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Planning for a Development Centre.

Designing and running a successful Development Centre is as much about the planning and preparation as it is about the implementation.
There are a number of key decisions and elements to be put in place before you start that will determine the effectiveness of the events themselves.
What are the objectives for this programme - how much is at about assessment of performance or potential and how much is it about recognising strengths and highlighting areas for further development?
Who is it aimed at and why? Are the participants made up of the current set of Senior, Middle or First Line managers or is it a combination of levels? Are you also planning to include other employees with development potential who are not yet in management roles?
How many participants are their involved in total and therefore how many cohorts and separate Centres will you need to run? Eight is usually a good number of participants to aim at for each Centre for group size and logistical reasons.
Who will be the observor/assessors for the participants, what experience, skills and training will they need. Will they go through the same Development Centre process and activities first to gain the necessary understanding and to set the example?
Who will give the participants their feedback, when will this be done and in what format will it be given? I recommend that this be done either at the end of each Development Centre or as soon as possible afterwards in order for it to be fresh in the participant's and observors minds and not to leave them waiting for it. How and when will the participant's line managers be involved in this feedback loop?
What competencies, performance indicators, attitudes, behaviours or values will you be assessing them against, what rating scale will you use?
Having decided on the basis for your assessments you then need to choose a range of activities, questionnaires, group and individual tasks that will fairly test the skills and abilities of the participants and that will allow all of them to give of their best and to demonstrate their strengths in a number of ways. Some activities can be external non-business related and others can be more specifically aimed at the organisatiom's business and marketplace. The key thing is that they should be relevant to the criteria that you are trying to assess and should give all participants an equal chance of success.
It also helps to have some external benchmark inputs such as psychometric questionnaires as well as the support of external, objective observors to ensure the fairness and consistency of the programme.
The follow up stage needs to be carefully considered in terms of what will happen next to the participants after they complete the Centre and receive their feedback.
All you need then do is to select, brief, inform and prepare the participants appropriately and you should be ready to go.