Self Assessment is a comprehensive, systematic and regular review of an organisation’s activities and results referenced against well-known and widely used frameworks such as the EFQM/UK Excellence Model in Europe and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the USA.
The Self-Assessment process allows an organisation to discern clearly its strengths and areas in which improvements can be made and culminates in planned improvement actions that are then monitored for progress.
Top Level Approach
The stages are defined to ensure that there is commitment throughout the organisation to the self-assessment approach and the time required to undertake the relevant training and pre-work prior to conducting the self-assessment.Establishing teams will depend upon the type and level of self-assessment to be undertaken, for instance if executive only are taking part then only they need to be trained initially.An important point is that self-assessment is only a way of identifying the continuous improvement activity required, further work is required to devise the action required to deliver the improvements.
Why the Oakland Approach
Using the EFQM Excellence Model for Self-Assessment has been found to result in a wide range of benefits, notably: ·Identifies an organisation’s strengths and areas for improvement ·Provides a structured, fact based approach to identifying and assessing an organisation and measuring progress periodically ·Creates a common language and framework for managing and improving an organisation ·Educates people in an organisation on the fundamental concepts of Excellence and how they relate to their respective responsibilities ·Involves people at all levels and in all units in process improvement ·Assesses, in a coherent manner, an organisation at a macro and micro level ·Identifies and allows the sharing of “good practice” within an organisation ·Facilitates comparisons with other organisations, of a similar or diverse nature, using a set of criteria that is widely accepted across Europe ·Integrates various improvement initiatives into normal operations ·Improves the development of strategic business planning
The approach has been delivered many times and is a solid approach to providing strategic thinking and analytical tools with the philosophy of the business excellence model to guide the implementation of the improvements such that both short-term and long-term benefits are achieved.
Together with extensive experience of building organisational capability using process-based approaches, Oakland has an outstanding track record in the area of self-assessment. The actual approach used can be tailored to the clients’ requirements. There is no single “right” way to perform Self-Assessment.The culture and structure of an organisation, as well as the benefits desired, will influence the particular Self-Assessment approach adopted. Whichever approach is used, the key point to remember is that Self-Assessment is about the continuous improvement of an organisation.The most critical phase fof the process is action planning and implementation. On average to perform a large organisation self-assessment would take 24 FTE days of consultancy support, plus materials.This would include training personnel of the organisation.
Other Options
Most of these approaches share common key processes, for example individual questionnaires and some form of consensus.The major difference in all of the approaches is the data collection aspect and this can range from discussion and focus groups to award style submissions. The data collection phase is governed by two factors, namely the objectivity required and the resources available.In most cases greater objectivity requires more resources.Some of the techniques are listed:
This approach requires the bringing together people in a “focus group” style and would normally include, either before or as part of the event, some awareness or education for the participants. This style of self-assessment can be at the executive level, a selection of experts or a group of people from a specific business unit or function.
This style of self-assessment involves building a matrix appropriate to your needs based around the model you have decided to use.It can help in building awareness and understanding of the model as it is based on your organisation’s phrases and business definitions.
This approach is very similar to the matrix approach, although the surveys tend to be more focused on overall approaches, for example management rather than leadership as defined in the model.
Interviews take the questionnaire approach a stage further by either focusing on individuals with specific evidence or a group of people that you wanted to get more detailed information from through a structured interview.
This approach to data gathering may ease the amount of effort and reduce the burden on specific people.This approach can focus on elements of the model and can be completed by one or more people.
This type of self-assessment involves the completion of a 75-page submission document describing the organisation, in answer to the questions prompted by the model applicable to that organisation.Trained assessors would then independently assess this submission document and provide their view of strengths, areas for improvement and scores.A consensus meeting would then be held to form a feedback report.
Some or all of the methods referred to in the previous pages can be used to self-assess an organisation or part of one.Many organisations are using one of more of the approaches and some times a new approach needs to be tested or built because of differing needs.
Case Studies
Transco Assessment & Review
Ofgem were not convinced that Transco was creating an environment in which competition could develop and were also aware that the customer satisfaction was at an extremely low level. As a result an Enforcement Order was placed on Transco. The Order placed on Transco required them to review and re-engineer their processes and policies with regard to all of the Connections activity and its interfaces with customers. Read the full case study
Benchmarking Performance The Assignment
The production departments of a major broadcaster were keen to introduce digital technology
Despite extensive research and pilot projects, decision makers found limited evidence of acceptable ROIs
The key challenge was to identify other broadcasters who had successfully introduced similar technology, and identify cost and quality benefits that that would support the ‘Go Digital’ business case
Read the full case study
