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New client top ticket items #1: Making change stick
We have the privilege of working across a broad range of sectors and organisations. So, it’s interesting that we often find new clients asking the same questions. In this series of posts, we’ll cut across the most common challenges occupying people’s minds. Here’s a big one: How do we get confidence that we’ll achieve sustainable…
Navigating Change: The Path Ahead with Synapsys NZ
Kia ora, At the end of each year we always feel tired, ready for a break. December 2023 felt different. There was a real sense of exhaustion across the board. We felt the relentless acceleration of change and the pressure to keep assimilating to it. We felt economic pressures – on us personally and on…
Synapsys take on big L&D trends for 2024
TrainingIndustry.com have identified three big L&D trends for 2024. Here’s our take on them, and a couple of others you may want to consider as well. 1. AI, EI, and growth mindset take centre stage. It’s difficult to disagree with the idea that responding to AI, building emotional intelligence, and having a growth mindset (being…
Merry Christmas from the Synapsys Team
Kia Ora Synapsys Whānau! As we wrap up an awesome, albeit challenging year, the Synapsys NZ crew came together to reflect on the year and think about the road ahead. We had a great time discussing ways of strengthening our relationships with our partners and extending a welcome to new members of our Synapsys whānau….
The SOLO Taxonomy; finding the Goldilocks Zone for learning activities
We believe that understanding the goals of a workplace learning solution is essential for creating the best experiences. If you’re clear about why your organisation wants your team to learn something, you’re in the best place to choose the optimal learning activities. It is helpful to determine how much depth of understanding is required for…
Unlocking Strategic Potential: From Self-Management Strategies to Cultural Transformation
This article https://hbr.org/2018/06/if-strategy-is-so-important-why-dont-we-make-time-for-it notes that many leaders struggle to prioritise time for strategic thinking, and proposes a series of self-management strategies to ‘make the time’. When we think about learning programmes we’ve developed that are truly strategic in their focus, we think it’s dubious that the main driver has been the personal management strategies…
Constraints, used properly, are the true drivers of innovation.
Constraints, used properly, are the true drivers of innovation. We always take the time early in the design process to establish a project’s real constraints and goals. Goals are great; they help us get clear on what we’re doing – they feel good. Constraints can be frustrating. They limit our thinking and sometimes mean exciting…
5 tips to kick off a foolproof learning project
Great ideas need excellent execution. We asked our project managers for their recipe for starting a successful learning project. 1. Identify your subject matter experts (SMEs) early to ensure they have time available for the project. 2. Get SMEs involved early so they understand the planning process and can come on the…
Learning Objectives as a House Design Metaphor
The thing about learning objectives is that they can be compared to designing a house. Just as you need to know the specific requirements of a person when building a house, you also need to understand the needs of learners when defining learning objectives. For instance, consider a family with three children, who are…
Achieving Competency Excellence: Public Trust’s upgrade of TrustEd with Totara TXP16!
