Step 7: Draft an improvement plan, based on the accepted self-

The self-assessment process, as suggested by both CAF handbooks should go beyond just a self-assessment report and lead to a report of actions, to an improvement plan.

This action plan should:

• be the means to provide crucial information on the overall strategic plan of the organization,

• introduce an integrated plan for the organization to improve its functioning,

• integrate a systematic tool for continuous improvement of the organization’s functionality and operability,

• be a straightforward result of the self-assessment report, thus reflecting on evidence and data provided by the people of the organization,

• build on the strengths and address the weaknesses of the organization as well as responding to them with the proper improvement actions (Zink and Schmidt 1988; Michalopoulos et al.

2007; Anastasopoulou 2010; Katsani 2010; Karipidou 2011; EIPA 2006; 2013)

As the study of 2005 found out, the implementation of CAF led to sustainable improvement activities for 85% of the organizations implemented the model, while on the study conducted in 2003 this percentage was 62% (Staes 2005). Additionally, the similar study made in 2011 indicated that the

“78% of the organizations have developed an improvement plan or have integrated improvement actions in the management plan of the organization based on the self-assessment with the CAF. Of those who do not yet have an improvement plan, 12.1% are still working on it, while 10.3% have not developed one at all” (Staes et al. 2011, p. 76). Hence, although the majority of the organizations using CAF end up with an improvement plan, a not insignificant percentage of more than 10%, do not adopt improvement actions at all, this means that they do not follow the implementation guideline in its final steps. The reasons for doing so have been identified in both CAF surveys (2005, 2011), and they are presented in the following tables:

Table 2.4: Reasons why an improvement plan was not developed

Source: Staes et al 2011, p. 76

On the other hand, as was stated before, the implementation of self- assessment in the majority of the cases led to the adoption of an improvement plan. As Staes et al. (2011, p. 77) states “an ideal improvement plan should

contain improvement actions and quick wins. Quick wins are actions that are easy to realize without additional resources and in a very short time. They are

crucial because fast concrete results are stimulating: success breeds success”. In their survey in 2011 they found out that in more than 50% of the cases organizations had one to ten improvement actions. Unfortunately, as can be seen in the following graph a lot of CAF users have not yet discovered the benefits of quick wins.

Graph 2.7: Number of improvement actions and quick wins

The importance of identifying and implementing quick wins is also highlighted by Vakalopoulou et al. (2013) in their study about the implementation of CAF in Europe, in the case of Europol, and by Flyer et al.

(2007) in their study about critical success factors of continuous improvement in the public sector.

The next stage in this step, after identifying the improvement actions and the quick wins, is to prioritize them and differentiate them within realistic time scales. In order to do so, two basic questions should be asked:

- Where is the organization going in the medium term? (Supposedly in the following 2 years). Having in mind the overall vision and strategy, - What actions need to be taken in order to meet these medium-term

targets?

Analytically, the organization’s management team should take into account the findings of the self-assessment and prepare the improvement plan using the following structured approach:

1. Gather ideas for improvement from the SA and put them under common themes – actions

2. Consider the areas for improvement along with the recommended ideas and formulate certain actions coherent with the existing (if any) organization’s strategic plan

3. Prioritize the improvement actions and use for each one agreed criteria to evaluate their impact, such as

a. strategic weight of the action (impact on stakeholders, impact on results, impact on society and so on)

b. ease of implementation of the actions (time needed, resources needed and so on)

4. Assign for each action person/persons responsible, time schedule, necessary resources (Benavent et al. 2005; Michalopoulos et al.

2007; Katsani 2010; Karipidou 2011; Lagoudas 2011; Dutt et al. 2012; EIPA 2006; 2013).

Additionally, in EIPA (2006, p. 35; 2013, p. 65) it is stated that “it is a good

idea to involve the people who carried out the self-assessment in the improvement activities. This is usually personally rewarding for them and boosts their confidence and morale. They may also become ambassadors for

further improvement initiatives”.

Moreover, in this step ways to measure the performance of the improvement actions together with their expected results should be established, i.e. for each action there should be agreed criteria that will evaluate their impact. This will give the opportunity to monitor the entire process of implementing CAF (EIPA 2010)

Afterwards the improvement plan should be officially presented and accepted both by the management team and the political leaders of the organization (Tari et al. 2007; Lagoudas 2011; EIPA 2006; 2013).

Finally, in this step, the improvement action plan should be integrated into the normal strategic planning process of the organization and become part of the overall management of the organization (EIPA 2006; 2013; EIPA 2010). Although that integration as pointed out by Davies (2007) is the key to effective implementation of the EFQM Excellence Model, (which is the core model for CAF), CAF users do not give a lot of attention to this point. As Staes

et al. (2011) found out around 60% of the organizations have integrated the improvement actions to a large or very large extent in their management plan or strategic plan, while around 40% did not. This can be easily demonstrated by the following graph:

Graph 2.8: Integration of the improvement actions in the management plan

Source: Staes et al. 2011, p. 82

To sum up, having the above in mind, the figure presented in Appendix 10 can be constructed representing the framework for step 7 in CAF’s implementation process.