Programs

People and HR · Facilitator-led

Training Needs to Plan

One team diagnostic, two documents and three simulations, from capability gap to quarter plan in five weeks.

A five-week program for L&D leads and HR business partners turning one client team's capability gap into a quarter plan, assigned by an HR director or head of L&D, built on Renatus. One multi-respondent team assessment, two document rooms and three simulation rooms · Five weeks, one or two rooms a week · Unlimited attempts · Ongoing each quarter thereafter.

5 weeks · 6 rooms · Total time 2 hours 20 min

Who it's for: L&D leads, HR business partners and people-development partners who plan development for one client team of six to thirty with that team's manager, and answer to an HR director or head of L&D for what the plan moves.
Cadence: 5 weeks
Format: Facilitator-led
Program sessions: 5

Who it's for

L&D leads, HR business partners and people-development partners who plan development for one client team of six to thirty with that team's manager, and answer to an HR director or head of L&D for what the plan moves.

Output

A synthesis of the client team's own account of its priorities, what success looks like to it, how it works together and its biggest challenges, set beside the manager's original request
A diagnosis that separates the training gap from the process problem, with what it is costing, the options and a recommended path, and a quarter plan with a measure, a named owner and a date on every milestone and the first week's actions
A scored report after each simulation with the moment that earned each score, a trajectory across every attempt, and for the HR director a Ren summary of each participant and a team report
Scored against published frameworks: team-effectiveness conditions and OKRs, high-stakes dialogue, care and challenge and clear communication, the Minto pyramid principle and Aristotelian rhetoric; the documents rest on the 5 Whys, the weighted decision matrix, the ninety-day sprint, the critical path method and SMART goals

Program contents

Hearing the team — Team Alignment
Naming the gap — Problem Analysis
Subject command · Delivering the diagnosis — Test your knowledge · Difficult Conversation
Planning the quarter — Execution Plan
Making the case — Presentation Under Pressure

How the program works

The rooms

Team Alignment

Assessment

Every respondent answers on their own: their role, the team's top priorities, what success looks like, how the team works together, its biggest challenges, and specific examples.

Problem Analysis

Framework

Ren guides through the problem in order: the challenge, its cost, why it is happening, the options, the recommended path and the next steps.

Test your knowledge

Simulation

Calibration: the confirmed topic and scope, the selected listener archetype and the selected challenge level.

Difficult Conversation

Simulation

Calibration: the L&D lead's role and seniority, the kind of conversation, who they are having it with and what is at stake.

Execution Plan

Framework

Set-up: what they are trying to achieve and by when, where they are now, the four-phase timeline, what must happen, who is responsible for each item, what could derail the plan, and how they will measure progress.

Presentation Under Pressure

Simulation

Calibration: role title, the audience (a single senior stakeholder, the board, the executive committee or a hostile external audience), industry or sector, working context, and the organisation website as an option.

Why this program exists

An L&D lead or HR business partner with one client team, one quarter and one budget is answerable for what the training moved, and the request that reaches them is usually a course title: communication skills, commercial awareness, the new system. This program prepares them through one team diagnostic, two documents and three simulations. Ren synthesises the team's account of its priorities and biggest challenges, guides the diagnosis and the quarter plan from what the L&D lead states and presses where an answer is vague, then plays the people the plan depends on: the listener testing their subject knowledge, the team's manager hearing that part of the problem is not training, and the budget holder asking what the plan will move.

What you'll achieve

A synthesis of the client team's own account: its priorities, what success looks like, how it works together and its biggest challenges, set beside the manager's original request
A diagnosis and a quarter plan built for that team: the training gap separated from the process problem, what it is costing, and a measure, an owner and a date on every milestone
A scored report after each simulation with the moment that earned each score, and one recommended focus for the week
Unlimited attempts at every simulation, each a different scene, scored on the same dimensions and charted against every attempt before it

At a glance

Who it's for: L&D leads, HR business partners and people-development partners who plan development for one client team of six to thirty people with that team's manager, in an organisation with a quarter's budget for it, however small. In this guide "L&D lead" means all three; "the team's manager" means the client team's own manager throughout. It is assigned by an HR director or head of L&D, or by a facilitator, whose lines are for whoever that is. Every room calibrates to the L&D lead's own role, client team and audience, so one cohort can hold a first-year business partner and a head of learning. It assumes participants can get hold of the team's material for the subject it is meant to know.
Cadence: 5 weeks
1: Hearing the team · Team Alignment · Read Challenges & Risks and Alignment Signal; note where request and account part company
2: Naming the gap · Problem Analysis · Read What It's Costing and Recommended Path
3: Subject command · Delivering the diagnosis · Test your knowledge · Difficult Conversation · Read Handling the Unknown and the Evidence Check; read Directness vs Empathy and What Landed; agree the focus
4: Planning the quarter · Execution Plan · Read Success Metrics and The Critical Path; read the Ren summary
5: Making the case · Presentation Under Pressure · Read Evidence Handling and Question Response; read the team report; set the ongoing plan

Session by session

Week 1: Hearing the team

Get the client team's own account of its priorities, ways of working and biggest challenges, to set beside what the team's manager asked for.

Team Alignment

Week 2: Naming the gap

Turn the team's account into a diagnosis: the challenge, its cost, why it is happening, the options, and a recommended path that says which part is training and which is not.