It’s one thing to create a competency framework for your organisation, but many find the process of effectively measuring staff achievement against it a much bigger challenge. Key to achieving this is a technology platform that makes the connection between frameworks, development pathways, and learning opportunities. Public Trust‘s recent upgrade of their TrustEd competency…
Digital Transformation: From tech change to behaviour change (5 of 5)
Go live is the real start line This is the fifth and final article in the series on ensuring your technology projects leverage learning to deliver the change and business value they are supposed to. Curious about what we discussed previously? Check out the previous articles! Part 1. “Using learning to make technology projects stick”…
Digital Transformation: From tech change to behaviour change (4 of 5)
Change happens when people get it This is the fourth article in the series on ensuring your technology projects deliver the change and business value they are supposed to. Read the first article here “Using learning to make technology projects stick” Read the second article here “Vision, what vision?“ Read the third article here “Change starts…
Digital Transformation: From tech change to behaviour change (3 of 5)
Change starts when the programme starts This is the third article in the series on ensuring your technology projects deliver the change and business value they are supposed to. Read the first article here “Using learning to make technology projects stick” Read the second article here “Vision, what vision?“ We all know the well-worn ‘truths’ about…
Digital Transformation: From tech change to behaviour change (2 of 5)
Vision, what vision? This is the second article in the series on ensuring your technology projects deliver the change and business value they are supposed to. Read the first article here “Using learning to make technology projects stick” Technology projects are an answer to a problem. Looking through business cases for tech implementations, we often…
Digital Transformation: From tech change to behaviour change (1 of 5)
Using learning to make technology projects stick Deloitte‘s recent “The nine trends reshaping government in 2023” report speaks of silos inside government shifting to collaborative ecosystems. Driven by trends such as accelerated technology and the rise of networked power, it describes how governments around the world are tailoring public services, bridging data networks and moving…
Supporting Farmlands Co-operative with their transformation
Farmlands Co-operative is taking their employees’ development and growth to the next level with a whole new learning experience to be rolled out this year, and it starts with Totara 17. We couldn’t be more thrilled to be partnering with them and support their vision to become reality as they roll out new functionality this…
Ready to start a more formal learning journey?
It’s always great to connect with like-minded leaders about supporting the development of their teams. We had a great chat to Matthew Hayter from Projectworks about the connection between learning, capability and performance. Why people learn is always a personal decision to a degree; progressive organisations understand that the old boundaries between work and personal…
Staying Current in a Changing World
We know that transformation and adaptability are key to organisations thriving and growing. But transformation can be hard. Remaining current though? That’s much easier. Or is it? What is ‘current’ is subject to change, and might not be current in six months’ time. So what does ‘current’ mean for us, and the work we do?…
Bringing our Stands to Life
At Synapsys, our Stands reflect both how we think and are the main drivers of the work that we do. Our Stands are what we believe in and what guide us as individuals and as a business. So what are they? Whakarerekē whaitikanga – we stand for meaningful change and the discipline to execute it….
The role learning plays in transformation
“Since I joined Synapsys a few months ago,” says Jo Parag, our General Manager Customer and Client Relationship Manager, “I have come to appreciate our positioning line of ‘Learn to Transform’. On the surface it’s a simple statement but dig a little deeper and the complexity and strength of this statement for both our clients…
So where does our story begin?
At Synapsys, our name and our brand tell our story. We think of the synapses in the brain as the spark of creative thought, but they are also central to how we remember, and how we tell our body to take action. Synapsys stands for creative thought and action – we have a meaningful impact by…
What are our Stands?
At Synapsys, our Stands reflect how we think and drive the work that we do. What are they? Whakarerekē whaitikanga – we stand for meaningful change and the discipline to execute it. Tiakitanga Whakawhanaunga – we stand for trusting relationships and support both eachother and our communities. Manawanui – we stand for courage and speak our truth with…
We have some big news!
Synapsys’ very own Learning Design Lead, Maire Smith has been selected as a Judge for the upcoming New Zealand Association of Training and Development (NZATD) Awards! In being selected, Maire is being recognised for her significant contribution to learning – did you know that she has even been a recipient of an NZATD award in the…
Have you heard of Au Consulting?
Au Consulting are leaders when it comes to implementing cultural change here in Aotearoa. Using the combined strategic, cultural and educational expertise of their consultants, Au Consulting are able to support and guide organisations to connect more authentically with Te Ao Māori. Synapsys recently worked with Au Consulting on the creation of several micro modules and…
The latest Pickled cases are live!
Maybe you want to help a farmer spraying gorse on a steep slope, or you might be keen to assist Tate and his team with a bit of welding in an online game? Back in 2019, Synapsys partnered with Worksafe New Zealand to develop the learning design for an online game suite that would help…
Mastering Mobile Learning by Chad Udell & Gary Woodill
We all struggle to figure out how to fold new technologies into our learning experiences. It seems human nature to try and shoehorn the new tool into our existing paradigm, rather than ask how our paradigm could change. If this sounds familiar to you, Mastering Mobile Learning will be a useful tool to help you…