In-Person Training

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At APQC, we recognize that maintaining peak performance and continuous improvement rests with our clients and members’ internal departments, teams, and individuals. In-person training courses provide an excellent foundation to build capabilities. APQC’s training courses are especially relevant for teams charged with process and performance improvement, knowledge sharing and retention, quality programs, or change management.

You can also earn CEUs with confidence. As an accredited training provider, APQC has examined all aspects of our training courses to ensure integrity and quality standards have been met. Looking for online training options instead? 


Course Catalog

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Process Management

Process Management Essentials

In this workshop, participants will develop an understanding of process management from real-world case studies and examples as well as APQC subject matter expertise. The workshop is organized around APQC’s Seven Tenets of Process Management and characteristics of high-performing, best-practice process managed organizations. The seven tenets provide a framework for understanding and assessing an organization’s process management capabilities.

Participants will learn about each of the seven tenets, and how they work together to build a strong process management approach.

Ideal for: Process management leaders and practitioners who are establishing, running or improving a process management capability within their organization or business unit.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Process Management for Leadership

This workshop will examine APQC’s Seven Tenets of Process Management and characteristics of high-performing, best-practice process managed organizations with an emphasis on strategic alignment, governance, and managing improvements. Discussion will focus on the essential role that leaders play in establishing and sustaining a strong process management capability within organizations.

Participants will learn how to align process management to organizational objectives and how their organizations operate, create a process management strategy and roadmap, and set up and run process management governance.

Ideal for: Business and process management leaders who are guiding process management capabilities within their organization or business unit.

Duration: ½ day

The Business Case for Implementing Process Management

Process Management, or Business Process Management (BPM), gives organizations an efficient way to assess, prioritize and resource initiatives. This workshop covers basic components of the BPM business case that allow stakeholders to vet and assess the opportunity for BPM implementation.

The workshop will walk through a structure of BPM, highlighting fundamentals of business case components, including hard and soft benefits and costs. Participants are encouraged to consider a BPM implementation for their organization prior to the workshop. At the end of the workshop, participants will have an understanding and structure for developing a business case for a BPM implementation in their organization.

Ideal for: Business and process management leaders who are guiding process management capabilities within their organization or business unit.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Process Frameworks

The Power of Process Frameworks

This workshop introduces participants to process frameworks such as APQC’s Process Classification Framework (PCF)®. APQC research shows that process frameworks are an important part of the essential infrastructure for any successful process managed organization. The structure, core principles, and use of frameworks will be studied with examples from real organizations. The necessary skills to select, design, and apply process frameworks for a myriad of value driven purposes will also be discussed.

Participants will learn how to adopt or tailor process frameworks and apply process frameworks to improve process management, content management, and benchmarking within their organizations.
 
Ideal for: Process management leaders or practitioners who are aligning and standardizing processes across their organization.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Defining & Managing End-to-End Processes

End-to-end (E2E) processes are the interconnected flows of work that define how organizations deliver products and services. A structured approach to identifying, designing, and managing E2E processes provides visibility and clarity within the organization, helping to avoid multiple groups defining and redefining the same processes multiple ways. Knowing which E2E processes need managing, and setting up an approach to keep them organized is often a challenge for organizations.

In this workshop, participants will examine how successful organizations have achieved alignment and leverage E2E processes effectively. They will learn how to select an E2E approach that fits their organization and how to use a process framework to define individual E2E processes. They will also learn how to avoid multiple, conflicting versions of value streams and their process components.

Ideal for: Process management leaders or practitioners who are aligning and standardizing processes across their organization.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

APQC's workshops are a great opportunity to gain a high level understanding of core PPM building blocks.

Process Design & Analysis

Process Design Essentials

In this hands-on workshop, participants develop process definition and modeling skills using tools such as process definition documents, process maps, SIPOC models, and RACI charts. Participants should come prepared to learn the theory behind the tools and their practical application. A structured approach to “design for purpose” and “design for fit” results in better processes suited to their intended use.

Participants will learn how to scope a process and conduct the necessary analysis to design a process for purpose and fit. In addition, they will learn how to document a process to meet the differing needs of various process stakeholders.

