A Critique of the Proposed National Education Policy Reform
YBI Global Forum, Monday: Strengthening our network - Knowledge sharing
1. Network Strategy – Working Group A
Knowledge sharing:
“Creating the basis for effective learning”
2. Working Group A – Team members
Kenya Graham Shaw Chairman, Kenya Youth Business Trust
Nigeria Adedamola Ajayi CEO, Youth Business Initiative Nigeria
Russia Boris Tkachenko CEO, Youth Business Russia
Ukraine Natalia Lapardina Chairman, Youth Business Ukraine
3. Our process
“How do we learn from each other more effectively?”
Finding required
knowledge and making
it accessible to those
that need it
Deploying knowledge
effectively to drive
performance
“Creating the basis for effective learning”
4. Effective knowledge deployment – hypothesis
Mentoring Toolkit had
provided us with a view
of what “good” look like
Programmecapability
t
recognition of the
need to learn
1
detailed understanding of
what needs to improve
2
defined plan to close
the gap
4
supported “learning
by doing”
5
recognition of
success/raising the bar
6
gap analysis – “good”
vs. current state
3
Our project will look at
other requirements for
effective learning
What is the process for building capability in our programmes?
5. 5
Mentoring process: self-improving framework (draft)
Hold group events
for mentors/
mentees
Manage process
and gather data
Conduct
programme
evaluation
Agree and
communicate
req’d changes
planning
mentor
recruitment matching
management
& support recognitiontraining evaluation
Define purpose
and vision for
mentoring
Scan local
support
environment
Define mentoring
goals and
outcomes
Define roles
and job
descriptions
Develop 12
month activity
plan
Define eligibility
and qualification
criteria
Identify most
efficient
sources
Develop
recruitment/
marketing plan
Run mentor
orientation event
Complete
mentor profile
and application
Screening,
selection and
feedback
Define training
objectives and
curriculum
Develop
training
plan/schedule
Prepare
materials/
train the trainer
Run training
events/capture
feedback
Update training
content and
plan
Define
matching
criteria
Review and match
mentors and
entrepreneurs
Hold
introductory
meeting
Develop and
agree mentoring
contract
Define process
policies and
procedures
Define content
and frequency of
reporting
Provide further
training and
materials
Develop
recognition
strategy and plan
Execute events
and other
communications
Establish
mentor
community
Define
evaluation
criteria
Define
measurement
process/metrics
Collect and test
data
Hold relationship
reviews
6. 6
Self-assessment scoring guide
“This isn’t an activity that we do/have done”
Score Criteria
0 Not done
1 Done sometimes or in-part
2 Done but not defined
3 Defined but not controlled/reviewed
4 Done routinely and consistently
5 Routinely reviewed and improved
“We do this on some occasions or maybe do
some parts of this activity”
“We do it but haven’t written down exactly
what it is, who does it, how we measure it...”
