Learning Organisation Development Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Learning and Development Managers, HR Business Partners and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-LD-314

Before you join: Participants should have practical experience in HR, learning and development, talent management, organisational development or line management.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Many organisations invest heavily in courses, platforms and content but cannot show that learning changes performance, spreads useful knowledge or supports strategic priorities. Learning teams may operate as service providers rather than partners in capability development, while managers treat development as an annual event instead of part of work. A learning organisation addresses these issues by linking learning, knowledge sharing, performance improvement and organisational change.

This course shows participants how to design and manage the conditions for continuous learning. Participants examine Senge’s Five Disciplines, systems thinking, double-loop learning, psychological safety, knowledge management and manager-led development. They translate strategy into capability requirements, diagnose learning barriers, build learning architectures, establish governance, and select measures that show value beyond attendance and satisfaction. The course also covers learning needs analysis, curriculum design, communities of practice, social learning, digital learning governance and evaluation using the Kirkpatrick Model.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with cases from banking, public services, NGOs, manufacturing and multinational businesses. Participants work with diagnostic tools, capability data, stakeholder scenarios and performance evidence to make practical decisions about learning investments. They leave with a learning organisation diagnostic, a strategic capability map, a learning governance model, an evaluation scorecard and a 90-day implementation plan suitable for adaptation to their own organisation.

The course is intended for HR and learning professionals who already manage learning activities and now need to shape a more systematic approach to organisational capability. It is also relevant to HR business partners, talent leaders, operational managers and change professionals responsible for building workforce capability during transformation.

What you will be able to do

  • Assess organisational learning maturity using a structured learning organisation diagnostic
  • Translate business strategy into a strategic capability map and priority learning needs
  • Design learning architectures using the 70:20:10 Framework and blended learning pathways
  • Apply systems thinking and double-loop learning to persistent performance problems
  • Establish learning governance, stakeholder accountabilities and decision-rights matrices
  • Build knowledge-sharing mechanisms including communities of practice and after-action reviews
  • Evaluate learning impact using Kirkpatrick levels, performance measures and evaluation plans
  • Produce a 90-day learning organisation development implementation plan

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Move from course administration to strategic capability development work
  • Diagnose why learning investments fail to transfer into workplace performance
  • Lead more credible discussions with senior leaders about learning priorities
  • Design learning systems that involve managers, peers and subject-matter experts
  • Build evidence of learning impact for promotion cases and professional portfolios

For your organisation

  • Stronger alignment between learning budgets, strategic priorities and critical capabilities
  • Faster transfer of knowledge from experienced employees to operational teams
  • More consistent manager ownership of development and performance improvement
  • Better evidence for retaining, redesigning or stopping learning investments
  • Greater organisational capacity to adapt during restructuring, digitalisation and workforce change

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can distinguish a learning organisation from a training function and identify its core disciplines.

  • Senge’s Five Disciplines and their observable organisational behaviours
  • Distinguishing training activity from learning-system capability and performance improvement
  • Shared vision translated into strategic capability priorities and learning commitments
  • Personal mastery practices linking role goals, feedback and development
  • Mental models surfaced through ladder-of-inference questioning and reflection
  • Systems thinking identifies reinforcing loops, delays and unintended consequences

Participants can convert strategic objectives into prioritised capability and learning requirements.

  • Strategic capability maps connect business outcomes, roles and required behaviours
  • Capability gaps prioritised by business risk, workforce scale and time
  • Critical-role analysis identifies scarce expertise and succession exposure
  • Stakeholder interviews distinguish stated learning requests from performance needs
  • PESTLE signals inform future skills assumptions and workforce scenarios
  • Learning portfolios balance mandatory, strategic, professional and operational development

Participants can diagnose whether performance problems require learning, process, resource or leadership action.

  • Performance consulting separates knowledge gaps from environmental performance barriers
  • Root-cause analysis uses five whys and fishbone categories
  • Task analysis defines critical decisions, standards and error consequences
  • Competency evidence collected through observation, interviews and work samples
  • Force-field analysis identifies adoption drivers and learning-transfer constraints
  • Diagnostic findings converted into a prioritised learning needs register

Participants can design role-based learning pathways that combine formal, social and experiential development.

  • 70:20:10 Framework balances experience, relationships and formal learning
  • Role-based pathways sequence onboarding, proficiency, mastery and career transitions
  • Kolb Experiential Learning Cycle structures reflection after workplace experience
  • Curriculum maps align objectives, learning methods, assessment and evidence
  • Blended learning design assigns appropriate work to classroom, virtual and workplace
  • Assessment methods test recall, application, judgement and demonstrated competence

Participants can establish practical mechanisms for capturing and sharing critical organisational knowledge.

  • Communities of practice organised around shared problems, standards and expertise
  • After-action reviews capture lessons, decisions and reusable process improvements
  • Knowledge maps identify experts, repositories, handovers and single-point dependencies
  • Peer assists bring experienced colleagues into planning before critical work
  • Lessons-learned registers classify insights, owners, actions and review dates
  • Curation standards govern quality, version control and retention of learning assets

Participants can strengthen manager accountability and cultural conditions for continuous workplace learning.

