Hints and Tips for Conducting Self-Assessment and Writing Quality

Highlands and Islands Enterprise Hints and Tips for Conducting Self-Assessment and Writing Quality Development Plans Planning the SA&QDP Remember the three P’s of Project Management – Planning Prevents Panicking. Write key dates and tasks on your wall planner to assist you in planning your SA&QDP. Allocate roles and responsibilities to staff and others. Allocate resources. Getting others involved Continuous quality improvement will only happen if the organisation, which wants to improve its products and services, creates and maintains a culture where people are included in the improvement process. A culture where people look at how they can do their jobs better, how they can improve the services they provide to others (whether external or internal) and where mistakes are learnt from. In self-assessment and quality development planning getting others involved is essential however, it might not be easy and you might not like the feedback you receive. But it is essential to any service provider to analyse what people think of their products and services in order to improve them. Do you ask your Learners, Clients and Staff if they are satisfied with your organisations service and products? Getting others involved - What do learners think? What do learners think? How do you gather learner satisfaction information? How do you measure learner satisfaction? How do you evaluate learner satisfaction? Do you use questionnaires, progress reviews, pre-exit interviews, group feedback sessions, e-Scorecard, other methods? If using questionnaires do you ask if your learners are satisfied with their:     Programme Induction Reviews Assessment 1         Materials Equipment Progress Relationship with staff Communication from the organisation Treatment – is it fair and unbiased Level of support from the organisations staff Safety and health Do you set performance targets for these areas? If you don’t should you? Do you ask learners how could we improve our service to them? Getting others involved - What do clients think? What do clients think? How do you gather client satisfaction information? How do you measure client satisfaction? How do you evaluate client satisfaction? Do you use questionnaires, telephone surveys, personal visits, other methods? If using questionnaires do you ask if your clients are satisfied with their:           Employees/learners: Programme Progress New skills Support from your organisation Access to the programmes Clients support from your organisation The quality of the programmes The quality of the learning materials The communication between your organisation and the clients Do you set performance targets for these areas? If you don’t should you? Do you ask your clients how could we improve our service to them? 2 Getting others involved - What do staff think? What do staff think? How do you gather staff satisfaction information? How do you measure staff satisfaction? How do you evaluate staff satisfaction? Do you use questionnaires, staff surveys, away days, workshops, appraisals, other methods? If using questionnaires do you ask if your staff are satisfied with:                    The quality of the programmes they provide for the learner The organisations staff communications: Intranet Meetings Newsletters Methods and equipment of communications e.g. fax, phone, email, etc Notice boards Distribution of information Quality of the communication Speed and relevance of communication Upward communications process and receptiveness of upward communication Equal opportunities Health and safety The support they receive from the organisation The programme teaching materials Programme support/supplementary materials Their personal development and skill enhancement opportunities Do you set performance targets for these areas? If you don’t should you? Do you ask staff how the organisation can improve the support to them? Identify your processes Do you know what to review? Do you know where to start? One place to start is by identifying your processes. Processes are defined as “a continued series of actions, events, etc, causing change”. Some typical processes that organisations will have are for:    Staff recruitment and selection Learner recruitment and selection Staff and learner induction 3          Administration: Incoming mail Learner records and files Staff records and files Programme design and delivery Identifying training needs Conducting appraisal Document control Selection of subcontractors Attached to each of the actions in your processes may be documents which tell people why the organisation is taking a course of action (Policies) and how to undertake that particular action (Procedures/desk instructions), in addition there may be forms to complete for maintaining records of actions taken. To make improvements to Time, Cost, Quality and the Learning Experience you will need to review your processes to see if the are:     Still current Still have a logical flow (remove duplication of effort) Still the quickest way of carrying out the actions Still effective. In addition you will need to review your:    Policies e.g. Equal Opportunities, Health and Safety, etc, to see if they are current and up-to-date