There are two ways that WF Associates can assist your organisation to improve its operations.  Firstly by assisting reduce expenses, and secondly by encouraging the innovation of new products and services.  WF Associates achieves these two aims by 'educating change' in individual managers behaviour's through the examples built into training products and the examples derived from our consulting assignments.

Our training programmes helps managers develop emotional intelligence, and the ability to undertake self-learning and realize personal development.  Our training programs are designed to accelerate management talent and deliver responsive and motivated managers.

Our consulting assignments cover all aspects of the business change life cycle: strategic requirements definitions, organisational design, human resources development, process modeling, and organisational learning. Our consultants work closely with your culture and change research teams to develop learning tools using the latest ideas, that will help provide leadership for your developing organisation. Our consultants will help to interpret and translate your requirements into production-level change and organisational development that will be used by your customers around the world.

Integration Services:

• Document Management Systems
• Learning Management Systems

Training Services:

• Business Management
• Project Management
• Sales Management

Business Consulting:

• Performance Improvement
• Project Management

WF Associates document and knowledge management experience brings together the critical ingredients to support your organisation's success.  By using your highly relevant document and knowledge content, a robust technology platform, and significant industry and learning expertise your objectives are met by delivering productivity improvements to provide you with a competitive edge for:

• Creating a selling culture;
• Improving customer service;
• Developing workforce and talent management;
• Reducing time and cost of staff training;
• Improving regulatory compliance; and
• Increasing operating efficiency.

Although WF Associates supports a number of document management systems, we particularly endorse the KnowedgeTree DMS.  KnowledgeTree is a robust open source DMS that has been developed within the open source community and is fully extensible, scalable and provides a number of key benefits to users.

KnowledgeTree Architecture

Key Features of the KnowledgeTree Document Management System

• Fully web-based application;
• Powerful document version control;
• Supports uploading and full-text searching of common file formats (MS-Word, MS-Excel, PDF, TXT, HTML), allows uploading of any other file types (with limited full text capabilities);
• Subscription agents with push technology for notification of changes to document directories
• Archiving by expiry date, expiry time period, or by utilization enhances speed;
• Document specific discussion forums;
• Search in user-defined meta fields;
• Build three dimensional document taxonomy;
• Personalized dashboard provides a view of subscriptions, pending documents, checked-out documents, and quick links;
• Editable help pages, using simple WSIIWYG editor;
• Workflow
  • Define a set process for creating and publishing documents;
  • Flexible document approval routing at the folder level;
  • Delegate the creation of new documents within a document management approval cycle;
• Security
  • Configure access rights per group or role;
  • SSL of encrypted and secure connections;
  • Authentication integration with LDAP servers;
  • Audit trails of user/system interaction.

Of specific interested to WF Associates is the Moodle course management system (CMS).  Moodle is one of the most widely used CMS/LMS's in the educational community.  It was originally developed by Martin Dougiamas at the National Key Centre for Science and Mathematics Education Curtin University of Technology, Australia and then donated to the open source community.  The list of features is too extensive to list here nevertheless Moodle:

• Promotes a social constructionist pedagogy (collaboration, activities, critical reflection, etc);
• Suitable for 100% online classes as well as supplementing face-to-face learning;
• Simple, lightweight, efficient, compatible, low-tech browser interface;
• Easy to install on almost any platform that supports PHP. Requires only one database (and can share it);
• Full database abstraction supports all major brands of database (except for initial table definition);
• Course listing shows descriptions for every course on the server, including accessibility to guests;
• Courses can be categorized and searched - one Moodle site can support thousands of courses;
• Emphasis on strong security throughout. Forms are all checked, data validated, cookies encrypted etc;
• Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings etc) can be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor;
• In addition Moodle contains comprehensive management modules for:
  • the Moodle site;
  • Users;
  • Courses;
  • Assignments;
  • Chats;
  • Choice;
  • Forums;
  • Quizzes;
  • Resources;
  • Surveys, and
  • Workshops.

Moodle Architecture

The foundation of our training is the important business management techniques that all modern business managers should possess. Besides conventional business management concepts and ideas, such as finance, human resources, team planning, strategy and business planning we cover aspects such as ethical governance, responsible leadership, and care for the social environment.  Our training program can be tailored to your industry context, and include your company specific data (either as electronic documents or as URL links).

Our training program can be remote or involve intense interaction and personal feedback from an instructor.  You can limit the class size or through our LMS application have unlimited class sizes.  You can utilize live phone teleconferencing and text chat sessions and have video/multimedia elements for users with broadband access. 

We have structured our training to meet the Australian national competency definition for the Advanced Diploma of Business Management.  Click on this link for an overall schematic of the training structure.

Building on the foundation of business management we recognize that modern organisations demand that many initiatives and goals are met through the efficient and effective operation of project management. Our project management training is designed to meet all the needs of project and program management.

As a leader in blended (online, class room, and work based) learning solutions for project management, WF Associates is unmatched in our ability to deliver the tools and content development expertise you need for effective knowledge transfer with the right combination of world-class training strategies.  Because business performance improvement is the focus of our approach, we can ensure that your learning solution is developed strategically and consistently. Our associates are recognized experts, deserving of their positions. Our passion keeps us innovative and strategic in everything we do. And our ability to be a single-source provider of training ensures consistency of vision, every step of the way.  We can offer you Instructor-Led Training (ILT) that is a structured method of training that is delivered face-to-face and offers a high degree of interaction, flexibility, and hands-on learning in any of the following situations:

• Traditional classroom;
• Virtual online classroom;
• Online mentoring

The organisation will not survive for long without timely and consistent sales results.  The sales management training is focused on sales managers that need to develop and maintain diverse sales teams in an ethical and compassionate manner, but nevertheless consistently meet and exceed corporate sales goals.