Ideal for: Process improvement practitioners and SMEs who will be designing, improving and leading processes.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Evaluating and Improving Process Maturity

Process maturity assessment allows organizations to evaluate individual processes and their overall process management approach and infrastructure to measure performance and to identify opportunities for greater impact. This workshop covers the essentials for process maturity assessments within any organization, demonstrating how to build a maturity model and apply it as part of continuous improvement across the business.

Participants will learn about maturity models and how to develop a methodology to use them. In addition, they will learn how to select or create a process maturity model, and use maturity results to select and manage improvements

Ideal for: Process management leaders or practitioners who are aligning and standardizing processes across their organization.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Process Analysis Essentials

Process analysis helps organizations to understand the business needs for their processes and evaluate design features to ensure they develop, deploy, and support solutions that achieve expected results. This workshop covers the essentials for process analysis within any organization, demonstrating how to design processes that meet the needs of the business.

Participants will learn how to create and improve well-designed processes, and select and apply the correct analyses for a given process.

Ideal for: Process improvement practitioners and SMEs who will be designing, improving and leading processes.

Duration: ½ day, 1 day, or 2 days

Using Knowledge Flow Analysis to Improve Process Design

Knowledge is essential to the smooth flow of every organization’s business processes. That knowledge takes many forms – inputs, standards, experience, and more. Creating a process-based knowledge map that captures the information and knowledge needs at each step enables employees to execute the process as designed and supports continuous improvement. This workshop focuses on the tactical steps and tools used to identify knowledge gaps and determine where the knowledge can be used to enhance process performance.

Participants will gain an understanding of knowledge flow analysis and its value, and the steps needed to complete a knowledge flow map. In addition, they will understand how to analyze and identify improvement opportunities.

Ideal for: Process improvement practitioners and SMEs who will be designing, improving and leading processes.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Process Measures & Analytics

Process Performance: Monitoring and Controlling your Processes

The process performance workshop prepares participants to understand process performance measurement and the importance of monitoring and controlling your processes. Leading, in-process, and lagging indicators will be discussed, with emphasis on how these indicators should align to organizational needs and performance goals.

Participants will learn how to identify control points and their associated measures, connect process measures to strategic objectives and critical success factors, and build integrity into defining and managing process measures.

Ideal for: Process improvement practitioners and SMEs who will be designing, improving and leading processes.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Business Process Analytics: Improving Process Performance with Analytics

This workshop explores APQC’s Business Process Analytics methodology for improving business process performance using process mapping, process measures, and analytics. This methodology includes a 4-step process that facilitates decision-making and helps users navigate the data overload that many organizations face today.

The workshop will use real-life examples from process improvement projects to illustrate the methodology. In hands-on activities, participants will practice each of the four steps of the methodology.

Participants will learn the role of analytics in business process improvements, how to identify relevant process data to support decision-making, how to apply APQC’s analytics methodology tools, and how to take their process improvement efforts to the next level.

Ideal for: Process improvement practitioners and SMEs who will be designing, improving and leading processes.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Process Improvement

Process Improvement: The Art of Prioritizing Process Change

This workshop focuses on how to identify, prioritize, and select the “right” improvement opportunities. Participants will be encouraged to look beyond fixing what “is broken,” and look instead at the organization’s needs and developing solutions that will make a significant impact. Topics to be covered include change management, benchmarking, lean/Six Sigma, and the alignment of improvement efforts across an organization.

Participants will learn how to identify, assess, and select process improvements, pick the right improvement approach, and manage the change process. In addition, they will learn how to integrate and align different improvement initiatives across their organizations.

Ideal for: Process management leaders, improvement practitioners and SMEs who will be designing, improving and leading processes.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Process & Performance Management Interactive Simulation

This interactive workshop covers key concepts in process and performance management (PPM), focusing on how to use process management to improve organizational effectiveness. Using examples from process management methodologies currently practiced in many of today’s leading organizations, the workshop gives participants a “big picture” view of the linkage between process management and process performance. Topics to be covered include process design, process and value analysis, key performance indicators, operational metrics, process improvement techniques, and stakeholder management.

