User:Randyfisher/Profiles/Consultant Profile L&D

About Randy Fisher (aka WikiRandy)
Randy is a Senior Consultant and Facilitator with 15+ years of experience related to stakeholder engagement, change management, project implementation, and learning and development. He has an MA in Organization Management and Development from Fielding Graduate University; a post-graduate degree in Journalism (King's) and a BA in Political Science (McGill). He has Diplomas in Instructional Design and Train-the-Trainer, and is also a Certified Advanced Technology Manager (Newbridge Networks/CATA Alliance). He holds additional certifications holds certifications in the Birkman Method, Myers-Briggs, Strong Interest Inventory.

Randy has considerable expertise in Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), and helping digital natives and newbies alike to use and adopt social media and collaborative technologies (i.e., wikis, blogs, etc.) to support learning and achieve project results. He has supported the development of capacity-building activities for the Commonwealth of Learning's projects for Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), elearning, governance, community media, higher education and international organizations. These activities included applying an OD/change management and action research approach to engaging stakeholders, obtaining their buy-in and 'ownership', and designing and delivering scalable and sustainable e-learning and learning communities, communities-of-practice and networks.

As a member of the governing council of WikiEducator.org, a global open-source (Mediawiki) community of 14,000+ educators in 120+ countries (a top 100,000 website), dedicated to developing free and open education resources (OERs), he conducted a needs analysis for identifying, qualifying and prioritizing learning and development requirements and evaluating learning program engagement and success. For the Community Media Community of Practice, he guided the development of several international communities-of-practice, and in particular facilitated Community Media & Radio practitioners to collect and disseminate best practices and opportunities for improvement, leadership skills and organizational capacity-building.

He provided virtual / online facilitation and collaboration support for numerous training sessions, including the development and delivery of the Learning4Content online train-the-trainer mentoring and apprenticeship program which trained 3,500 educators in 18 months. This included instructional design, planning and content development, monitoring and evaluation, for continuous improvement using social media (i.e., wikis, blogs) and learning and collaborative technologies. Other projects have included designing and developing leadership and networking skills training; career and communications training for new immigrants to successfully navigate the Canadian workplace; and most recently, Virtual Collaboration for Teams Using Wikis.

Objectives & Requirements

 * Needs analysis for identifying learning and development requirements;
 * Best practices research;
 * Training event development and delivery (including preparation of a development plan, content development and event evaluation);
 * Evaluation of existing XXXX learning and development programs;
 * Program development (e.g., a mentoring/coaching program); and
 * benchmarking XXXX learning program against other learning organizations in similar business line.

Descriptive Blurb
XXXX focus in this area is on enhancing the existing capacity of the leadership/management cadre and expanding its capacity to provide employees with a range of opportunities to enhance their existing competencies (knowledge/skills/work behaviors), as well as to acquire new competencies. The goal is to ensure XXXX has employees with the skill sets needed for current and future job requirements.

Related initiatives touch primarily two areas: (1) management and leadership skills development, including coaching and mentoring; and (2) development of employees’ generic competencies (such as problem solving, analytical thinking, team work, project management, business writing, presentation skills, and group facilitation) and functional competencies (position/role specific competencies). Examples of the kinds of work XXXX might look to successful

Objectives & Requirements

 * Needs analysis for identifying learning and development requirements;
 * Best practices research;
 * Training event development and delivery (including preparation of a development plan, content development and event evaluation);
 * Evaluation of existing XXXX learning and development programs;
 * Program development (e.g., a mentoring/coaching program); and
 * benchmarking XXXXlearning program against other learning organizations in similar business line.

Specific Competencies/Expertise/Services/Deliverables

 * Demonstrated experience in developing and delivering learning and development services/products in areas of relevance to XXXX.
 * Capacity to serve in more than one city in which XXXX has offices and in more than one province.
 * Must demonstrate and support through references provided that Proponent has done the kind of work XXXX needs doing before for comparable organizations or in comparable fields in Canada.
 * Has sufficient resources to be flexible in adjusting to minor changes in work requirements and timelines.
 * Can ensure consistency and continuity of resources (at least when it comes to leads and principals) assigned to projects.
 * Can adapt to workplace diversity (i.e., take into account and respond appropriately to gender, cultural and generational differences) in undertaking and carrying out projects.
 * Has demonstrated excellent communication skills, including listening, and is open to client ideas and suggestions.
 * Is focused on addressing client needs/requirements, as opposed to promoting prescribed solutions. In delivering services, a Proponent’s approach should involve questioning and challenging aimed at developing a deeper understanding of issues and ensuring that solutions put forward respond to XXXX real needs.