Develop and Cultivate Collaborations Assessment
Assessment Part-A
Grow Management Consultants is a consultancy company specialising in leadership development services. These services include:
- Mentoring training
- Coaching
- Management consultation
- Management program evaluation
- Development of cutting-edge tools, resources and expert advice
- Sharing best and next practices
- Leading organisations through the process of creating a leadership culture
The company has a CEO, a General Manager (newly appointed), an Operations Manager, five Principal Consultants, twelve trainers and a small HR team. A new Strategic Plan was recently developed to guide the organisation over the next three years. One of the key objectives of the Strategic Plan is for Grow Management Consultants to become established as a learning organisation.
At a recent Management Team workshop, it was suggested that Grow Management Consultants could form a partnership with an established Registered Training Organisation. It was thought that, if they work together with an RTO that offers mostly business and management courses, Grow Management Consultants’ trainers could attend courses that the RTO runs, and the RTO’s students could benefit from Grow Management Consultants’ business connections for practicums and office-based training.
After some investigation and discussions, King Edward VII College was found to be the perfect partner. Not only is its campus in the same suburb as Grow Management Consultants’ head office, but it offers a range of courses in management, marketing, human resources and international business. It currently has around 500 students enrolled across all its courses. Courses are offered at all levels from Certificate II to Graduate Diploma.
The College currently employs 24 management and staff that include the CEO, an Operations Manager (you), a Marketing Manager and Marketing Assistant, office staff and approximately 12 trainers. The College’s management has discussed the partnership offer and are very supportive of it. It is considered to be a win-win proposition for both organisations.
You are the newly appointed General Manager of Grow Management Consultants and the CEO has given you the task of leading the new partnership, ensuring that it is accepted and supported by all employees and customers.
Complete the following activities:
- Write a partnership briefing report.
As one of the first undertakings of the partnership discussion, you are required to write a draft briefing report on the proposed partnership.
Begin by reviewing the following company documents:
- College Strategic Plan
- Consultants Strategic Business Plan
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This version of the document will be a draft only. You will ensure that the final version of this document is a collaborative effort by involving colleagues working at both organisations to give their input into its development.
This draft version is your opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge of best practice in this area by writing a report that could be used to guide an ideal partnership between the two organisations.
Your briefing report should include the following:
- The expected outcomes from the partnership
- How consultation and collaboration between the two organisations will be achieved. You will need to research models for effective consultation and collaboration within partnerships and describe those that could be relevant for the case study situation.
- Communication solutions
- Processes to foster a positive culture that embraces collaboration
- Activities that will occur and the performance standards that they are expected to achieve. Performance standards should be clear and quantifiable.
- Indicators and feedback processes that can be used to evaluate the impact of the partnership on the health of the work environment in both organisations.
Your briefing report should also include an evaluation of the cost effectiveness of the proposed partnership. Both organisations are keen to establish a partnership that is financially attractive for everyone involved. They have established that, wherever possible, no money will be paid from one organisation to the other for services provided, but each should provide an equivalent value in services to the other.
The values that have been given to the services that have already been discussed are:
- Activity or service
- Provider Value
- Business expert attends a class at the College
- GMC
- $200
- GMC employee attends a course at College
- College
- $600
- Student practicum placement in a business
- GMC
- $100
Your briefing report should outline how the work activities in the chart can be allocated in a cost effective and equitable manner. You should give clear, quantifiable performance standards that can be agreed to by both organisations.
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Use the Briefing Report Template to guide your work.
- Send an email to Senior Management of both organisations (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.
It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment and seek their feedback.
Ask them when it would be possible for you all to meet to discuss your report.
Attach your Draft Briefing Report to the email.
- Meet with the Senior Management of both organisations.
This meeting is an important opportunity for you to generate trust, confidence and support from the other Senior Managers. Their commitment to the partnership will be a key factor in how the partnership is accepted by both organisations.
Prior to the meeting, you should also research and use at least two influencing strategies that you think could be effective at the meeting.