In sales environments, simulation training helps improve performance in sales troubleshooting, diagnostic techniques, emergency rescue, and other scenarios, without endangering your sales pipelines.  Our simulations include:

• Real time full-scope simulators;
• Part-task simulators;
• Game-based simulations.

The simulations are delivered in a blended environment that combines the social benefits of classroom training with the individualized benefits of online learning. In addition, it costs less to implement than 100% instructor-led training, provides greater flexibility, and because of the ability to access web-based courses for just-in-time learning, blended learning improves retention and sustains performance over a longer time period.

The foundation of our consulting is the performance improvement framework known as SIGNPOST.  SIGNPOST is a structured process for business performance improvement framework which is implemented through a 25 step process which achieves your business outcomes.  The key benefits you gain from SIGNPOST and our performance improvement consulting approach is:

1. An consistent proven platform for process improvement;
2. A staff culture that supports improvement;
3. Recognition and application of the best practices of performance improvement;
4. Support for learning and knowledge management practice.

1. Process Improvement

Process improvement can only take place in an enterprise that has adopted a process management philosophy. While there are many reasons for this, the primary reason is that process improvement is both enabled and constrained by existing processes, organisational structures, and the installed technology base.

An enterprise exists to fulfil a defined mission. If there is no mission, there is no need for the enterprise. The mission is fulfilled by processes that are purposefully designed around mission. If there are no processes, there is no way to fulfil the mission. A process is defined as a series of work activities that produce output products and services. Activities take place through the interactions of people and technology. Without people and technology, there is no mechanism to operate the activity.

Process management is overseeing the way work activities, people, and technology combine to produce useful outputs. Performance measures are used to evaluate process management success with respect to standards of performance. Performance standards are derived from strategic and business (or functional) objectives and goals. Objectives and goals are based on the mission, enhanced by knowledge gained, in part, through research, benchmarking, and analysis.

2. Culture for Improvement

Knowledge is passed on through the adoption of a learning culture:

• Culture and particularly subcultures – shape our assumptions about what knowledge is, and, hence, what knowledge is worth managing.
• Culture mediates the relationships between individual and organisational-level knowledge.
• Culture creates the context for social interaction that ultimately determines the value and organisation derives from knowledge.
• Culture shapes the processes by which new organisational knowledge – with its accompanying uncertainties – is captured, legitimated, and distributed.

3. Best Practices in Performance Management

Performance management has been explored in many organisations throughout the world. At the beginning of the 21st century the best practices were stated as being:

• Establish a results oriented set of measures that balances the business, customers and employees.
• Establish accountability at all levels of the organisation, lead by example and communicate.
• Collect feedback and performance data, analyse, use and communicate the data.
• Connect employees to customers, connect to the business plan and budget process, integrate the information systems into the strategic management framework.
• Share the leadership role and give ownership of strategic plans and performance measures to those that need them.

4. Knowledge Management

The framework is based on 3 key findings of existing frameworks and knowledge management (KM) methodologies:

• A framework provides a set of guiding principles for a discipline, and a methodology provides specific detailed description of how to carry out the ideas and objectives set forth by a framework;
• The knowledge management methodology should be consistent with the notion of systems thinking because it encourages consideration of the entire knowledge process and facilitates the link between the knowledge management initiatives and the goals of an organisation;
• The methodology must contain sufficient detail to be implemented

The WF Associates project management approach will help you to achieve timely delivery of projects and products while meeting defined quality and budget objectives and mitigating risks.

The Project Management Challenge
Project management must reconcile three conflicting aspects of projects: the need for speed in project and product delivery, the need to meet quality requirements, and the equally important need to deliver the project as promised within the agreed financial constraints. To achieve timely, reliable delivery, the process must allow for and mitigate unforeseen problems and risks.

The Project Management Solution
WF Associates project management methodology is standardized and scalable and consistent to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) guidelines, and it organizes work through detailed plans that are based on defined and agreed-upon customer requirements and objectives.

To assist project management and control, we employ the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) as a framework for identification of deliverables, scheduling of tasks, and allocation of budget and resources. Designed-in project controls focus accountability and responsibility, define information flow, measure task performance, identify and mitigate risk, resolve issues, and manage proposed changes to project scope, schedule, and cost. We continuously monitor schedules, costs, and resources to ensure that deliverables are consistent with your time, budget, and quality objectives.

Key components of our Project Management approach include:

• Problem definition - project charter
• Objective clarification - project objective statement
• Scope/deliverables identification - Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• Time-sequenced task scheduling and critical path identification
• Critical Path Methodology (CPM)
• Controls for facilitating communication ; risk/issue management ; quality management ; performance management ; scope, schedule and cost control
• Web-enabled, centralized project reporting mechanisms for program, project and team collaboration; task monitoring; resource allocation; time/performance reporting
• Quality reviews for milestone/deliverable completion and acceptance

The Results
With Project Management Consulting from WF Associates, your organisation can enjoy:

• Timeliness in project/product delivery
• Achievement of defined quality/performance standards
• Delivery within approved budget
• Mitigation of unforeseen risks