Course description
Improvement Specialist Level 5 Apprenticeship
In a world of constant change, digital transformation and increased competition, the ability to manage complex projects, implement change and improve processes has never been more critical. Decisions must be made quickly with your employees having to demonstrate a more flexible and collaborative approach than ever before.
This programme will embed the agile mindset and core skills your talent needs to deliver successful transformation in your organisation. The success of the programme is measured not only by the skills they gain, but by the impact they have on your organisation.
Your change managers and improvement specialists are responsible for overseeing complex projects, driving organisational change, influencing key stakeholders and utilising the latest technologies to support their objectives. Investing in your employees, to ensure they have the right skills and relevant training, can reap huge benefits.
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Upcoming start dates
Suitability - Who should attend?
Set by individual employers*. Your employees must be in a role relevant to this programme to be eligible to apply.
- 5 GCSE’s including Maths and English at grades 4 (C) or above (or equivalent qualifications)*
- 2 years’ experience within an Improvement Specialist role or an equivalent managerial or analyst role
Outcome / Qualification etc.
What will you learn?
- Identifying improvement opportunities aligned to strategic goals, bringing advanced opportunity and problem identifi cation capabilities
- Leading end to end Improvement projects
- Complex Lean, Project and Change Management principles
- Statistical and graphical analysis to identify improvement opportunities and to measure business impact
- Utilise own technical expertise, to coach, motivate and develop others, raising capability
- Learn latest technologies within the fi eld including AI and tools for experimentation and optimisation.
Skills and Behaviours
- Leading improvement teams
- Strategic deployment of continuous improvement
- Capability development
- Project and change planning
- Principles and methods for improvement
- Project selection and scope
- Process mapping and analysis
- Lean tools
- Statistics, measurements and benchmarking
- Data analysis - statistical methods
- Process capability and performance
- Root cause analysis
- Experimentation and optimisation
- Data analysis – statistical process control
- Failure mode avoidance
- Sustainability and control
- Drive for results
- Team-working and communication
- Professionalism
- Process thinking
- Continuous development
Qualification achieved
- Improvement Specialist Level 5 Apprenticeship
- Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Course delivery details
Contextualised learning
The programme includes 23 mini-modules which feature online workshops to explain methodologies, theoretical best practice, and provide industry context. These sessions are aimed at interactive activity and reflection with peers, alongside developmental workshops aimed at improving the skills developed in a practical way.
Supporting synchronous delivery
The programme adopts a ‘flipped learning’ approach where your employees use their learning guide to understand theory/best practice before attending a tutorial to reflect and to engage in interactive activities that will further contextualise learning and leverage peer learning.
BPP’s virtual learning platform includes video content, e-text books, case studies and other learning resources. Self-study prepares your employees for expert discussion within class whilst setting objectives to apply learning in the workplace, retrospectively encouraging reflection for further development and improvement.
One-to-one professional mentoring
Your employees will be allocated a qualified and experienced professional to operate as a mentor throughout the programme. They will provide meaningful feedback on individual practice whilst helping to reflect on strengths and development areas to improve overall capability and performance of your employees.
There are six weekly telephone or video calls with a BPP Coach who will help your employees to consider how their learning has been applied and to agree development objectives.
Participants will be required to build a professional portfolio to showcase their capabilities that include how they have applied the tools and frameworks that they have learnt throughout the programme.
Peer networks
Your employees will have access to BPP’s virtual community, with networking opportunities that attract a diverse mix of professionals.
Professional workshops
BPP will help your employees to further embed and reflect on their newly developed knowledge and skills with a host of workshops run by professional facilitators which are intended to be fun, interactive, and engaging.
Continuing Studies
- Upon completion, you can apply for the Level 6 Improvement Leader programme (subject to your job role)
- Further career progression through work experience
- Qualifi cations and further study up to postgraduate level.
- Typical job roles include Business Improvement Expert, Process Excellence Manager and Change Manager.