I had my 3rd meeting with my NVQ Assessor yesterday. First she hit me with the bad news, she's dropping all the Madgex learners. She has taken on a new set of learners who do an evening shift, so she's moving to evenings. She brought along her replacement who seemed to be an equally capable assessor and who seemed to have a much emptier diary - this may or may not be a good thing - more frequent meetings mean more work to do!

We reviewed my work so far, firstly, going through some more of the questions I've answered on the ERR. My inability to find a Regulatory Authority for Web Development raised a few eyebrows, but neither searching google nor asking peers came up with much. It was a very similar story with trade unions too - a few that software development is on the fringe off, but nothing that is a really good, clear fit. Then we went through my progress on my Professional Discussion for Unit D1. So far, I've created a whole heap of mind maps (using iBlueSky and FreeMind - because I can transfer maps between the two), gathered some documents I want to take information from (company policies, forms etc) and got a structure in place on how I want the discussion to go.

My planned structure is:

  • Introduction - covering the types of colleagues I currently have (or could have), what I think a productive working relationship with colleages is and how I'm going to structure the rest of the discussion
  • I'm then going to use a scenario based approach looking at the different relationships I have on a day to day basis - as a line manager, as a line report, as a resource on a proect etc. This is where I will be referencing some company processes and procedures and legal procedures (which I'm told is fine, and can be included as "evidence" in my NVQ file)
  • Summary - what my key themes have been, reiterating what I think a productive working relationship is

So, my next tasks for this unit are:

  • Take my mind map, and Unit D1 and cross reference all of the outcomes, behaviours and knowledge items against the items on the map
  • Select the best examples of the outcomes and work those into the plan
  • Select the best examples of the behaviours and work those into the plan
  • Select the best examples of the knowledge and work those in too
  • Prepare any supporting documents for these areas, and organise those that are sensitive so that my assessor can see them, and conform their existence
  • Produce key cards for each section of my discussion
  • Practice - the talk needs to be 20 - 30 minutes long
  • Deliver the discussion - scheduled for October 20th

If that wasn't enough, I am also going to start looking at Unit D6 - Allocate and monitor the progress and quality of work in your area of responsibility and continue answering the questions in the ERR.

I've found the mind-mapping activity for D1 really useful, and a great way to get ideas out on paper in a not-too-structured manner and I'm pretty sure that I'm likely to start D6 the same way. I was much more prepared for this meeting than the last one and got some good comments back from my (original) assessor so I feel that I'm heading along the right track. Finding the time to do the work hasn't been easy, and it has mostly come out of my own time - I've managed to grab a few pomodoro sized chunks during work time but spent quite a bit of time last weekend, and on Monday evening pulling everything together. Now, back on to that task list...