"I recommend anyone who is in a management or leadership role to take the course. It’s both challenging and rewarding and can only augment your existing knowledge and skills. You will grow as a leader if you take this course."
What inspired you to take the Level 5 in leadership and management?
I’ve been managing and leading teams for around 10–15 years and coming from a technical background where I’m used to managing tasks and teams to meet business needs, I felt I would benefit from additional training in financial management, risk management, information-based decision-making and learning to become a more inspirational leader. I also wanted to formalise my experience with a recognised qualification.
What does your role as Agile IT Director involve?
My primary responsibility is to deliver the information systems roadmap across JPI Media. This involves implementing change whilst mitigating risk, applying corporate governance and ensuring legal compliance in close collaboration with key stakeholders across the business.
What from the course has made the biggest impact in your role?
I found the bitesize CPD elements particularly useful; they provided a subject and solution in a nutshell from a wide range of business subjects. I could pick the ones that fitted the course and what I was trying to achieve in my role.
The assignments also brought all the CPD elements together with one capability leading to another.
How did you fit the 20% requirement in with your working day?
I was able to combine my study with my existing projects, for example; We were in the process of selecting and transitioning to a new business-wide CRM system. This is nothing new for our function as we always have multiple business critical projects running at any one time. However, what was different about this project was the incredibly tight timeline to decide on a new vendor as our current contract was coming to an end and we had to produce a business case and minimum viable product recommendation within three days.
Applying the course learnings around project and risk management techniques, I was able to apply enhanced governance and rigour to the project, identify the product capabilities against our requirements and build a watertight business case.
The course has led me to be mindful of my own leadership approach
This ensured the project brief and subsequent management of the external delivery consultants was incredibly rigorous, gave us the confidence we were getting the right solution and when we had to push back. Not only that, but we avoided scope creep, kept the project on time, on budget and the transition was seamless.
Do you feel more confident as a leader?
Yes, the course has led me to be mindful of my own leadership approach and has given me the skills to adapt my leadership style and focus depending on the situation at hand. It’s helped me to grow into a leader.
I also wanted to formalise my experience with a recognised qualification.
If you were to describe the course in just three words, what would these be?
Challenging - Stimulating - Rewarding.
If you were going to recommend the Level 5 course, what would you say?
I recommend anyone who is in a management or leadership role to take the course. It’s both challenging and rewarding and can only augment your existing knowledge and skills. You will grow as a leader if you take this course.