The Development of XFN — Part 4: Lets design this thing!

It is finally time to play! If you have been following these posts, you know that there was some ground work done before getting to this point. Quick recap: problem definition; environmental scan; stakeholder identification; and building of competencies.

Now that these activities were done, what was I to do? To the drawing board I went!

Initial Design

To create the initial design for the program I used my knowledge of other existing development/mobility programs focusing on what worked/didn’t/why. I needed to not only solve the mobility problem the Policy Community had identified, but it had been made clear that I needed to create a program that would provide a meaningful, enriching and valuable experience. It needed to have an impact on individuals, the teams and organizations they work at with the ultimate goal of improving service to Canadians. I mean, that is easy to do, right?

They were a many things I felt were needed for this program to succeed, but to name a few key ones:

1. Participants are indeterminate when participating.
2. Individual/personalized assessment, support, and rotations.
3. Open to any classification and level.
4. End date.
5. Assignment hosts benefit.
6. Public Service and ultimately Canadians benefit.

Building a Model

Now that I had some parameters for the program, what could this look in real life? I used my data from Part 1 and Part 3 of this development journey to come up with a few ideas:

• Like the Canada’s Free Agent Program, develop a self-assessment questionnaire to allow those interested to see if this was the type of experience they needed and if they met the program criteria.
• Assess candidates competencies using group, individual and written assessment tools.
• Participants have personalized talent plans to ensure their access to opportunities they need to enhance their skillset and be well-rounded.
• Participants choose their assignments based on functional area, identified developmental needs, and personal interests.
• Opportunity for first-hand experience with industry and stakeholder communities.
• Assignment hosts (and host team) need to be on board with having a member on the team who is learning and has no previous experience in their functional area.
• Useful onboarding (set you up for success in the program).
• Ongoing support for the cohort (group and individual).
• Short and long-term benefits to host team and organization.
• Opportunity to work at higher working levels.

Next Steps

I had a sense of the type of experience I was trying to create, now it was time to head back into the jungle to test it out and see what employees and managers thought. What needs did I hit and miss? What wasn’t going to work? What was unrealistic?

My next post will reveal how the first iteration of the XFN program design was received!

If you are curious what point in time this was from when I started, March 2018.