Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

Supplement 2
Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative (LGPSRI OSI)
Centre for Local Government Studies, SPTC, Klaipeda, LITHUANIA
Methodological recommendations on training
Design and delivery for local governments in CEE and CIS
These recommendations are elaborated with the view to contribute in the process of training
practice development at the institutions active in providing in-service training for local officials in
East European countries. They are based on the findings of “In-service Training Research Project
in Lithuania”, which was supported in 1997 by Local Government and Public Service Reform
Initiative of the Open Society Institute.
Recommendations do not cover all aspects of training and do not pretend to be the final truth; they
just reflect authors opinion based on the research made in 1996-97 and their personal experience
as trainers at the School of Democracy and Administration in Nida. The School was active since
1991 in providing in-service training for local officials and training of trainers for representatives of
several countries of post-SU region.
The review of literature on the topic was not undertaken within the project. Authors do not intend to
fall into discussion with other existing approaches. It is not an academic paper, but a piece of some
practical advises for the consideration of those who may be interested. It is left to the reader to
make comparisons with other points of view; his own practice in the field, and make corresponding
conclusions.
Authors believe that successful training is always based on the consciousness, flexibility, and
creativity of trainers and organizers of training events. Blind following of any hard framework of
training programs or organizational patterns elaborated by others, even if it works sometimes and
somewhere, may cause failures when target groups or technical conditions differ from the original
design assumptions. This way is also a blind alley in terms of developing trainers themselves.
Therefore, this paper is just an invitation to the dialog with partners.
Recommendations are focused on the training impact on organizational changes and building
capacity of local governments in solving their problems when providing services to the community.
Basic criteria for evaluation of the success of training lay in the changes, which will happen in
working environment of those who have been trained. If there are no changes, the training tends to
be useless - does not matter, how happy participants were at the end of the course. In fact, this
193