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On-line Professional Development

AFOA 4 - Aboriginal Management Practices II

Building on the skills and knowledge acquired in Management Practices 1, Management Practices 2 offers provides tools that can be used to provide leadership and accountability in an organization. It examines governance issues, policy making and planning, human resource management, benchmarking, government and community relations, and other key management issues.

The cost for this course is:

Members: $535 (plus GST)

Non-members: $645 (plus GST)

For course start dates and to register, click on Register for courses.

Course Description

This course was developed by AFOA for managers and aspiring managers in Aboriginal organizations. It offers Aboriginal managers the opportunity to learn about current practices and activities that support high performance and accountability in an organization. It provides aspiring managers with insight into the skills needed to function effectively as a manager. Note that throughout the course, the terms program manager, band manager, and executive director are often used interchangeably - pick the title that is most relevant to you.

The following is a continuation of the course on Management Practices and Tools 1. In this course, you will be exposed to more knowledge and skills considered essential for Aboriginal managers.

More than ever, Aboriginal organizations are assuming more self-government responsibilities and pursuing new opportunities. With increased responsibility comes the need for increased management capacity to ensure that the organizations will grow and flourish. This course focuses on your role as a manager and some of the tools you can use to provide leadership and accountability in your organization.

This course examines how to work with others, how to manage change, leadership, problem-solving and decision-making, meeting management, organization, communications, negotiation and dispute resolution, continuous improvement, and self management. It also provides insight into cases that identify some better practices and lessons learned by others.

Course Learning Objectives

This course will enable you to:

Lesson 1 – Governance

  • Understand the process and structure of governance in First Nations
  • Understand the powers of Chief and Council
  • Understand the political roles and responsibilities of the Council
  • Understand the functional roles and responsibilities of the Council
  • Understand the legal roles and responsibilities of the Council
  • Understand the roles and responsibilities of the Chief
  • Have an appreciation for the relationships the Council must develop with each other, with community members, and with the Executive Director
  • Report on continuous improvement opportunities for First Nations governance
  • Identify some of the better practices for meeting preparation, creating agendas, and running a meeting

Lesson 2 – Policy

  • Understand what policies are and their importance to your community
  • Understand how policies relate to strategies and implementation of business decisions
  • Understand the process for developing an effective policy
  • Understand the relationship between policies and procedures
  • Understand the origin and importance of Federal Governmental policy

Lesson 3 – Planning

  • Understand the importance of developing and maintaining a strategic management process
  • Understand how strategic management can lead to high performance
  • Understand critical components of the planning process
  • Discuss the nature of strategy formulation
  • Discuss the nature of strategy implementation
  • Understand how a business plan drives strategy implementation
  • Understand how to establish a business plan to carry out strategy
  • Understand the importance of evaluating strategies

Lesson 4 – Human Resource Management

  • Gain an understanding of some of the current issues concerning human resources, and human resource management, in Aboriginal organizations
  • Be familiar with legislation and responsibilities concerning employment relationships
  • Understand, and be able to develop, the following human resource management responsibilities: job analysis, job descriptions, job specifications, salary scales
  • Apply basic human resource management skills to the analyses required to determine gaps and work flow as a means of determining personnel requirements and developing work plans
  • Gain a basic understanding of legally required employee benefits, and current voluntary employee benefits
  • Develop skills in basic human resource management responsibilities including recruiting, orienting, and selecting staff
  • Gain skill in evaluating and/or reviewing individual workers

Lesson 5 – Benchmarking and Best Practices

  • Understand the concept of benchmarking
  • Understand how an organization can use benchmarking to measure the effectiveness of their products and services
  • Understand how to select and prioritize what is to be benchmarked
  • Be able to establish and organize a benchmarking team
  • Understand how to select the proper benchmarking measurements to be used
  • Be able to identify comparative organizations for benchmarking activities
  • Understand how to document work processes to be benchmarked
  • Understand how to determine a performance gap
  • Be able to identify causes for gaps
  • Be able to communicate benchmarking findings and gain acceptance
  • Understand how to recalibrate benchmarks if necessary
  • Understand the concept of best practices
  • Understand how best practices are developed
  • Be able to identify a best practice and implement it into your business processes

