Welcome to FreeRange Thinkers

With over 20 years experience in training design and development, there are few management skills we haven't supported.

Increasingly, "soft" skills must be combined with "hard" information — the science behind a product, the trends in a market, or changes in regulatory requirements. Our strength is in developing skills training that engages and speaks from a foundation of technical expertise. We’ve developed special expertise in pharmaceutical, crop agriculture, animal health, biotech and food industries.

 

Whether developing team skills or product monographs, we begin with the basics.

What do people know now? What do they need to know to do their jobs? How can we organize information so it is easy to access and remember? What situations commonly require learning to be applied? We study the learner, not just the topic. We looking for natural "hooks" to current knowledge, uses for new information, typically challenging situations, and how to improve job performance.

 

Think globally. Act locally.

FreeRange Thinkers develops courses for global use as well as for local use. Courses have been developed in English, French and Spanish, and have been taught in North America, Latin America, Europe, CIS, Africa and Asia. Classes have varied from small groups of 12-15 for market strategy implementation workshops to a USDA global marketing seminar for over 120 Foreign Service Nationals. Competency Assessment tools may reach an audience of 30 – or an audience of 3000 through e-technologies.

 

Effective training begins with understanding the job.

Sometimes, there’s no substitute for the basics. We assume that each person wants to succeed and that success in a job can be defined. Every training program includes a needs analysis step. We also use a combination of qualitative research methods to define job competencies – what people need to be able to do, not just know. Once competencies are defined, they can be assessed. For a small group, this might be a simple paper document or e-survey. For larger groups and key roles, 360-degree e-assessment tools are created. E-tools can also link the learner to development options, selected on the basis of where competency needs to grow.