Beyond Skills Frameworks: What It Takes to Turn Strategy into Capability - Amanda Nolen

Skills-based learning has become a strategic priority for many organisations, but too often, the work stops at frameworks, taxonomies, and content mapping, without meaningfully changing how people actually perform at work.

In this session, Amanda Nolan explores what it really takes to translate skills strategies into lived capability. Drawing on patterns she sees across organisations, she examines why so many skills initiatives stall, what has to change beyond L&D to make them stick, and where learning teams often underestimate the organisational shifts required for impact.

Rather than focusing on skills models themselves, this session reframes the conversation around application, practice, and experience, offering learning leaders a clearer view of what it takes to move from aspiration to execution.

Key Topics Include:

• Why many skills initiatives fail to deliver impact beyond frameworks
• The limits of taxonomy-driven approaches to capability building
• What must change outside L&D for skills strategies to succeed
• The importance of practice, application, and experience
• Reframing skills as a performance lever, not a learning artefact
  
  

From Framework to Flow: How Organisations Are Making Skills Real in Practice - Amanda Nolen

Designing a skills strategy is one thing; making it work inside real organisations is another.

In this facilitated panel discussion, learning and business leaders share candid perspectives on their efforts to move beyond skills frameworks and embed capability into everyday work. Building on the strategic framing of skills and capability, the panel explores what’s proving effective, where initiatives are stalling, and how organisations are navigating the practical realities of large-scale skills transformation.

Panelists will discuss how they are partnering with the business, creating opportunities for application, and integrating skills into real decisions and workflows—surfacing lessons learned along the way.

Key Topics Include:

Topics Include:

• Moving from “skills attached to learning” to skills applied in work
• The role of communities of practice, experience, and application
• Partnering with the business to embed skills into real work
• Barriers organisations encounter when scaling skills initiatives
• Lessons from organisations attempting large-scale capability transformation