Case Study
Customer
Royal London Society for the Blind, a charity based in Sevenoaks, Kent. Approximately 300 staff.
Customer's main objective
- The key aim was to involve everyone in the self-assessment against the EFQM Excellence Model. Different parts of the charity had carried out many evaluations of their performance – often a statutory requirement. However Brian Cooney, CEO, felt there would be significant benefit in having the entire organisation involved in an assessment of the whole charity. Scoring was not a requirement, but the identification of Strengths and Areas for Improvement was paramount.
RLSB's idea
- The initial idea came from the RLSB. Allowing for annual leave and ensuring essential cover, could we help with a self-assessment by about 250 people at a one day meeting?!
- It would be fair to say that our immediate response was less than totally optimistic. To facilitate a 250 person self-assessment against the Model in one day felt a little ambitious, even for D&D who enjoy using the Model flexibly! But we talked things through, and found that the underlying discussion mechanism already existed in the charity ... and it started to look very possible and quite exciting despite having risks.
- The RLSB has an annual 'Convocation' day when everyone in the organisation is invited to meet and discuss overall progress, specific subjects and other issues still needing to be improved in the Society. Around 250 people attend. The typical structure is that most of the day is spent working in syndicate groups of about 12 people, each group having a nominated experienced facilitator and a 'scribe' to take notes.
Approach
- We agreed to use the syndicate groups to carry out the self-assessment. The 250 people were split into 20 'diagonal slice' syndicates covering different levels and functions.
- There were three timetabled sessions for group discussions. Instead of asking each group to look at all Criteria, we decided to have each one review just three. The groups were split into three 'streams', with all groups in each stream looking at the same parts of the Model. So each Criterion had around 80 people considering how the RLSB stacked up against it.
- Each syndicate looked at three Criteria during the day, and during each timetable session three Criteria were being assessed, meaning we got through the nine Criteria.
- To provide the framework for the syndicate discussions, we used a questionnaire approach. Each Criterion was covered by a number of questions, making as sure as possible that the language was relevant to the organisation. Whilst one could not hope to include every nuance of the Excellence Model, we were able to focus on the main issues. The questions were ‘open’ in style to avoid a yes/no response and to encourage discussion.
- After each session, comment sheets with groups’ views on Strengths and AFIs were passed to a ‘command centre’, where Brian Cooney and Derek very quickly reviewed them to identify obvious key themes or issues. At the plenary session at the end of the day Brian presented a ‘first cut’ summary of the themes that had emerged – stressing that they were a draft and would be reviewed in more detail afterwards.
Outcomes/benefits
- It gave a rich seam of data about how the people saw the Society running – across the entirety of the operations.
- It gave a structured format for everyone in the organisation to contribute their views in person, and enabled the key themes to be drawn out from all views.
- The Board of Trustees felt that it provided them with a very clear view of the key issues about the Society drawn from everyone who had participated.
- Perhaps because they had an active role in the diagnosis, the Society had even more good people step forward to help work on the improvements.
Summary of our role
- We should emphasise that D&D would not have pro-actively suggested this approach as a way of carrying out a self-assessment. But because the ‘Convocation’ was one of the regular ways of running a large staff gathering, with many people skilled in facilitating and note taking, we were able to work with them to devise an optimum method. This exercise was a great example of working jointly to minimise the risk of potential problems.
- Derek was our D&D representative on the day and he was delighted to experience the ‘buzz’ that was generated by the involvement of so many people in a self-assessment. Sitting in on discussion groups, he was able to watch the mature and balanced way in which the people went about their task.
- He also played a major part in pulling together the key themes to feed back at the end of the day, and this gave him the opportunity to see even more of the useful contributions from across the organisation
