Sundridge Park Research Articles

The learning credit card: A tool for managing personal development*

AbstractThis is the report of a five month study, undertaken by Sundridge Park Training Technologies in association with Guildford Educational Services to assess the potential of smart card technology to support learning and the management of learning. The study had two strands—the state of the art of the technology and its potential for supporting, delivering and managing learning. In addition to a study of the literature and extensive discussions with people using smart cards, potential users of smart card and visionaries, the project team developed two illustrative systems using cards to store personal data relating to education and training. The term ‘smart card’ is often used loosely to describe three different types of card, each of which is similar in general shape and size to a traditional credit card. These are: memory cards, laser cards—and true smart cards incorporating a processor and memory. This study has been concerned with memory cards and smart cards. The focus for smart card applications has been predominantly financial: there are relatively few applications in education or training. A notable exception is the large scale project at the University of Bologna which uses smart cards to manage the progress and achievements of a large number of students in the Department of Electronics. The two illustrative systems provided valuable experience of using memory cards and smart cards in quasi‐real education and training applications. They highlighted the problems of limited memory capacities and confirmed the high level of user acceptance reported by other trials. We can expect considerable advances in the technology of both memory cards and smart cards over the next months and years. The memory capacities of both types of cards will increase many‐fold and the unit costs will fall as large quantities of cards are produced for financial applications. Education and training applications will benefit from this expanding market. The major surprise from the study was the level of interest in the work and the enthusiasm expressed by almost all of those who came to hear of it. The general level of awareness of smart card technology was found to be low. However, the requirement for a system which will enable individuals to manage and own their learning on an extended timescale was generally recognised. Some of the possible applications for smart cards and memory cards in education and training had emerged before the official start of the study and it is clear that the technology is potentially pervasive. The project team and those consulted identified a wide range of possible applications both in education and in training. These focussed on assessment, personal course planning and management, identification of relevant learning opportunities, and the ownership of learning. It was felt that, over the next few years, smart cards are very likely to be in common use as credit cards for financial applications. Therefore, their use for education and training should be planned now. The recommendations from the study are that: More detailed studies are needed to find out how smart cards and memory cards could be used by different organisations in a fully operational system; Standards should be established for smart card applications in education and training, similar to those governing financial applications; Applications should be developed after the standards have been established. To be convincing, these should take a case study approach with small pilot studies in a variety of contexts and must follow real needs rather than attempt to drive them; The case studies would then form the basis for a campaign to increase awareness of smart cards and their potential for education and training, together with a programme for building an infrastructure to support the proposed systems. The public sector should fund the task of developing standards and providing interfaces with existing educational systems and projects to demonstrate the feasibility of various applications. Since educational standards have a European dimension, the European Community may be a source of support for work in the area of standards. At the same time, private sector funding should be sought for skill development and career development systems in industry and in education. The Training Agency itself should consider the application of smart card technology to the control and management of the Youth Training Scheme (YTS).

Sundridge Park Management Centre, Bromley, Kent, UK

Sundridge Park Management Centre, Bromley, Kent, UK

Introducing this year’s winners

The judges were extremely impressed by the quality of this year's entrants. The essays showed insight, determination and a clear grasp of the needs of a changing profession. The winners come from a variety of backgrounds and will be able to offer a wealth of experience to the course at Sundridge Park.

A golden opportunity.

The programme which awaits the 12 winners at Sundridge Park has been changed slightly from last year's. According to programme manager Steve Rath- born, this is an inevitable result of monitoring changes in nursing and management practice, and listening closely to what last year's and this year's winners say.

The Qualities of UK Management

Extract from the report made by Sundridge Park Management Centre and MORI, in making the 1993 British Quality of Management Awards. Looks at management capabilities and questions whether UK managers provide the leadership and competence necessary in today′s competitive climate.

Misperceptions By Managers and Their Bosses of Each Other's Preferences Regarding the Managers’ Careers: A Case of the Blind Leading the Blind?

Peter Herriot, Carole Pemberton and Robert Pinder report on and consider the policy implications of a study of the career attitudes of managers. Managers and their bosses believed that their attitudes about the managers’ careers were similar. In fact, there was little relationship between them, and furthermore, their perceptions of each other's preferences were largely unrelated to the preferences themselves. Three factors, ‘reputation’, ‘promotion’ and ‘competences’, explained approximately half the variance. Length of service with the organisation was the main predictor of the managers’ career attitudes. Managers believed themselves to be more likely to be promoted than did their bosses, and considered promotion more probable the more frequently they had moved jobs.Peter Herriot is Director of Research and Carole Pemberton is Research Consultant at Sundridge Park Management Centre. Robert Pinder is Director of Integra Associates.