“We’ve defined it and think it’s done
consistently, but don’t routinely check”
“We do it and regularly check that its being
done as we defined”
“We do it consistently and regularly review how
we do it and make improvements”
7. 7
Mentoring process: example self-assessment
planning
mentor
recruitment matching
management
& support recognitiontraining evaluation
Define purpose
and vision for
mentoring
Define process
policies and
procedures
Hold group
events for
mentors and
mentees
Develop
recognition
strategy & plan
Scan local
support
environment
Define
mentoring
goals
Define roles
and job
descriptions
Develop 12
month activity
plan
Define
eligibility and
qualification
criteria
Identify most
efficient
sources
Develop
recruitment/
marketing plan
Run mentor
orientation
event
Complete
mentor profile
and application
Screening,
selection and
feedback
Develop
training
plan/schedule
Define training
objectives and
curriculum
Prepare
materials/
train trainers
Run training
events/capture
feedback
Update training
content and
plan
Define
matching
criteria
Review & match
mentors and
entrepreneurs
Hold
introductory
meeting
Develop & agree
mentoring
contract
Define content
and frequency
of reporting
Hold
relationship
reviews
Provide further
training and
materials
Manage process
and gather
data
Execute events
& other comms
Establish
mentor
community
Define
evaluation
criteria
Define
measurement
process/metrics
Collect and
test data
Conduct
programme
evaluation
Agree and
communicate
req’d changes
Overall mentoring process capability = 61%
8. Working group mentoring process comparison
planning
mentor
recruitment
matching
management
& support recognitiontraining evaluation
Define purpose
and vision for
mentoring
Define process
policies and
procedures
Hold group
events for
mentors and
mentees
Develop
recognition
strategy & plan
Scan local
support
environment
Define
mentoring
goals
Define roles
and job
descriptions
Develop 12
month activity
plan
Define
eligibility and
qualification
criteria
Identify most
efficient
sources
Develop
recruitment/
marketing plan
Run mentor
orientation
event
Complete
mentor profile
and application
Screening,
selection and
feedback
Develop
training
plan/schedule
Define training
objectives and
curriculum
Prepare
materials/
train trainers
Run training
events/capture
feedback
Update training
content and
plan
Define
matching
criteria
Review & match
mentors and
entrepreneurs
Hold
introductory
meeting
Develop & agree
mentoring
contract
Define content
and frequency
of reporting
Hold
relationship
reviews
Provide further
training and
materials
Manage process
and gather
data
Execute events
& other comms
Establish
mentor
community
Define
evaluation
criteria
Define
measurement
process/metrics
Collect and
test data
Conduct
programme
evaluation
Agree and
communicate
req’d changes
planning
mentor
recruitment
matching
management
& support recognitiontraining evaluation
Define purpose
and vision for
mentoring
Define process
policies and
procedures
Hold group
events for
mentors and
mentees
Develop
recognition
strategy & plan
Scan local
support
environment
Define
mentoring
goals
Define roles
and job
descriptions
Develop 12
month activity
plan
Define
eligibility and
qualification
criteria
Identify most
efficient
sources
Develop
recruitment/
marketing plan
Run mentor
orientation
event
Complete
mentor profile
and application
Screening,
selection and
feedback
Develop
training
plan/schedule
Define training
objectives and
curriculum
Prepare
materials/
train trainers
Run training
events/capture
feedback
Update training
content and
plan
Define
matching
criteria
Review & match
mentors and
entrepreneurs
Hold
introductory
meeting
Develop & agree
mentoring
contract
Define content
and frequency
of reporting
Hold
relationship
reviews
Provide further
training and
materials
Manage process
and gather
data
Execute events
& other comms
Establish
mentor
community
Define
evaluation
criteria
Define
measurement
process/metrics
Collect and
test data
Conduct
programme
evaluation
Agree and
communicate
req’d changes
planning
mentor
recruitment matching
management
& support recognitiontraining evaluation
Define purpose
and vision for
mentoring
Define process
policies and
procedures
Hold group
events for
mentors and
mentees
Develop
recognition
strategy & plan
Scan local
support
environment
Define
mentoring
goals
Define roles
and job
descriptions
Develop 12
month activity
plan
Define
eligibility and
qualification
criteria
Identify most
efficient
sources
Develop
recruitment/
marketing plan
Run mentor
orientation
event
Complete
mentor profile
and application
