Our Services

Next Generation Programme

The acclaimed Next Generation Programme (NextGen) for future IT leaders in Hong Kong was first brought to Hong Kong as an internal program for the Hong Kong Jockey Club in 2010. In 2011, the programme was extended to a multi-client programme. Our APAC alumni of over 60 professionals has included participants from the CLP Group, Jardine Matheson, Hong Kong Jockey Club, Singtel, DHL, SFC and Telstra. A valuable feature of the program is the personal mentor assigned to participants; they are generally highly regarded former CIOs.

Who Should Attend?

Programme participants are those identified as having the potential to take more senior leadership roles within IT. In addition, it is our experience that it is the openness to new approaches and willingness to engage in development characterises those that get the most from the Next Generation Programme regardless of current level. Next Generation is for senior IT leaders and team members in large organisations, or newly appointed CIOs and IT Directors in mid-sized organisations, seeking to develop and enhance the leadership competencies required by their current role, and prepare for the future. Rising stars in your talent pool can also gain significant benefits from the programme.

Overall Structure

The key features of the programme are:

  • Initial coaching interviews to confirm candidates have the commitment and the capability to derive value for themselves and the client from the programme and to answer any questions that they have on the program. Individual learning goals and objectives are defined during the session.
  • Three (3) workshops, held off-site to assure focus on development and demonstrate importance to individuals and the sponsoring organisations. The workshops will include leading-edge input from world-class speakers, practitioner presentations and case studies from senior IT leaders in the region and co-coaching with participants on the programme to develop work-based group projects to take the learning into action and improvement for their organisations.
  • Individual mentoring from CIOs between each of the workshops, focused on providing advice and guidance on applying learning in the workplace.
  • After the first workshop, each workshop will start with a review of learning and action from each group and individuals.
  • Work-based projects to accelerate the rate of learning and provide a foundation for further learning and reinforce an action learning approach in the organisation. This provides benefits for the participants and their organisations.

Outside of the workshop programme and the associated coaching and mentoring sessions, participants will be required to invest time in preparing for workshops and engaging in the work-based projects.

Our approach to the identification of projects is to consider the project as tackling something that is already an issue, but using the tools and techniques from the workshop to address the issue in a different way.

Programme Content

The outcomes and content of each of the three (3) sessions 1-1½ days for each workshop are set out below:

Session 1: Your personal brand, vision, goal setting and personal impact 1½ days

Outcome:

Understand yourself and environmental factors, devise plans to develop life long learning and think strategically about your function, role and career.

Content:

Your self, awareness, assessment and reflection.

  • Building your brand and networking
  • Career tactics and developing your own personal development plan
  • Introduction to coaching skills

Strategic thinking using analytical tools.

  • Strategy framework, process and implementation
  • Disruption
  • Planning vs. action

Session 2: Communicating your Brand and Influencing your Stakeholders 1 day

Outcome:

Heightened ability to influence at a strategic level, Integration of rational and behavioural perspectives.

Content:

Situational Analysis.

  • Critique of key models and perspectives for understanding business relationships with stakeholders e.g. stakeholder analysis, economic models, social and motivational models, personality etc.
  • What is relevant to the CIO? What level of resource is useful? How much time to devote?

Personal Power and Influence.

  • Push vs. Pull styles and key behaviours within each style that will persuade, assert, bridge, attract and disengage
  • Personal Review and Practice
  • Integrating Rational Analytical Approaches and Personal Power and Influence
  • Developing your influence model

Session 3: Leading change and sustaining your team 1½ days

Outcome

  • Developing your own leadership and management approach for the “C-level”.
  • Getting the balance right between staying agile and responsive whilst holding course in the inevitable difficult times of transformation at the top level.
  • Developing your organisational, team and personal development knowledge and skills.
  • Developing a rigorous plan to sustain the learning into the future beyond the programme.

Content

What should you focus on?

  • Shifting focus to the “demand” side of IT
  • Analysis and action
  • Balancing process and governance with trusting your personal intuition

What should you measure?

  • Critique of key models e.g. Kaplan and Norton, Business Excellence Model, Cultural Models
  • Staying connected with stakeholders in the whole supply chain

Leadership and Management at the C-level.

  • Key features of moving through this threshold, letting go and developing new capabilities
  • Developing your own model
  • Integrating practice with the insight from a leading Business School
  • Critique of models of change and transformation in organisations
  • Development of understanding of team development and importance of feedback
  • Understanding psychological contract and its role in team and personal development
  • Personal strengths and how to exploit them
  • How to guide the learning of others, developing and practice of coaching skills as a manager and leader

Programme Benefits

Programme participants will benefit from:

  • Pre- and post- programme 1:1 coaching to ensure that all participants enter the programme with clear personal objectives, and leave with a focused plan that will sustain the learning beyond the formal programme
  • Expert facilitation and input from leading subject matter experts
  • Co-coaching from fellow participants in a powerful action learning community
  • In-role tasks and work-based projects to reinforce learning and deliver early benefits in participants’ on-going roles
  • A personal mentor for each participant who will meet with them 3 times, our mentors are vanguard CIOs in the CIO Connect network

Pricing

CIO Connect members benefit from a discounted price per attendee. Please get in touch for the answers to any questions and full pricing details.