The simulation will demonstrate key concepts in process management including process design, process dependencies, key performance indicators, operational metrics, and value analysis. Participants will learn how to apply the seven tenets of process management to performance and execution. In addition, they will learn about the linkage between process management and an organization’s KPIs and metrics.

Ideal for: Process management leaders, improvement practitioners and SMEs who will be designing, improving and leading processes.

Duration: 1 day

The APQC workshops allow you to have more dedicated time to learning about specific topics of process and knowledge management.

-Laura Henry, Oregon Community Credit Union

Strategy, Measurement & Benchmarking

Looking at Your Organization from a Systems Perspective

An Organizational Assessment (OA) gives an organization a rigorous, objective, external view of your organization. It assesses the organization’s performance from a systems perspective, focusing on the seven core components of an effective system:

  • Strong, visionary, results-oriented leadership
  • Strategic Planning – alignment of action, resources, and results                               
  • Curriculum & Teaching – standards-based curriculum and powerful teaching
  • Stakeholder Engagement – active engagement of internal and external stakeholders
  • Stellar People – stellar teachers, board members, leaders, support staff who are continuously learning and growing
  • Effective and Efficient Processes – aligned and linked core business processes to support the system
  • Accountability – employee and student accountability for results

In this highly interactive workshop, participants are encouraged to think about and discuss their own organizations and levels of maturity. Participants will also learn about the benefits of an external review, and how to conduct a quick “check up” of their own organizations.

Ideal for: Individuals who want to better understand the current state of their organizations, regardless of whether their organization is a Fortune 100 company or a school district.  

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Establishing Effective Measures

Establishing a measurement system and approach gives organizations a structure for consistent and effective measurement. However, measurement essentials focus on how to identify, define, collect and report measures that make a difference.

This workshop presents measurement essentials learned through APQC's research and hands on work with organizations. The session will include strategies for securing organizational buy-in and trust for selected measures. Participants will also learn how to determine, select, and evaluate performance measures, and design, analyze, and report performance metrics.

Ideal for: Business leaders and process practitioners who will establish and apply measurement to guide work effort and optimize performance.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

BenchStart - Benchmarking Essentials

The BenchStart workshop is intended to share APQC’s knowledge to establish and conduct benchmarking activities in your organization. Using our established benchmarking methodology and years of experience, we discuss the varieties of benchmarking.

Participants will learn how to create a benchmarking strategy, how to identify benchmarking projects, and how to use the benchmarking methodology to collect and put benchmarks to use.  

Ideal for: Business leaders and measurement specialists who will collect and compare performance within their organization and with external organizations.

Duration: ½ day, 1 day, or 2 days

Knowledge Management Strategy

Strategic Planning for KM

According to APQC data, a KM strategy keeps the focus on key business problems and opportunities – and keeps you from losing your way. A robust strategic planning process yields a well-thought-out strategy document that captures the essence of your organization’s knowledge management needs, focus areas, and elements for success.

This interactive workshop will focus on the process steps required to develop, align, and execute a KM strategic plan. Participants will be introduced to a four-phase strategic planning methodology, as well as common definitions and terms used in strategic planning. Using APQC’s strategic planning worksheets, participants will be guided through developing goals, objectives, strategies, and actions for KM.

Ideal for: Intermediate and advanced practitioners with an existing KM strategy who want to hone their strategic plans and strategic planning skills.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Develop a KM Strategy

This workshop will walk organizations through the first two phases of APQC’s Knowledge Management Program Framework: creating a call to action for KM, and developing an associated KM strategy that is aligned to organizational goals and business imperatives.

This session leverages APQC’s KM Maturity Model to create and manage processes to help knowledge flow to the right people at the right time, so they can take steps to improve organizational performance. After reviewing best practices and examples from APQC’s research, participants will leave the session with the beginnings of a KM strategy for their organizations.

Ideal for: Individuals in organizations who are developing their KM programs, preparing a budget for KM and building standard, replicable KM processes.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Breaking Down the Barriers to KM

Understanding the culture of your organization and what drives people’s behaviors is vital before you try to implement any type of enterprise-wide change. This workshop will focus on the 10 common barriers to knowledge sharing inside organizations. Participants will learn techniques to systematically identify and mitigate these common barriers within their own organizations.  