Screening,
selection and
feedback
Develop
training
plan/schedule
Define training
objectives and
curriculum
Prepare
materials/
train trainers
Run training
events/capture
feedback
Update training
content and
plan
Define
matching
criteria
Review & match
mentors and
entrepreneurs
Hold
introductory
meeting
Develop & agree
mentoring
contract
Define content
and frequency
of reporting
Hold
relationship
reviews
Provide further
training and
materials
Manage process
and gather
data
Execute events
& other comms
Establish
mentor
community
Define
evaluation
criteria
Define
measurement
process/metrics
Collect and
test data
Conduct
programme
evaluation
Agree and
communicate
req’d changes
planning
mentor
recruitment matching
management
& support recognitiontraining evaluation
Define purpose
and vision for
mentoring
Define process
policies and
procedures
Hold group
events for
mentors and
mentees
Develop
recognition
strategy & plan
Scan local
support
environment
Define
mentoring
goals
Define roles
and job
descriptions
Develop 12
month activity
plan
Define
eligibility and
qualification
criteria
Identify most
efficient
sources
Develop
recruitment/
marketing plan
Run mentor
orientation
event
Complete
mentor profile
and application
Screening,
selection and
feedback
Develop
training
plan/schedule
Define training
objectives and
curriculum
Prepare
materials/
train trainers
Run training
events/capture
feedback
Update training
content and
plan
Define
matching
criteria
Review & match
mentors and
entrepreneurs
Hold
introductory
meeting
Develop & agree
mentoring
contract
Define content
and frequency
of reporting
Hold
relationship
reviews
Provide further
training and
materials
Manage process
and gather
data
Execute events
& other comms
Establish
mentor
community
Define
evaluation
criteria
Define
measurement
process/metrics
Collect and
test data
Conduct
programme
evaluation
Agree and
communicate
req’d changes
YBP A = 88% YBP B = 61%
YBP C = 59% YBP D = 29%
9. Creating the basis for effective learning
• A clear and measurable baseline identifying their need for
improvement
• A better ability to prioritise specific sub-processes and activities for
improvement
• A strong framework for discussing mentoring performance within each
YBP and for collaborating on improvement with other YBPs, YBI and
external experts
• A framework that defined our mentoring process that will
get better as we use it together
• A methodology for process and programme strengthening
that we can apply to other processes
10. Next steps
Agree project
approach and
starting process
template
Conduct
individual
assessments
and compare
findings
Develop
& launch
improvement
plan
Conduct
final
assessment
Conduct
interim
assessment
• Make improvements to
template
• Assessment of current
process strengths and
weaknesses
• Identify areas for
improvement
• Define improvement
priorities
• Revisit Toolkit
• Identify where we
can learn from each
other*
• Define development
plan
— Focus areas
— Goals , targets,
timelines
— Training/support
plan
— Measurement and
assessment process
• Review progress
• Share learnings
• Amend plan as
required
• Assess improvements
achieved
• Review/problem solve
problem areas
• Define new
improvement goals
• Capture learnings to
share with the
network
* Within our working group at this point
GF10
11. Our experience of this process
Difficulties
• Language differences
• Telecommunication challenges
Benefits
• Get to know the network better
• Opportunity to share our experiences and questions
• Seeing things from others’ perspectives
• Possibility to develop joint projects and events
• Stronger voice to advocate common interests
Learnings
• We must do more of this!
Notas do Editor
We started our process by thinking how we should look at the area of “knowledge sharing”, what we mean by it and what value it has in the context of this network
We concluded that the object of knowledge sharing was not the distribution of knowledge itself. Instead we agreed that the purpose of knowledge sharing was that members of the network should use the experience and wisdom in the network to increase the effectiveness of our programmes. So we decided we would think more broadly about how we could “learn more effectively from each other” [Build 1]. We decided this question had two components
[Build 2] First is the process of understanding what information is need or useful and making it available to the people who need it. This is an important topic and the focus of most “knowledge management” initiatives. We will have the opportunity to work on this area in the next section of this forum.
