Some of the ideas in the book got their first outing last night with the Sydney Chapter of ISPI. To be honest, I had a massive pile of content sitting behind the slides but we really only got as far as the first few exercise. The results of the word association & challenge request are available to download (p.1-2 refers to “Training & Development”, p.3-4  “Knowledge Management”, p.5-6 “Organizational Learning”, p.7-8 “Performance Improvement”, p.9 “Future Challenges”).

Some key things for me:

• People’s comments generally reinforced my own feelings about topics – but there was a wide range of opinion. This led to some very fruitful discussions but was a reminder for me to stake out my own positions as clearly as possible in the book and not assume a common point of view.
• Some unexpected comments on knowledge sharing & age (i.e. are Gen X managers more likely to hoard what they know?)
• Little awareness of the theory behind different practice areas (esp. for organizational learning).
• Exactly what the maturity model is a maturity model of needs to be clearer in my mind.

There were a smart bunch of people present & many thanks to John Loty for giving me the slot.