  • Manager learning contracts define coaching, feedback and development responsibilities
  • Psychological safety supports speaking up, error reporting and experimentation
  • GROW coaching conversations convert performance observations into development actions
  • Feedforward methods focus discussion on future behaviour and specific commitments
  • Double-loop learning challenges assumptions behind recurring operational problems
  • Recognition mechanisms reinforce knowledge sharing, mentoring and improvement contributions

Participants can define governance structures that direct learning investment and clarify accountability.

  • Learning governance defines decision rights, escalation routes and investment criteria
  • RACI matrices assign accountability for design, delivery, transfer and evaluation
  • ISO 30422:2022 principles inform learning and development management processes
  • Vendor governance sets quality controls, service levels and intellectual-property terms
  • Learning councils review capability risks, portfolio performance and resource allocation
  • Policies establish mandatory learning, records retention and completion requirements

Participants can select useful learning data and govern digital learning systems responsibly.

  • Learning experience platforms support pathways, recommendations and learner engagement data
  • Data dictionaries define completion, proficiency, transfer and performance measures
  • Dashboard design separates operational indicators from executive decision measures
  • xAPI statements capture learning activity beyond a learning management system
  • Privacy-by-design controls protect learner data, access rights and retention periods
  • Data quality checks identify duplicate records, missing fields and misleading trends

Participants can build an evaluation plan that links learning evidence to business performance.

  • Kirkpatrick Model distinguishes reaction, learning, behaviour and results evidence
  • Evaluation questions specify intended users, decisions and evidence thresholds
  • Baseline measures establish performance conditions before learning interventions begin
  • Control groups and comparison groups strengthen claims about learning contribution
  • Transfer measures track manager support, opportunity and application frequency
  • Benefit-cost analysis compares programme costs with attributable operational benefits

Participants can prepare a phased plan for introducing and sustaining learning organisation practices.

  • Maturity assessments establish current-state strengths, gaps and priority actions
  • Pilot selection balances strategic value, sponsor commitment and measurable outcomes
  • Implementation roadmaps sequence governance, capability, technology and communications actions
  • Risk registers assign mitigation actions for resistance, capacity and data issues
  • Quarterly reviews use evidence to retain, adapt or stop learning initiatives
  • Ninety-day action plans define owners, milestones, measures and stakeholder conversations

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Learning organisation maturity diagnostic
  2. Strategic capability map template
  3. Learning architecture design canvas
  4. Learning governance RACI matrix
  5. Kirkpatrick evaluation scorecard
  6. Ninety-day implementation plan

Who should attend

  • Learning and Development Managers — responsible for moving learning from courses to capability systems
  • HR Business Partners — required to connect workforce capability priorities with business plans
  • Talent Management Managers — designing development pathways for critical roles and succession pools
  • Organisational Development Specialists — supporting behavioural, cultural and structural change programmes
  • Training Managers — improving learning governance, manager involvement and evaluation discipline
  • Operational Managers — building continuous improvement and knowledge sharing within their teams

Skills and tools covered

Learning organisation designStrategic capability mappingLearning governanceKnowledge managementLearning impact evaluationSystems thinking

Tools and standards

Senge’s Five Disciplines, 70:20:10 Framework, Kirkpatrick Model, ISO 30422:2022

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce models, followed by case work based on realistic capability and performance issues. Group exercises apply diagnostics, stakeholder mapping, systems maps and evaluation measures to learning organisation scenarios. Simulations test choices about governance, manager accountability and learning investment. Participants use structured application planning to adapt the methods to their own context. Instructor feedback focuses on decision quality, evidence, implementation risks and practical next steps.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in HR, learning and development, talent management, organisational development or line management. They should understand the basic learning cycle: identifying needs, designing interventions, delivering learning and collecting feedback. Familiarity with performance management, competency frameworks or workforce planning is helpful. Participants do not need prior experience with systems thinking, learning analytics, financial ROI calculations or formal change management qualifications. No specialist software, statistical knowledge or academic background in organisational psychology is required.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should have experience in HR, learning and development, talent management, organisational development or line management. The course assumes familiarity with basic learning processes but does not require prior study of systems thinking, learning analytics or formal change management.

Participants should bring a current learning, capability or performance challenge from their organisation. Useful materials include an organisational strategy, competency framework, learning catalogue, evaluation data or workforce plan, if available.

The course is most suitable for professionals responsible for improving workforce capability beyond individual training events. It suits learning managers, HR business partners, talent specialists, organisational development professionals and operational managers.

Training design courses focus on building individual courses, materials and assessments. This course focuses on the wider system: strategy, capability, culture, knowledge sharing, manager accountability, governance and evidence of organisational impact.

Participants can use the diagnostic and capability map to identify a priority area for improvement. The governance model, evaluation scorecard and 90-day plan provide practical starting points for discussions with leaders, managers and learning stakeholders.

The five days provide approximately 32.5 contact hours, normally from 08:30 to 16:30 each day. Time is divided across ten modules covering diagnosis, design, knowledge sharing, governance, data, evaluation and implementation planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.