Additional information
by Brian Allen (Author)
For newcomers to the role, the task of taking on training management or the learning and development portfolio in a sizeable organisation can be intimidating. What is needed is access to both a broad description of the associated responsibilities, and to detailed tools and techniques that will demystify the management issues and tasks involved. This book sets out to do just that. A forty year career in the world of training has enabled the author to acquire a deep understanding of the field and to develop numerous "hands on" tools with which to manage the wide range of tasks that confront learning and development professionals. This is not an academic book. Its intent is essentially practical. Nevertheless, key concepts and models are discussed in order to provide context and meaning, and also to describe something of the direction in which L&D must travel, and the strategic roles it must assume if organisations are to succeed into the future. While the primary audience for this book may be those new to the world of L&D, seasoned practitioners will nevertheless benefit from the range and depth of issues discussed.
Author Biography
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Brian Allen is a learning and development professional with some 40 years of wide-ranging experience. Much of that time has been spent attached to the UK Ministry of Defence where he was employed in a training and development role across all three armed services, but primarily with the Army. During that career he has been tasked with the design and delivery of training and development across numerous subjects and levels of audience. He has also been privileged to manage large teams of lecturers and trainers of graduate calibre, and to be closely involved with a number of strategic level L&D projects. After leaving Defence in 1995 he worked in a freelance capacity in the UK on educational projects in the tertiary education sector and assisting industry and emergency services with the design of internal assessment systems. In 1998 Brian emigrated to New Zealand with his family and took up a post with the newly created training support division of the New Zealand Fire Service. Working initially on the creation of new programmes, he was selected to project manage an initiative aimed at the complete rebuild of the Service's training and progression system. Moving on from the Fire Service he worked independently as a consultant, focusing particularly on the design, development and delivery of leadership and management skills training for organisations in New Zealand and across the South Pacific. In 2011 Brian took up his present post as Learning and Development Manager for an Australasian Pulp and Paper company. He is currently working on the introduction of the systems approach to training and the enhancement of leadership capability across the business.
