Tata Consulting Services’ ASCENT—“The Foundation for Your Leadership Journey” is a blended learning program envisioned to coach and equip first-time managers in project leader/project manager (PL/PM) roles (or those aspiring to such a role) to effectively deliver business results, transformative leadership, and trusted partnership for success.
ASCENT originated as a full-fledged six-day instructor-led workshop. The whole program later was introduced through a virtual learning environment using the interactive/Intelligent classroom (iQlass). This model utilized synchronized learning from multiple resources. Learning evolved to yet another level of being experiential and self-directed. Using the interactive/Intelligent classroom (iQlass) to conduct ASCENT enabled Tata to build scale by reaching out to more associates in less time with optimum utilization of resources.
To cater to the changing learning ways and habits of the Millennial generation, ASCENT evolved into its current form: truly blended with a partially digitized form complemented by a four-day experiential workshop. Moving from high-touch classrooms to high-tech virtual learning spaces has helped ASCENT address scale, spread, and speed.
Program Details
In its new form, the program was designed to incorporate two parts:
- ASCENTXplore: A purely asynchronous, anywhere, anytime component, driven over a digital learning platform
- ASCENTXperience: A virtual in-class workshop with faculty to reinforce learning through experiential activities. The Intelligent classroom (iQlass) continues to be the virtual environment.
The 4-Day Workshop is primarily an experiential workshop where associates learn by participating in a case study, role-plays, and team activities.
The virtual instructor-led (vILT) mode enables the coverage of a large number of participants in one batch. It has helped bring collaboration and synergy for faculty based in various locations, in addition to reducing the expenses pertaining to faculty travel and other associated logistics.
It helps in setting the right expectations by letting associates know what is expected from them once they become managers, what their key responsibilities are, and what kind of organizational objectives they need to achieve. They are encouraged to set the right expectations for team members to channel their efforts toward achieving the organizational vision.
Results
• Cost-effective: Some 3,000 associates have been trained so far through the four-day program, which translates into $1.2 million in costs savings for the company as there are two fewer days of training.
• Green and flexible: Reduced carbon foot print; less travel; flexible enough to be customized to large programs, enabling quantifiable business impact
• Scale, Spread, and Speed
• Suits business requirements
• Active collaborative learning among dispersed learners and faculty
• Globalization
