Streamline Training & Documentation: Managing for Results: Self-Assessment Tool

Monday, May 11, 2009

Managing for Results: Self-Assessment Tool

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat has developed a tool that organizations can use to assess their degree of maturity in practicing results-based management. The graphic below summarizes the model on which the tool is based.

The Managing for Results (MFR) model, with its five supporting elements

(Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat)
In addition to the "pivotal characteristic" of Using Results to Manage, the MFR model includes five supporting elements (whose definitions have been edited in the list below):

Commitment to results — Focus on organizational leadership and its support for MFR, on the implementing capacity of the organization, on reinforcement of the values of MFR, and on the inclusion of MFR in evaluating managers' performance.

Questions to ask:

To what extent is your organization using results information to manage and adjust ongoing operations, strategic plans, policies and resources?

To what extent is there tangible support from management for building and strengthening MFR practices?

To what extent is MFR-related training available to managers and staff throughout the organization?

To what extent do the appraisal systems in your organization relate individual accomplishments to outcomes?

To what extent do your organization's values and ethics reflect a focus on outcomes?

Results-based strategic planning — Results should be linked to high-level organizational objectives and should guide design of operational processes. Managing for results should also be linked to risk management.

Questions to ask:

To what extent is there a linkage between immediate and intermediate outcomes and the organization's strategic outcomes?

To what extent are horizontal initiatives reflected in your organization's strategic plans?

To what extent is risk management systematically practised in your organization and linked to outcomes?

Operational/business planning — Focus on performance expectations and how these align with the organization's outcomes. The expectations should include outputs and outcomes, wherever possible.

Question to ask:

To what extent does your business plan specify organization-wide performance expectations that are clear, concrete and time-bound?

Measuring results — Data collection should include outcomes, not just inputs, activities and outputs. Measurement should be linked to planning and reporting, and cost should be integrated with results measurement. Note that the evaluation role is also a key part of the development of a measurement strategy.

Questions to ask:

To what extent do you measure outcomes?

How easy is it to relate these measurements to financial measures? How often is this linking done?

To what extent is evaluation integrated into the management of programs and policies?

Reporting on results — Focus on the integration of external reporting with actual practices and results within the organization.

Questions to ask:

To what extent are the results data used for internal managing and for external reporting?

How consistent is the information used for managing with the information reported externally?

The assessment tool is essentially a rubric that describes five levels of maturity, which the Secretariat refers to as transition stages:

Awareness

Exploration

Transition

Full implementation

Continuous learning

The self-assessment tool is available in MSWord and pdf formats.

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Labels: Leadership, Learning organization, Management practices, Risk management, Strategy, Systems thinking

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