Leadership Development Program Design: Centrivity Case Study
- Deanna Jager
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
When organizations invest in a year-long leadership development program, the challenge is not simply creating enough content to fill the calendar. The different parts of the program need to work together, participants need to understand how their learning is progressing, and facilitators need materials that make the program easier to deliver consistently.
That was the opportunity behind our work with Centrivity.
Centrivity is a Canadian leadership development firm that designs and delivers multi-layered leadership development programs for organizations, integrating in-person facilitation, virtual learning, peer discussion, and executive coaching to create meaningful and lasting change.
They had already developed a comprehensive long-term leadership development program. Our role was to help strengthen the program’s learning structure and create professional learning resources that reflected the quality of the leadership development work itself.
The result was a more cohesive learning experience for participants and a program that became significantly easier for Centrivity to prepare for and deliver.
Why leadership development program design matters
Designing a single workshop and designing a year-long leadership development program are different challenges.
A workshop has a clear beginning and end. Participants arrive, work through the learning experience, and leave.
A longer program asks participants to keep learning over time.
They may attend an in-person session, complete independent work, join a virtual session, participate in coaching, and then return weeks later for another facilitated experience. Each part needs to accomplish something on its own, but it also needs to connect clearly to what came before and what happens next.
Without that connection, even strong learning activities can start to feel like separate events.
Effective leadership development program design considers the experience as a whole. What should participants learn first? What should they practice later? What needs to be reinforced? What should participants apply in their work between sessions?
Those decisions help turn a collection of learning activities into a development journey.
The challenge: strengthening an already comprehensive program
Centrivity was not starting from scratch. They already had an extensive year-long leadership development program and deep expertise in leadership development and facilitation.
The opportunity was to further strengthen how the program came together.
They wanted stronger connections across the different learning components, a development roadmap supported by clear learning outcomes, and a more consistent instructional flow.
They also wanted participant-facing resources that were polished, visually professional, and aligned with Centrivity’s brand.
Those two needs were closely connected.
The structure of a learning program influences how participants experience it, but so do the materials they interact with along the way. If the connections between activities are unclear, or resources vary significantly from one part of the program to another, participants have to do more work to understand how everything fits together.
The goal was to create one cohesive, professional learning experience.
Our approach to leadership development program design
We looked across the full program rather than treating each session or resource as a separate design task.
That meant thinking about how participants moved through the learning over time, what each component was intended to accomplish, and how the different parts of the program supported one another.
Our work included:
a program roadmap connecting in-person, virtual, and asynchronous learning
clear learning outcomes and a consistent instructional flow
branded slide decks aligned with Centrivity’s visual identity and tone
participant handouts and practical toolkits for use during and after sessions
The resources were designed as parts of the same learning system rather than individual deliverables.
A participant handout needed to support the learning taking place in the session. A toolkit needed to help participants continue applying that learning afterwards. The slide decks needed to support facilitation without becoming the learning experience themselves.
Together, those pieces helped make the program more consistent from one experience to the next.
Connecting learning across different formats
Long-term leadership development often uses multiple learning formats for good reason.
Some topics benefit from facilitated discussion. Others need individual reflection. Leaders may need opportunities to apply an idea at work before returning to discuss what happened. Coaching can provide another opportunity to explore challenges in an individualized way.
The challenge is making sure those experiences build on one another.
Participants should not have to continually re-orient themselves and wonder how the current activity connects with what they did several weeks earlier.
For the Centrivity program, the roadmap and instructional flow helped create that continuity across in-person, virtual, and asynchronous learning.
The goal was not to make every learning experience identical. Different formats serve different purposes.
The goal was to make sure they felt like parts of the same program.
Creating professional learning resources
The program also needed to look as professional as the experience Centrivity was delivering.
Well-designed materials make learning easier to navigate, help information feel consistent across the program, and give facilitators resources they can use confidently.
For Centrivity, we developed branded slide decks, participant handouts, and practical toolkits that aligned with their existing visual identity.
The materials needed to reflect the professional standard Centrivity brought to its client work while still being practical to use during facilitation and throughout the broader program.
This balance matters. A visually polished resource that is difficult to use does not improve the learning experience. At the same time, functional materials that feel inconsistent or unfinished may not reflect the quality of the program they support.
The strongest learning resources do both.
Designing a program that is easier to deliver
An important outcome of this project was not only what changed for participants, but what changed for the people delivering the program.
When too much of a program’s structure still has to be worked out at the point of delivery, facilitators can end up doing additional design work before every session.
They may need to reorganize slides, recreate activities, find resources, decide how one session connects with another, or rebuild materials for a particular client engagement.
That preparation can take significant time.
By creating a clear structure and a consistent set of resources, the Centrivity team had a stronger foundation to work from each time the program was delivered.
Instead of rebuilding the learning experience, they could spend more of their preparation time focused on facilitation, coaching, and their clients.
Results: less preparation and a stronger client experience
Erin Ekman, President of Centrivity, described the impact this way:
What used to take me weeks or days now is reduced to hours to prep for a facilitation with a client. The product and service I offer my clients has become more professional and impactful.
That feedback captures both sides of the project: reducing the work happening behind the scenes while strengthening the experience delivered to clients.
The refreshed structure created greater consistency across live, virtual, and asynchronous components, while the new materials supported a more unified learning experience.
Improving a learning program should not create more work every time it is delivered. Strong program design should create a foundation that can be used again, adapted when needed, and built on over time.
What this case study says about effective instructional design
This project is a good example of where instructional design services can add value even when an organization already has strong subject matter expertise.
Centrivity brought expertise in leadership development. We complemented that with the program structure, instructional flow, and professional resources needed to create a cohesive learning experience.
Subject matter expertise and learning design expertise solve different problems. Someone can know a topic deeply while still benefiting from support designing how a learning experience unfolds.
When those capabilities work together, the result can be better for everyone involved.
Participants experience a program that feels connected and purposeful. Facilitators have resources they can rely on. And the organization has a learning program that is easier to deliver consistently and build on for future engagements.
Looking for support with a leadership development program?
If you are building or expanding a leadership development program, you may not need more content.
You may need stronger connections between the content you already have.
WorkWise Design helps organizations turn existing expertise, ideas, and learning activities into cohesive programs supported by clear learning outcomes, practical resources, and professional materials.
The goal is simple: learning programs that are easy to deliver and easy for participants to learn from.
If your organization is developing a leadership program or wants to strengthen an existing one, learn more about our instructional design services or use the button below to set up a free discovery call.