THE POWER OF PROJECTS IN MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT

It is a truism that the vast majority of development takes place while a manager is carrying out the job. Also where any management training and development investment can be seen to affect the bottom‐line business results, then commitment at both an organizational and individual level can be more easily secured. Using work‐based projects for individuals and groups is an approach which can secure both bottom‐line payoff and effective learning transfer, while bringing about significant changes. Reviews the development of and experience in project‐based learning over several years at Sundridge Park. Offers and explores critical success factors together with experiences of project‐based learning with Volvo and ICI. Explains the issue of integrating learning with doing and makes links with action learning and career development. Also highlights the potential of information technology in capturing and retaining learning through projects.

Nursing Standard congratulates Clinical Practice and Management the winners of the Training Awards.

The Award winners, pictured, were presented with their certificates by tiie Secretary of State for Health Virginia Bottomley and Mr John Robinson, Chief Executive of Smith tk Nephew pic, at a special awards luncheon in London last week. These 12 nurses were chosen from the hundreds of entries received for the Clinical Practice and Management Awards, a joint initiative between the RCN, Smith & Nephew Medical and Nursing Standard. Entrants had to read all ten articles in the Clinical Practice and Management Series which appeared in Nursing Standard, answer multiple choice questions at the end of each - then write a 1,000 word essay on how they would like to further their management skills or how the series of articles helped them in their practice. In addition to the 12 finalists over 300 nurses received a special certificate to verify they had completed the series and answered the questions correctly. This week the winners are attending an expenses paid, residential management training course at Sundridge Park Management College in Kent.

News

Rewarding excellence: Health Secretary Virginia Bottomley presented the Clinical Practice and Management Training Awards to Claire Breslin(pictured above) and 11 other finalists at a special luncheon in London this week. The Awards, a joint initiative between the Royal College of Nursing, Smith& Nephew Medical andNursing Standard include a week long tailor made management course at Sundridge Park in Kent for all the whining nurses. Further details in our special supplement on page 49.

Clinical practice and management.

Next week, Nursing Standard, Smith and Nephew Medical and the Royal College of Nursing launch a major series on communication and collaboration between nurse managers and clinical practitioners. The series will provide fascinating examples of how these two branches of the profession, long considered to be ‘incompatible’, can combine to facilitate better patient care. Each article will set two questions which readers will be invited to answer at the end of the series, and this, combined with a special essay competition, will give you the chance to win one of twelve places on a prestigious residential management course at Sundridge Park. Kent, completely free. At a time when the NHS is going through enormous organisational change, and nurses have never been more aware of the need to keep their professional knowledge up to date, this series is a must for all nurses. Special advisor to the series. Maureen Lahiff, sets out what it aims to achieve.

LATENT TALENT

Discusses the need for further improvement in the numbers of women participating in training courses at Sundridge Park. The gender issue was expanded through various instruments, one of which was the Dilemmas Exercise. Lists female and male responses to gender‐angled management situations and concludes that in the 1990s both the masculine and the feminine qualities common to both sexes should be emphasized in order to ensure a better balanced workforce.

Project‐based Management Development: “The Volvo Story”

Explores how a modular project‐based approach to management development was initiated and developed within Volvo Concessionaires (part of Lex Service plc) in partnership with Sundridge Park Management Centre. Stresses the importance of top‐level commitment, particularly in directors taking on roles of group project sponsors. Draws out ingredients of success of the Volvo‐Sundridge Park partnership together with the benefits realized (including bottom‐line benefits) and key learning points. An additional benefit to individual managers is the formal accreditation of the programme towards a management qualification.

TEAM DEVELOPMENT FOR REAL

The experience of a top team‐building strategy spanning two years is described from two viewpoints: the company′s, Bendix Safety Restraints, and the providers, Sundridge Park Management Centre′s Team Building Services Unit. The development of a client‐consultant collaborative relationship is traced, which has enabled the achievement of significant strategic change goals and helped to enhance the human resource development function. Team‐building workshops are described, including two for the top director team and two integrated workshops of directors with senior managers. A tracking of learning and “bottom line” benefits is described together with an outline of planned initiatives for the future.

A SUCCESSFUL DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP: KINGSWAY GROUP AND SUNDRIDGE PARK MANAGEMENT CENTRE

The effective integration of on‐the‐job development with off‐the‐job training does not happen often, but when it does the effects can be dramatic. To realise this strategy one company, Kingsway, recognised a need to make a major investment in the development of managerial talent. A bold but essential strategic investment in management trainees to counter an earlier lower priority to management development is described. The effective link with a management centre (Sundridge Park) is explored, particularly in relation to securing learning while managing. The power of projects, as a development method and part of this partnership, is described with bottom‐line benefits in relation to achieving task goals and learning goals. It is shown that a partnership between an enlightened company and a progressive management centre can make such goals realistic.

