Our customer wanted to strengthen the internal competence within Systems Engineering (SE) through a competence development program for their engineers. They were certain that stronger competence in SE would improve their competitiveness in the global defense market. They knew what topics they wanted the program to contain, but they wanted help in planning and shaping it. They wanted the support of an external party with expertise in the subject matter and with broad experience from company tailored competence development programs. Syntell got the assignment.
What did Syntell do?
Syntell designed an internal competence development program in 21 days for 16 students. Syntell provided teachers who executed a basic course in Systems Engineering. The customer provided their own teachers for company unique parts of the training. The teachers provided by the company got a pedagogical crash course by Syntell. Syntell also provided the function of a director of studies who administered the different parts of the course and a course portal (Sharepoint). Together with the client Syntell formulated the objectives for each course module and produced criteria for selecting the students from the group of employees who applied for participation in the education in order to ensure that the strategic competence development goals were reached.
The high-level objectives of the competence development program were to teach the engineers a common language in Systems Engineering and to prepare for further learning by combining theory with practical exercises. The students worked on project assignments related to the different lifecycle phases in the standard ISO/IEC 15288 in order to consolidate their knowledge. They obtained a deeper understanding regarding different topics that are important during product development, production, and maintenance. The objectives of the training was clear and those who passed their examination were certified in Systems Engineering through the INCOSE Systems Engineering Professional (SEP) program.
What added value did Syntell deliver?
The delivered training was on high professional level and was much appreciated by students as well as of the clients. The course evaluation showed a medium score of 4.8 on a five-point scale. The training mixed theoretical lectures with practical exercises. All teachers were coached in order to ensure that their respective topics would interact with each other, which further raised the pedagogical quality. Our client appreciated the benefit of arranging the training internally instead of sending just a few engineers on an external course. The students participated actively in the training and showed strong engagement. They all agreed on that they would be able to make use of their new skills in their work. They also appreciated the opportunity to network with other functions within their own company.
Competences we used in this case:
