Built to Last: Custom Programs are the Foundation for 21st Century Growth
Designing and implementing a customized education program for a company is no small task. Read about the custom academy McCombs created for Royal Dutch Shell.
By Pam Losefsky
The Success of Customization
Wierda says that while there is only one way of reliably assessing any program’s success in an engineering setting —increased project value in terms of cost and schedule— there is no way to attribute such bottom-line measures solely to the competence development scheme. So, Shell has developed another metric that will proxy for project success: external assessments of its project managers by certifying entities like the International Project Management Association and the Project Management Institute. “We expect that all of our project managers will be assessed by an external third party within the next five years and found to have reached the highest levels of competence,” Wierda says.
The success of individual courses is being measured by traditional means: course evaluations by participants and their supervisors. The second run of Daly’s course, for instance, is oversubscribed.
“I would expect that the Shell Academy has already had a positive impact on Shell, and especially on the younger employees who have been exposed to ideas and concepts presented by academics but vetted by professionals,” says Jim Dyer, professor in the Department of Information, Risk, and Operations Management at McCombs. He developed a course called Decision Making in Projects.
For McCombs, the triumph of the Shell Project Academy solidifies its reputation as a premier developer of knowledge that impacts business at the highest levels. In its executive education competency, the school seems to have found the perfect balance of theory and practice. As professors mold their theoretical insights into practical solutions in the field, then act on research questions that arise from their fieldwork, new knowledge is the result.
Having perfected its model, McCombs continues to employ it to bring value to other high-profile multinational businesses, including Beijing Electrical Power Corporation and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), a rapidly expanding Spanish banking group.
For Beijing Electric, McCombs worked over the course of two years with a team of marketers and customer service managers as they prepared for the impending increased demand during the Olympics this summer. “They needed to modernize their practices, improve customer service and establish a PR office,” says Delys. McCombs helped them reach those goals prior to the start of the Games. BBVA’s move into the United States required greater business acumen and integration expertise, and the banking group credits the custom executive education program McCombs developed and delivered with reducing turnover as it acquired Compass Bank.
Assistant Dean Delys says the McCombs School’s core strengths include the extensive industry knowledge of the school’s faculty—in areas such as energy, technology, health care and services—in addition to its venerable history of designing custom programs. “McCombs program designers know exactly what questions to ask to ensure that the program is aligned correctly with the company,” Delys says. “We know there’s a lot at stake, and it shows.”