Through collaborative exercises, participants will learn how these barriers impact employee behaviors and how to improve the movement of knowledge through the organization.

Ideal for: Individuals in organizations who are developing and expanding their KM programs and building standard, replicable KM processes.

Duration: ½ day

Evolve & Sustain Your KM Program

This workshop will help organizations evolve, sustain, and continuously improve their KM programs. Using proven practices and methods from APQC’s KM Portfolio Assessment Process, participants will develop use cases documenting real-life scenarios focused on their current KM capabilities (e.g., approaches, activities, processes, or tools).

Through a peer assist process, participants will gain feedback and insights for improving their scenarios. Participants will leave the session with ideas and techniques for implementing changes to their existing KM capabilities.

Ideal for: Participants with an existing KM program who are expanding, improving and building standard, replicable KM processes. Not recommended for people in organizations without an existing KM program).

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Capture and Transfer Knowledge

Transferring Critical Knowledge

Capturing critical knowledge and making it available when and where it’s needed is at the core of the KM value proposition. But before an organization can connect employees to key knowledge assets, it must identify those assets.

This interactive workshop will give participants tools to understand what knowledge is truly critical to their organizations and determine the most urgent priorities for capture and transfer. It will include an overview of established best practices and examples from leading organizations. Instructors will also walk through several knowledge mapping techniques (including process- and role-based mapping) to identify critical knowledge and reveal gaps and inefficiencies. Participants will leave with an understanding of how to match their organizations’ knowledge needs with the right capture and transfer approaches, and how to use a knowledge risk matrix to evaluate competing priorities.

Ideal for: Business leaders and knowledge practitioners who need to focus knowledge capture and transfer efforts where greatest value exists.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Knowledge Mapping

APQC defines a knowledge map as a visual representation of an organization’s internal and/or external knowledge resources. Organizations use knowledge mapping to think through their end-to-end business processes, and then determine what knowledge is needed to execute the steps in those processes.

Creating a knowledge map that depicts the critical information and knowledge needs of the business is crucial to any knowledge management initiative, whether enterprise-wide or focused on a specific business process. This workshop will focus on the tactical steps and tools to scope and complete a knowledge map, identify and analyze knowledge gaps, and use the insights from knowledge mapping to enhance critical business processes.

Ideal for: Participants who have a specific area of need or process in mind.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

These tailored workshops were highly effective and to the point. The information was easy to digest and breakdown into manageable pieces in order for a business team to incorporate into their own stream.

Communities of Practice

Plan & Align Your CoP Strategy

Communities of practice (CoP) are essential to enabling the flow of knowledge across the enterprise. They cultivate and harness knowledge in the service of your organization.

Using APQC’s CoP Framework as its foundation, this workshop will focus on tips and techniques to help you plan your organization’s CoP strategy and align it with the enterprise business strategy. Participants will engage in conversations and activities that address topics such as how to align with stakeholder needs, why CoP charters are important, and organizational readiness for CoP.

Ideal for: Individuals who are establishing new or leading existing communities and knowledge networks.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Design, Launch and Sustain Your CoP

Focusing on the third and fourth phases of APQC’s CoP Framework, this workshop will help KM teams learn techniques for designing, launching, and sustaining CoP. Whether the organization is new to CoP or has established groups it wants to take to the next level, this workshop offers best practices and lessons to position CoP for success. Participants will engage in conversations and activities that address topics such as: CoP roles and resources, change management and measures for CoP, and critical success factors to sustain CoP.

Ideal for: Individuals who are establishing new or leading existing communities and knowledge networks.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Preparing the Organization for KM

Organizational Readiness for Knowledge Managers

An organizational assessment gives organizations a rigorous and objective external view of their performance. By looking at systems, process, and people, it provides a multi-dimensional appraisal. It also helps leaders understand their organization’s strengths and opportunities for improvement, outline next steps on its continuous improvement journey, and determine how to incorporate the findings into the strategic plan.

