Award submission support
"Your support (the 2-day training) was singularly instrumental for me to understand the prerequisites for writing an award submission document." Dubai Quality Award winner
Award-style submissions as a method of assessment provide a more comprehensive and robust process and so increase the benefits. Reasons for using this method include:
- To produce a comprehensive picture of the organisation, for the organisation's internal use only (but often combined with a site visit by the assessors as well)
- An internal practice/'dry run' prior to making a decision on submitting for an internal or external award
- Using an external award process (regional, national, or international) to gain independent feedback of the organisation, and maybe even win an award - with the positive benefits that can bring.
- Using one of the Excellence 'certification' schemes that are increasing in popularity, eg, Recognised for Excellence (R4E), and Investors in Excellence (IiE).
What's involved
Award-style processes typically mean:
- creating a (max) 75 page document, in Excellence Model structure, about how the organisation carries out its business together with the results it is achieving
- the document is assessed by a team of trained assessors, and the organisation may receive a site visit, for the assessors to confirm and validate the submission contents
- organisations receive a feedback report based on the submission (and the site visit if applicable)
- applications for the certification schemes like R4E and IiE are usually based on completion of templated forms, but the same general approach is involved.
An example of such an Award is the UK Business Excellence Awards, which the British Quality Foundation administers each year.
How we can help
We are very experienced in all aspects of Award style processes, including Excellence certification schemes, have been senior assessors and have good insight into what assessors are looking for. We firmly believe that the assessor must be seen as a customer when preparing the submission, to help ensure a positive and realistic view of the organisation.
Dependent upon your objectives, we can provide one or a mix of the following:
- basic Excellence education for the organisation's submission writers
- assistance with submission construction and guidance on the gathering of relevant information
- coaching and feedback on document writing, including identification of opportunities for improvement to draft documents - to ensure that you project your best view
- formal assessment of submissions to identify the key business Strengths and Areas for Improvement, ie, take the place of external award assessors
- 'friendly' site visit based on a submission document, either as part of our own assessment process for you, or prior to an external award assessor team's visit - seen as a 'dummy run' so that organisations have a better chance to get it right on the day.
As well as Excellence Awards, we can also provide this help to organisations applying for certifications such as R4E and IiE. Similar considerations apply whenever you are creating a document to be assessed.
Whatever your needs in this area we can help and our track record is there for all to see, so please contact us ... the Excellence bodies say that the only organisations losing out are those not taking part!
