Organisation Development is a learning process that is directed towards improved performance and sustainability of the organisation as a whole. This learning and growth process often requires assistance of an internal or external professional, called the adviser or consultant. In this course you will learn how to design and guide an organisational learning process, from the intake up to the implementation of change.

1 - 12 December 2008
8 - 19 June 2009
30 November - 11 December 2009

Executive officers, board members and managers of non-governmental and private sector organisations with at least five years of experience in management positions, who feel comfortable with their daily routine and regular management tasks, but seek to become and remain a learning organisation together with the matching leadership qualities and style. Advisors to managers are also most welcome, but the course does not focus on the advisors’ role.

€ 3,550.00

Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here

This five-day course will assist you to create real added value as a workshop or team facilitator. It broadens and improves your personal interaction skills, provides insights into the underlying dynamics and techniques of participative group processes, and offers methods and tools for different categories of participative decision-making events.

You will intensively practise group interaction skills while facilitating simulated workshops and meetings, using a variety of different workshop methods and procedures. You will receive personal feedback to help strengthen and improve your skills. And you will learn effective techniques to analyse the needs of groups and subsequently to design powerful workshops and meetings to respond to these needs.

Within the course, you will be:
• made aware of your own strengths and challenges in facilitating a group;
• able to apply communication skills: when and how to use many tools for interaction, and to recognise and plan for the different phases in group decision-making;
• be made aware of different methods to gather diverse points of views, to create common understanding and to develop inclusive solutions;
• able to identify and analyse the gap that the participants need to bridge during the workshop and to choose appropriate workshop methods, instruments and tools;
• able to design and facilitate powerful meetings and workshop events;
• aware of the different roles of a facilitator, an adviser and a trainer, and your own potentials as a facilitative manager.

In addition to personal skill and competency development, the course includes information on the different kinds of participative workshops and covers a number of different methods and procedures in detail.

15 Jun 2009 - 19 Jun 2009
14 Dec 2009 - 18 Dec 2009

Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here

Course Contents: The course deals with common dilemmas and issues faced in international partnerships. These dilemma’s cover a wide range of topics, including financial accountability, formal or informal agreements, individual or multiple partnerships, exchange of learning events, varying value systems, differences in the organisational environment, hierarchical differences, mutual benefits of collaboration.

Tel: +31 (0)318 650 060
Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here

Course contents
First it will be discussed which conditions should be fulfilled by the project or organisation to permit fruitful monitoring. Secondly, an inventory will be made of the responsibilities and tasks of the various project-actors, organisation-staff or other stakeholders in the organisation. The scope for participatory monitoring will hereby become clear. Thirdly, the focus is on the design of a multi-layered, participatory monitoring system which meets the needs of the mentioned stakeholders. The layers are based on a logical hierarchy of objectives. Attention will also be paid to information-needs and various techniques of data-collection, to monitoring indicators and information flows.

For the necessary analysis of the institutional context and the assessment of organisational capacities the Integrated Organisation Model will be used. This model is also instrumental for understanding the requirements and conditions for organisational learning.

Finally, due attention will be paid to the processing of data and the way in which these should be translated into appropriate presentations of progress serving all categories of stakeholders.

1 - 5 December 2008

Tel: +31 (0)318 650 060
Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: click here

Nowadays many donor organisations apply a similar set of appraisal criteria: relevance, sustainability, feasibility, effectiveness and efficiency. Yet these broad container concepts need to be further specified and defined in order to apply them properly. MDF-Training & Consultancy developed a comprehensive course on the appraisal of proposals. This course enables you whether to accept a project proposal or not, and what aspects should be taken into consideration to decide which proposal is the best.

