicle to develop business acumen at all levels and across all functions in an organisation. It provides an insight into how value is created in an organisation and develops value-adding relationships through:

• A dynamic, competitive simulation in which participants make increasingly complex business decisions, implement them, measure the outcomes and reflect on performance.
• A structured application of the business and management ideas to the organisation, functions and most importantly one’s own work.
• The programme ends with a Plan of Action to implement the opportunities identified above.

In the process, participants develop:

• An opportunity orientation – in which they discover that opportunities are both desirable and achievable.
• A proactive approach – to analysing work, identifying opportunities and accessing them.
• A systemic way of thinking – a clear understanding of how things happen and why.
• Resource to others – I can be useful to others and there is a sound personal logic to my doing so.
• Quantification – measurement is both possible and desirable.
• Learning – the willingness and ability to continue the business and management learning initiated on the programme.

Programme Outline

The programme is built on the three key principles:

1. Creating value

• The Value Chain is used as the basis of decision making and reflection in the simulation and in understanding organisations.
• Understanding is gained of how value is currently created and strategies to create more value.
• Potential for synergy (between levels and across silos) within an organisation is analysed and maximised.
• Drivers and Constraints to value creation are analysed and opportunities identified to maximise the value of drivers and minimise the constraints.

2. Managing for success

In the new world of work, organisational structures are increasingly flat, while managerial skills are more important than ever. Good managers have to balance the needs of their employees with the needs of the organisation and must be able to adapt their management style to bring out the best quality work product from their team. This module focuses on:

• The roles and responsibilities of managers in ensuring that organisational objectives are achieved and organisational standards are met.
• The four management functions or activities (planning, organizing, leading and controlling) that make up the management process used by all levels of managers.

3. Leading cross-functional project teams

A lot of organisational work is project-based, requiring collaboration and communication between project team members across various divisions and locations. Team members are often specialists in their own function. This module imparts training in the relevant knowledge and skills for:

• Effective communication.
• The building blocks of effective teams.
• Inducting and motivating team members.
• Managing team dynamics and individual and team performance.

Participants acquire credits against unit standards from i-Fundi’s Generic Management Level 4 qualification. Follow-on modules, or an RPL process can be applied should full certification be desired.