Lesson 6 – Government Relations

  • Understand how to plan, develop and manage advocacy activities
  • Promote advocacy activities and continuous improvement to meet community needs
  • Evaluate the First Nation’s efforts to provide quality, relevant and timely advocacy activities, and through benchmarking, identify opportunities for improvement
  • Understand the key elements of a public relations strategy and be able to distinguish between various communication tools

      • Lesson 7 – Community Relations

      • Understand the role that communication plays as part of a broader relationship-building strategy
      • Identify why First Nations need to develop communication and relationship-building plans and what elements they usually address
      • List and differentiate among various strategies and tactics that First Nations employ as part of their approach to communication and relationship-building
      • Examine the need to benchmark communication and relationship-building performance
      • Identify key elements of an effective communication strategy
      • Have access to a number of community relations tools

      Lesson 8 – Financial Issues

      • Understand the most pressing issues on taxation that First Nations currently face
      • Understand the financial responsibility of the Council
      • Understand the role of the finance committee
      • Understand how sound financial planning can affect First Nations operations
      • Understand how federal funding policy affects your First Nation
      • Understand the principles of debt management and how they can apply to your programs
      • Be able to use debt/deficit management tools to improve your programs debt/deficit management activities

      Lesson 9 – Organization Issues

      • Have a clear understanding of the duties and competencies required of a band administrator
      • Understand the role played by band not-for-profit organizations
      • Understand the responsibilities that fall to not-for-profit organizations
      • Understand the role played by band enterprises
      • Appreciate some of the unique taxation issues faced by bands

      Lesson 10 – Operation Issues

      • Understand what capital projects are
      • Know the steps in planning a capital project
      • Know how when and a band has the power to create by-laws
      • Appreciate the importance of by-law enforcement
      • Understand the importance and challenges faced when providing municipal services
      Course Completion and grading

      The course material is broken down into ten lessons. Each lesson includes specific objectives and instructions for completion. Directions are provided to guide you through the readings, other references, and the work to be completed.

      This course consists of ten lessons that run over a 13-week period. Although a suggested schedule follows, we urge you to make up your own schedule, paying close attention to assignment due dates. These will be confirmed at the start of the course. It is recommended that you complete one lesson a week. Be sure to allow yourself ample time to complete the assignments.

      Week Lesson Topic Assignments
      1 Introductions and Course Orientation
      2 1 Governance
      3 2 Policy
      4 3 Planning
      5 4 Human Resource Management
      6 Due: Assignment #1
      7 5 Benchmarking and Best Practices
      8 6 Government Relations
      9 7 Community Relations
      10 8 Financial Issues
      11 9 Organization Issues
      12 10 Operation Issues
      13
      14 Due: Assignment #2
      Course Assignments and Grading
      Note: Each lesson includes an optional quiz. The quizzes are designed to help you review the material and measure your knowledge on selected lesson topics. No marks are awarded for these quizzes

      You will be evaluated in this course as follows:

      Participation 20%

      Assignment 1 30%

      Assignment 2 50%

      Participation

      You will be awarded 20 per cent for participation, which consists of two elements.

      • Group Discussion. Each lesson includes one or more group discussion activities where you will be required to share information with others in your group via the “Discussions” area. Your instructor/facilitator will monitor your discussion contributions to determine a participation mark and provide support where required. While the number of times you contribute postings to the “Discussions” area is a factor in the assessment, the quality of the interaction is more important. For each lesson, you should strive to contribute at least three (3) substantive postings and to include responses to other participants.
      • Web Searches. You are required to conduct Web searches. These are to be posted in the “discussion activity database,” and are described within the lessons.
      • Post a Practice. You are required to share a relevant practice to the lesson topic. These are to be posted in the “course discussion area”.