Problem Analysis

Week 3: Subject command · Delivering the diagnosis

Know the subject well enough to plan training on it, and find where the material is silent

Test your knowledge Difficult Conversation

Week 4: Planning the quarter

Turn the diagnosis and what the team's manager agreed into a quarter plan with a measure, a named owner and a date on every milestone.

Execution Plan

Week 5: Making the case

Present the plan to the audience that holds the budget, take the questions, and hold the case on evidence.

Presentation Under Pressure

Whether a market is real, where it is growing, and where the opportunity sits

How an entire industry is structured, who controls it, and where it is heading

Who controls a market, how they compete, and where the real gaps are

Who buys in a market, what drives their decisions, and where the unmet needs are

What competitors charge in a market, how pricing is structured, and what customers will pay

Who supplies the critical inputs to a market, how concentrated it is, and what switching costs

The technology deployed in a sector, and where competitive advantage moves next

How product reaches the buyer in a market, and where channel power is shifting

Financials, leadership, strategy, and reputation on a company

Deep dive into how a company operates strategically, and where it is most exposed

Revenue, margins, cash, debt, and auditor signals on a company

How a company is perceived across customers, employees, media, and ESG

Discover a country's GDP, political environment, infrastructure, and outlook

Discover a city's GDP, economic drivers, workforce, and trajectory

Trade flows, tariffs, agreements, and friction points between two countries

Background, current state, key actors, evidence, and where an issue is heading

What a policy does, who wins and loses, and how it lands in practice

The specific risks facing a market — ranked, evidenced, and with the signals to watch

Single-source exposures, concentration, and trade-route risk for a market

Climate, governance, social, and controversy risk in a sector

Pending legislation, enforcement shifts, and where the rules are likely to change

Licensing, compliance, recent changes, and pending legislation in a jurisdiction

Government stability, policy direction, and the political risks facing a market

What a role pays — verified across named salary databases and job posting data

Whether to take a job at a company, with the evidence behind the answer

Who the credible candidates are, what they earn, and how the search will unfold

How a career in an industry works — entry, paths, pay, and prospects

The three things that will move a business forward this quarter

A 90-day plan that turns a strategy into something a team can act on Monday

Segment, positioning, channels, and pricing — tested against each other so the four hold together

A positioning the market can place — and a category claim worth defending

A pricing strategy that the market accepts and the business can defend in negotiation

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Targets, thresholds and cadence

Whether an opportunity is worth pursuing — with conditions or risks named

The real problem behind the surface one, with options and a recommended next step

How a business creates, delivers, and captures value — and where it is exposed

Where work is breaking, where capability is missing, and the one structural change worth making

Build, buy, partner, or wait — with the killer assumption named

Whether a specific partnership is worth pursuing — with the asymmetries named

The right financing structure for the opportunity — tested against fit, cost, and flexibility

A fundraise structured to close on terms worth living with

Every variance classified — structural, timing, one-off or noise — with the call the pattern demands

How long the cash lasts across three scenarios, with the killer assumption named

Whether the per-unit economics hold up — with the killer assumption named

Whether the pay set serves the talent strategy, with the cost of fixing it

A board report that lands the narrative, the KPIs, the exceptions, and the decisions requested

What metrics are missing, misleading, or quietly rewarding the wrong thing

A complete business plan ready to put in front of investors, partners, or a board

A career decision weighed against criteria that matter, with a pre-mortem and a verdict

What matters most, what you would give up, and what stays true under pressure

Which option holds up under income loss, rate moves, or a downturn

A relocation decision and plan, with the trade-offs each destination forces

What the culture is like — values in practice, leadership behaviour, and where the gap sits

Strategy clarity, alignment, talent density, ways of working, and trust in leadership

What's energising people, what's draining them, and the levers that would move engagement

The patterns in how a person handles pressure, conflict, collaboration, and decisions

PENDING — product being redesigned. See Replit brief.

How a person leads — defaults, strengths, blind spots, and development areas

Real strengths backed by evidence — and the cost each one carries when overplayed

The values revealed by what a person has held the line on, refused, or regretted

What every role owns, what's silently dropped, and which handoffs are breaking

Where the team is aligned on priorities and goals, and where dangerous gaps sit

Where trust, conflict handling, and accountability are strong — and where they break

Any subject explained to a real listener, scored on accuracy, depth, audience adaptation, and handling the unknown

A presentation rehearsal scored on lead argument, evidence, question response, and poise

A stakeholder-influence rehearsal scored on reading the room, framing, negotiation, and durability

A managing-up rehearsal scored on positioning, evidence, flexibility, and outcome

A meeting rehearsal scored on structure, air-time management, progress, and closure

The conversation that's been avoided, with an assessment of how the conversation went

A saying-no rehearsal scored on clarity, rationale, alternative, and relationship

A performance-conversation rehearsal scored on clarity, ownership, empathy, and path forward

A team-conflict rehearsal scored on directness, fairness, action, and aftercare

A hiring interview rehearsal scored on question design, follow-up, bias, and assessment integrity

A leadership crisis scored on decision quality, communication, strategy, and pressure response

A negotiation rehearsal scored on preparation, anchoring, concession pattern, and pressure response

A strategic-decision rehearsal scored on framing, information use, trade-off recognition, and time horizon

An ethics rehearsal where the right path is costly, scored on recognition and response

A prioritisation rehearsal scored on triage, trade-off recognition, communication, and revisability