In this highly interactive workshop participants will reference other organizations’ experiences as they consider and discuss their own organizations and their level of maturity. At the end of this workshop, participants will understand the seven core components of an effective system and the benefits of an external review. In addition, they will know how to conduct a quick “check-up” of their own organizations.

Ideal for: Individuals who want to understand the current state of their organizations to guide KM focus and business impact.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

The Executive Leader's Role in KM

The success of any KM program depends largely on how well its leader is prepared and equipped. This workshop is designed to give executive leaders the tools and strategies they need to succeed, whether they’re launching a large transformative initiative or keeping one fresh.

In this workshop, APQC instructors will introduce data from APQC research that leaders can use to make a business case for advancing their knowledge management efforts. Building on more APQC’s knowledge from working with some of the world’s top knowledge-driven organizations for more than two decades, participants will explore the seven habits of highly effective knowledge leaders.

Using a personal worksheet and collaborative working sessions, participants will learn how to identify critical knowledge requirements and how to embed knowledge sharing and transfer in the flow of work. In addition, the workshop will cover proven engagement tactics and the leader’s role in the discovering when individuals are most open to learning.

Ideal for: Leadership sponsoring KM programs or managing large-scale transformation initiatives.  

Duration: ½ day

KM Engagement Practices That Work

High levels of engagement and participation are the hallmark of virtually every successful knowledge sharing and collaboration strategy. This workshop will provide the design principles needed to help KM leaders understand their organizational culture before trying to change it.

This workshop will introduce proven change methods for building a rational and actionable change strategy for KM engagement through discussions and collaborative exercises. Participants will learn how to identify the barriers in their organizations and develop or apply approaches to eliminate them. The workshop will also include case studies on how to create and sustain an environment that motivates employees and conveys to them the value of knowledge sharing and transfer.

Ideal for: Business leaders and knowledge practitioners who need to focus knowledge capture and transfer efforts where greatest value exists.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Techniques for Communicating KM

APQC defines communication (in the context of KM) as conveying values, context, and purpose; explaining strategy and intent (especially to leaders); or getting information to the right people at the right time. These communications raise awareness of KM efforts and drive participation.

This workshop will bring the best of APQC’s KM communication methodologies, processes, and templates to bear on participants’ KM communication plans. Participants will learn communication strategies and tactics to help them create roadmaps that move from building awareness and understanding to commitment and action. Participants will learn how to create a KM communication roadmap that includes KM stakeholders, how to draft messages that promote awareness and participation, and how to identify calls to action.

Ideal for: Business leaders and knowledge practitioners who need to engage leadership and the workforce to apply KM practices.

Duration: 1 day

Measuring the Impact of KM

Strategies for Measuring KM

Many organizations struggle to measure the gains that knowledge management promises. Measures are vital to building buy-in and showing KM leaders and managers where they are succeeding and where further investment is needed to achieve knowledge-related objectives.

This workshop will focus on identifying measurement strategies appropriate to your level of KM maturity. Through discussion and activities, participants will learn which measures are appropriate for their KM approaches, understand the process for monitoring and adapting measures over time, and gain insight into measurement practices at other organizations.

Ideal for: Individuals in organizations who are developing their KM programs, preparing a budget for KM and building standard, replicable KM processes.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day

Create a Value Path for Your KM Approach

Value path measurement is a more sophisticated KM approach that involves evaluating how KM activities influence business processes and outcomes. Tracing links between knowledge sharing and key cost, quality, and efficiency metrics goes a long way toward proving that KM is a value-added business process that yields a positive return on investment.

This workshop will introduce participants to a variety of processes and tools to track the impact of KM activities on business processes and organizational outcomes. Value scope statements will be used to understand business outcome expectations and guide discussions. In small group exercises, participants will learn how to develop and align KM measures to business measures using value path analysis and APQC’s measurement alignment worksheet. In addition, participants will understand how telling a compelling story with value path examples can show how KM is linked to business priorities.

Ideal for: Business leaders and knowledge practitioners who need to focus knowledge capture and transfer efforts where greatest value exists.

Duration: ½ day or 1 day