Careers

Sundridge Park Management Centre has hosted a four‐day residential Insight into Management course for 60 senior school pupils from around the country, organised by the Careers Research and Advisory Centre (CRAC). It was based on a series of highly participative management exercises and provided a unique opportunity to meet young managers from a wide range of major companies in small informed syndicate groups, working together on a series of exercises which illustrated the scope and variety of opportunities available in management. A key component of the course was a business game in which pupil groups established themselves as companies manufacturing and selling domestic heating boilers, culminating in the Business Game Exhibition wherein the companies marketed their boilers with each producing its own exhibition stand and promotional material.

Meeting a Need: The Younger Manager Programme at Sundridge Park

Born out of the need for building the right foundation early in one's managerial career, the Younger Manager Programme has now successfully completed its first year.

An Action Learning Programme for Between‐Jobs Managers

Origins and Objectives, A little over six years ago a programme for unemployed managers registered with Professional & Executive Recruitment (the UK Government's job agency —PER) was started at Sundridge Park Management Centre under the auspices of the Training Services Division of the Manpower Services Commission. Called the Management Application Programme, it was designed to assist managers back into useful work who, for one reason or another, needed more help than the shorter courses, with their emphasis on interview skills, CV and letter writing, could provide.

Using CCTV in Management Training

When Sundridge Park Management Centre was opened in 1955 its founder, Ernest Butten, was clear about its aim. That was to provide the environment, the resources of knowledge and experience, the facilities and the stimulus for the self development of senior men and women from industry, commerce and the public service. The use of television at Sundridge Park has since been harnessed to those objectives, but in the mid fifties it was not of course an essential element of the training process as it is today. At that time educational use of the medium was almost unheard of, and the words “closed‐circuit” did not occupy a space in the dictionary.

Thomas Milne's Land Utilization Map of the London Area in 1800

To make A land utilization map of piece of country, the modern geographer selects base-map showing field boundaries. By inspection of the ground, he inserts key letter within each field to show its use, such as A for arable land, M for meadowland, H for heathland, and so on. He then prepares coloured map, with arable land in brown, meadowland in light green, forest in dark green, heath? land in yellow, gardens in purple and agriculturally unproductive land in red. This procedure derives from the method adopted by the Land Utilization Survey of Britain to record the face of Britain in the years 1930-8. The use of letters and colours on the published land use maps of this Survey was not entirely new, how? ever, for as early as 1800 Thomas Milne had prepared for publication handcoloured, engraved map of the London area which makes use of this technique. map, on scale of 2 inches to 1 mile, is engraved on six plates, each n34 by 15 inches. It bears the title Milne's Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster, circumadjacent Towns and Parishes c 11th March An area of about 260 square miles, extending from Harrow Weald to Woodford and from Hampton-on-Thames to Sundridge Park is covered by the map. The map records the use of each field by means of an inserted letter and an overpainted colour. These make it possible to distinguish no less than twelve different types of land use; as several are sub-divided, seventeen categories in all may be distinguished. Arable land, when enclosed, is shown by the italic letter a and pale brown colour not unlike the one used by the Land Utilization Survey century and quarter later. Enclosed meadow and pasture are shown exactly as on the later Survey, by the letter m and light green colouring. Woodland is shown by the letter w, tree symbols in the form of tiny circles, and dark green colour. Enclosed market gardens receive the letter g and light blue colour; nurseries n and orange colour. Orchards and osier-beds share the letter o and blue colouring, so that the map reader needs to judge from the nearness of the field to the river which of the two is intended. Paddocks or little parks are represented by the letter p and pink colour; the position of the residence within the park is shown by black rectangle. Drained marshland pasture has the letters ma and greygreen colouring. Common fields, with their admixture of small strip-fields used for diverse purposes, present difficult problem to the cartographer. One-third of the agricultural land of the London area still remained unenclosed in 1800. Milne showed great care and skill in representing, within the limits of scale, the variety of land use in common fields. The letters caf designate common arable fields. They are coloured brown if wholly arable, and bear conventionalized brown and green stripes if there is considerable admixture of grassland strips with the arable. Common meadows bear the letters cmf and solid green colouring, or green and brown bands as might be appropriate. Common market-garden fields are shown by the letters cgf and blue colouring, or by blue and brown bands. Great care