and conform to the latest legislation and that people are applying and implementing them. Procedures to see if the can be improved upon. Data from your forms, management information systems, questionnaires, etc to evaluate how effective your processes, policies and procedures are. Measuring performance Establish what areas of the business you need/want to measure. Set objectives/targets/KPI’s for those areas. Set timescales/dates for reviewing your performance. Communicate your progress to staff and others. Typical areas that organisations measure are:     Customer satisfaction Learners Clients Staff satisfaction 4            Delivery of training performance Numbers recruited against target Numbers achieving against recruitment/targets Numbers not completing Finances/budgets/income/expenditure Contract performance Benefits to the organisation on the training of staff Accidents/incidents Record keeping Unit costs of programmes Time to complete the programmes. Organisations can only improve if they set themselves targets to achieve and measure whether they are achieving them. Defining measures helps the organisation set a baseline to improve from or in other words they set a benchmark from which they can, over time, measure improvements. Review and set realistic measurements for your organisation as part of the Self-assessment & Quality Development Planning process.    Future Quality Improvement Actions Future Quality Improvement Actions should be identified in your SelfAssessment as a result of your review, analysis and evaluation of your Policies, Processes, Procedures, Programmes and data you have collected. Future Quality Improvement Actions are changes you are going to make which will improve upon the current situation. Future Quality Improvement Actions should not be normal business processes or tasks that you would carry out anyway. In setting Future Quality Improvement Actions you should:     Prioritise your actions Allocate resources Communicate your actions to staff Communicate your expected outcomes. SMART criteria Future actions should lead to business quality improvements or improvements to the learners learning experience. Use of the “SMART” acronym below will assist you to define your actions. 5 Specific – Be clear about what, where, when, why and how the improvement will occur. Allocate people responsible for implementing the action. Measurable - You must be able to quantify or demonstrate that the improvement has occurred Achievable - You must be able to implement the improvements with the available resources Relevant or Realistic - You must be able to achieve the improvement reflected in the future action Time Bound -You must state the time period in which the actions will be accomplished Check each future action in your QDP against the SMART criteria. If your actions don’t conform to the SMART criteria rewrite them until they do. Evaluation of data Evaluation is “making a judgement based on an analysis of all your relevant data, information and evidence”. How to write evaluatively using evaluative language Writing evaluatively requires you to make a judgement about the Effectiveness / ineffectiveness of the topic being discussed. In writing evaluatively you should also include the data (figures/percentages) on which the judgement was made. Examples of Positive Evaluative words Effective Successful Reliable Sufficient Good, very good Strong, robust Well planned Thorough Examples of Negative Evaluative words Ineffective Unsuccessful Unreliable Insufficient Poor, very poor Weak Unplanned Brief Writing your Quality Development Plan In writing your Quality Development Plan you are recording and communicating your organisations intention to improve upon the current situation with regard to the quality of your services and programmes. 6 The Quality Development Plan should be written therefore to express your intentions rather than impress the reader. The following checklist should help you in writing a robust Quality Development Plan:          Layout – Design a template, which is easy to read and understand. Column or Paragraph headings should convey the meaning of the text that follows Structure – The structure of the QDP and the text of each of the actions should have a logical flow to it Style: Language – Use short words (e.g. endeavour – try) and avoid repetition of words, use short sentences and paragraphs, use active rather than passive words Text size/style – Think of the reader (possibly visual impairment) and use as a minimum size 12 text. Try and avoid text styles which places the letters close together Meaning – Write concretely e.g. a lot of responses should be written as 32 replies, sometime next month should be written as by the 14 August Grammar – Think of the sentence construction, does the sentence make sense? Spelling – Spell check and proof read the document before it leaves the organisation Length – In writing to express rather than impress use the following acronym KISS – Keep It Short and Simple. The content of this document is very much given as guidance and good practice and whilst it is neither comprehensive nor definitive all or part of the information may be of use to many organisations in the development quality improvement. oOo 7 8