But as we discussed knowledge sharing in the network, we noticed that all of us had identified Mentoring as an area where we should focus our knowledge sharing efforts – this despite the fact that we already have done a lot of work in this area and have an excellent Toolkit available to all of us
This led us to conclude that in order to learn effectively from each other, we must also understand what is required for us to DEPLOY knowledge effectively [Build 3]
We decided then to make the focus of our strengthening project be to understand what we have to have in place in our programmes to “create the basis for effective learning” [Build 4]
Through this discussion we started to consider and develop a simple model of how we thought capability building would happen around a core process like mentoring in a way that new capability would be sustainable. Our model, that we decided we would test in our project, had 6 steps [Build 1]
The process starts by identifying a compelling need for improvement. This means that a general “we are always trying to improve our mentoring” isn’t good enough. Instead we need to identify detailed and specific improvements we feel we need to make that are important enough for them to be a priority for us
With this done we can compare our current reality – what we do today in these specific activity areas against examples of best or better practice that we can access from other members and from the toolkit
This allows us to develop customised improvement plans – training, coaching and implementation, not to improve mentoring in general, but to improve the specific areas that are must important to US, NOW
And after we have practiced these new ways of working we can test whether we have improved, and hopefully celebrate success by setting ourselves new, more stretching targets
Against this model we could see that the work done so far in the network including the Mentoring Toolkit was great for helping us understand “what good looks like” [Build 2] But we needed to do more work in our own programmes in the steps that come earlier in the process, if we were fully to utilise this knowledge resource. We decided we would make these steps the focus of the next part of our work
To start this process we needed a framework that provided us with a model of the ideal Youth Business Programme mentoring process, down to a sufficient level of detail
We developed this largely from the Mentoring Toolkit and hopefully consistent with it, but to put best practice into a simple process model
Please note, we picked MENTORING for this trial very deliberately BECAUSE we could already say that much of the knowledge we need in this area has been made available. We wanted to focus on what WE need to do in our programmes to put this knowledge to effective use.
This framework is called a “self-improving” framework for 2 reasons:
Because as we will demonstrate, we use because we want to improve our programmes
Because the more we use this (or some other framework) together, the better and more useful the framework itself will become
So what we have done in our group is to score ourselves in each activity in this framework
The fact that we use self-assessment is important. If we who are leaders of programmes don’t think improving any process is important, then simply put, no improvement will happen
But assessment shouldn’t be on “gut-feel”. Instead we test against more objective criteria:
Do we do the activity?
Is how the activity should be done clearly defined?
If so, do we check that it is being done in accordance with that definition?
Are we measuring our performance in the process area and constantly making improvements?
We used a simple “traffic light” system to make our data easy to interpret
Scoring our mentoring process for each program has produced some interesting data that can help fill-in the first few steps of the capability model we described earlier...
This chart shows the assessment results from one programme (we aren’t going to disclose) which!
Clearly it reveals where, in this case, the programmer leader assesses the programme is relatively weak or strong and highlight any particular areas that might be needing attention
What is very important is that in order to do this exercise properly, a programme manager would need to have detailed conversations with the team member or members who have day-to-day responsibility for mentoring to review the scoring and the reasoning behind the scores given. This will generate an enormous amount of new data around how well the process is understood and managed and will typical identify large numbers of improvements that can be made
The scoring system also generates a process capability score either for the process as a whole (61%) or for each sub-process. Overtime and if we used such a tool across the network, these scores will have more absolute significance, but even just in one programme, they allow the team to track improvements as they happen – a critical feedback device essential for any form of performance improvement
This data can then be used to compare process quality between programmes – in this case between members of our working group
The purpose of such comparison is not to work out which programme is “top of the class” which is not important at all – in fact, more ambitious programmes will be most likely to score themselves harshly to help encourage the drive to ever better performance
What this data does do is facilitate collaboration around mentoring e.g.:
Helps YBPs identify learning partners with similar improvement needs so that they can pool their efforts in joint learning or problem solving sessions
I can help programmes identify learning buddies they are well positioned to approach that are strong where they are weak
It can help YBI understand where there are areas of common need so that they can produce a network-level response – a further development of the Toolkit for example
And it helps YBI identify programmes that have particular risks around this or other process so that it make an intervention with that programme
And obviously the more experience we have of using this tool with more programmes, the more powerful it could be
So in summary, what do we hope our project will five us:
[Build 1]
For each participating YBP... [go through points]
And for the network as a whole... [Build 2, go through point]
So are next steps are:
We will review the data we have collected so far, by ourselves, as a group and with help from YBI. We may want then to revisit some of the data and re-assess
From this we will identify our individual priorities and develop these into a development plan – including what we might have to change in our programmes (beyond just training) and where we think we can get help
We will then implement the plan and practice new ways of working over the next 6 months
At the end of 6 months we will run our assessments again and see if we’ve improved!
We will then capture our experience and share it with the rest of you!