LBi CPD

How CPD really helps our Creative product

This is a guest post from Dr Simon Gill, Executive Creative Director at LBi Ltd.

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We couldn’t continue to develop great creative without investing in our staff and continuous personal development. Fact.

The World doesn’t stand still so we collectively need to improve and continually reset the level at which we feel creative excellence can be achieved. And we can only do that by operating as a connected group that looks to develop its strengths and address its weaknesses.

So how do we do this?

First of all we do this by building a strong team dynamic. The Internet Age is not about the lone star, it’s about the blended team bringing their individual skills together to achieve the impossible.

We help facilitate this by having a regular team meeting in where all members are encouraged to share their ideas, experience and current work. We call this Friday Fun where everyone is encouraged to provide thought provoking ideas to produce innovative solutions to possible clients problems, in rapid time. By using various techniques we help stretch team members and jolt them from thinking in certain ways. The ideas are used across our clients and our recent campaign for Macmillian Cancer Support, the Infi-Knit is a result of one session.

In addition we run bi-weekly sessions were team members share their work with their peers, justifying what they’ve done and learning from the feedback of others. It works to continually challenge what people are doing and how they can improve that.

We also run a series of training courses that address core craft skills; such as Art Direction, articulating ideas, presenting the idea and brainstorming techniques. These courses help raise the experience of the wider team and provide greater incentive to be more creative on regular work.

Attendance of these training sessions is identified by bi-yearly reviews, which assess performance against a consistent attainment plan for all in creative. This joined up approach helps raise quality across all levels and ensure we have a team that knows what is expected and how we roll.