D&D News September 2006: some recent activities
We've been experiencing a great range of Excellence related work, reinforcing the idea that although there is just one Model there are different ways in which it can be used.
Dave has been heavily involved in a big piece of work on using the Model as a key component of the selection of a key partner for a public sector organisation. This started in early summer and continues with the next phase in the autumn. It has been taking much of his time, but is an approach that seems to be going very well and he's finding it interesting and enjoyable.
During this time, Derek has been putting our Excellence Model experience to good use with different clients, including
- supporting a public sector organisation in embedding the principles of Excellence within a brand new centre they have opened.
- helping another not-for-profit organisation through their first self-assessment. This is another relatively new unit, and they are looking to find out how well they have implemented their approaches and where they still need to work on them.
- more Investors in Excellence assessments - both private and public sector. Whilst there is a 'badge on the wall', organisations do seem to be using the scheme to check how far they have progressed with their quality improvement programmes, and where there are key opportunities to improve.
- making use of his background in financial services when he was asked to help out with a Recognised for Excellence assessment. Some IT knowledge was also sought, and whilst he didn't think that building and maintaining our website would qualify, he was astonished to find that he could almost understand some of what the real 'techies' were talking about. This is a clear sign of time misspent browsing for website ideas on some of the 'heavier' internet technical fora!
- in unusual - but nevertheless very interesting - work for us, he has been writing and illustrating for another client the reports of their Excellence networking meetings. It's not quite using the Model, but it does give him chance to use what limited scraps of journalistic and photographic talents he has. The different parts of the organisation seem to appreciate the outputs, so it's doing some good.
Whilst we have always been at pains to point out that the Model is not a panacea, it is interesting to see how it can be used in a variety of ways. That, perhaps, is one of the great advantages of its being a framework for thinking about an organisation, and not just a box-ticking exercise.
On the local front, Derek went to a Kent University event which included an award based on the DTI's Knowledge Transfer Partnership scheme. Colonel Bob Stewart gave a 20 minute keynote talk, mainly about his time in Bosnia in the early 1990s - and had the audience rivetted. It reminded Derek of some lessons that can be learnt from the military, including clear thinking, driving actions from the overall objective, and not forgetting about the importance of people.