This course will introduce you to a comprehensive framework for project appraisal, taking into account a whole array of aspects that need to be taken into consideration to guarantee an objective and fair appraisal process. If your job involves the appraisal of proposals, this course will enable you to make thorough decisions on the best proposal

Tuesday:

• Overview of aid delivery methods
• Concepts and steps in appraisal process
• Appraisal criteriaBrush-up Project Cycle Management and logical framework

Wednesday

• Appraisal of the intervention
• Appraisal of the budget
• Appraisal of the institutional environment

Thursday

• Appraisal of the organisational capacity
• Appraisal of the monitoring and evaluation system

Friday

• The ambiguous role of the desk officer
• Comparative appraisal
• Drawing up the appraisal memorandumAppraisal of the organisational capacity

Tel: +31 (0)318 650 060
Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here

Development actions, either projects or programmes, are strongly influenced by the wider environment in which they operate. Consequently, the responsibilities and tasks of the manager are broad and multi-faceted. They include key issues like communication with stakeholders, dealing with uncertainty, staff performance management, facilitating organisational learning, and monitoring & evaluation. The main challenge of today's successful manager is to have a broad perspective and to cope with these multitudes of tasks and responsibilities. This four-week course will equip you with the necessary management tools and skills to be a successful manager in a broader development setting.

Course objectives:
This 4-week course will provide you with a selection of management theories, concepts, instruments and skills that will help you to improve your performance as manager. We will create time for personal coaching, feedback and self-reflection concerning your management skills. By the end of the course you will have developed a concrete personal action plan that will serve as a guide to implement the desired changes.

Course contents:
Management responsibilities are highlighted from three angles: (1) the phase of the life cycle of a project/programme, (2) the context in which the organisation operates, and (3) the roles and skills of a manager.
You will be introduced to various models helping you to improve the process of project planning. You will learn how to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of your organisation and to assess which external factors influence the performance of your project. You will know how to set up a monitoring & evaluation system to keep track of the achievements and how to prepare the terms of reference for the evaluation of your project. You will get insight in your personal management style and learn more about managing conflicts, giving effective presentations and negotiations.

Tel: +31 (0)318 650 060
Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here

Planning, implementing and managing programmes or individual projects require all round professional capacity. Improving the quality of individual projects or managing entire programme portfolios more efficiently can be done by embedding various management methods and instruments in your organisational set-up. This course acquaints you with Project Cycle Management, a management method often used for individual projects as well as for more diverse set of projects and programmes.

Course objectives:
This course will provide you with the tools and skills needed to become a more professional manager of projects and programmes. You will be able to design and steer participatory planning processes and assess projects. You will also be able to design monitoring systems and turn them into learning experiences for all stakeholders involved. You will learn how to organise and steer evaluations contributing to policy formulation and the strengthening of learning capacities of the projects or organisations involved.

Course contents:
This course follows all steps of the project cycle. It takes a close look at policy design and planning, assessment of interventions, monitoring and steering and evaluation and learning. You will learn about your own role as a manager and the policy environment you will need to work in with the various stakeholders. You will explore the assessment of proposals looking at the intervention, the implementing organisation and the implementing capacity. During the monitoring phase of the project cycle you will pay close attention to identifying those involved in monitoring, their information needs and how to involve them. Finally you will be introduced to the main requirements necessary to effectively evaluate a project and to stimulate the learning curve of the implementing organisation.

Tel: +31 (0)318 650 060
Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here

"Technical assistance of the early years was followed by community development support in the 1950s, aid to fill trade and investment gaps in the 1960s, aid to provide for basic human needs In the 1970s, assistance to structural adjustment and debt relief in the 1980s, humanitarian assistance in combination with support for rehabilitation of countries after the civil wars of the 1990s and at the turn of the century, aid for human development and aid to prevent violent conflicts and foster democratic governance."

The above statement from Jan Pronk, a former Dutch Minister for Development Co-operation clearly indicates that in the last 60 years, many different development paradigms have been adhered to. Accordingly approaches, modalities and instruments have been permanently challenged and very frequently altered or adjusted. At the same time it is still questionable whether we truly understand the relation between aid and development. Under what conditions aid catalyses development and when does it stifle development? This course investigates whether the present Aid Architecture can indeed better catalyse sustainable development processes as in the past.

The New Architecture of Aid course is designed for senior managers from funding agencies, government and semi-government organisations from both South and North. These senior managers should be working in the context of international co-operation and be keen to learn more about the different development concepts and approaches, the consequences of these for the policies and intervention strategies of their own organisation, and the individual skills and knowledge required to cope with the changes. Ideally they should have participated in the seminar on Aid and Development.

Tel: +31 (0)318 650 060
Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here