As you are spearheading the partnership management, you are required to demonstrate a high standard of conduct during the meeting. Your performance during the meeting will be assessed, as will your ability to establish and cultivate positive relationships with all those present.
Begin by outlining both organisations’ mission, purpose, values, objectives and strategies, drawing parallels between the two organisations’ objectives.
Discuss each section of your briefing report with the meeting attendees, making sure that decisions about the wording or contents of each section are made by the whole group before moving on to the next. Take notes on these.
During the meeting, you are required to demonstrate effective communication skills including:
- Speaking clearly and concisely
- Using non-verbal communication to assist with understanding
- Asking questions to identify required information
- Responding to questions as required
- Using active listening techniques to confirm understanding
When the meeting has been concluded, ask the participants about your performance.
You should be able to name at least two influencing strategies that you used during the meeting. Ask the participants whether they felt that your strategies were successful.
- Revise the Partnership Briefing report.
Following the meeting, revise the briefing report to reflect the input from the meeting’s participants.
Save this version of the document as Revised Briefing report.
- Send an email to Senior Management of both organisations (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.
It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment and seek their feedback.
Ask them when it would be possible for you all to meet to discuss your report.
Attach your Revised Briefing Report to the email.
Assessment Part-B
Carefully read the following:
Your revised briefing report was accepted enthusiastically by the Senior Management of both organisations. It has been suggested that several activities could already begin. Developing the following documents were given priority:
- A program that sets out what has to be done to ensure that the partnership works well.
- A Conflict Resolution Policy and associated procedures that covers both companies and the partnership.
- A Partnership Agreement
It was decided that these documents should be developed to the draft stage by Grow Management Consultants’ General Manager. They will then need to be presented to, and discussed with, the staff of both organisations, before final versions of the documents can be written.
Complete the following activities:
- Develop a partnership program.
You are required to develop a plan that will lead the partnership management process.
Begin by reviewing the following organisational policies and procedures:
- College Recruitment, Selection and Induction Policy and Procedures
- College Sustainability Policy and Procedures
- Consultants Information Policy and Procedures
- Consultants Performance Appraisal Policy and Procedures
- Consultants Recruitment and Selection Policy and Procedures
Use the internet to research other policies and procedures that could be developed to support such partnerships.
The program that you develop should:
- Begin with an introduction that explains the external context including social, political, economic and technological developments. Identify and address relevant organisational policies and procedures
- Explain at least four processes or techniques that should be undertaken to support positive acceptance of the partnership and cultivate collaborative relationships.
- Establish processes that contribute to the creation and maintenance of a positive culture that embraces collaboration
- Describe the performance standards that will be expected of the partnership between the two organisations.
- Explain how the partnership outcomes should be measured and reported on
- Explain how the partnership’s influence on the health of both organisations’ working environments will be evaluated.
- Include an action plan. The plan should allocate work activities fairly, with clear, quantifiable performance standards for each. Each activity should be cost effective.
Use the Partnership Program Template to guide your work.
- Develop Conflict Resolution Policy and Procedures.
You are required to establish a conflict resolution policy and associated procedures to be followed by management and staff during the partnership implementation period and thereafter.
Use the internet to research conflict resolution processes that could be relevant for the case study organisations.
Your Conflict Resolution Policy and Procedures should include the following:
Introduction setting out the context and the objectives of the document.
- Purpose
- Scope
- Principles
- Responsibilities of managers, supervisors, employees and the HR department
- Procedures:
- Dispute management practices
- Grievances and conflict resolution
Use the Conflict Resolution Policy and Procedures Template to guide your development.
- Develop a partnership agreement
You are required to write the first draft of the agreement that will establish the nature of the proposed partnership.
As the agreement will not be legally binding, it should be written in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
Your MoU should include the following:
- Introduction
- Parties: who the MoU covers
- Scope
- Legislation and regulations: identify and incorporate the relevant legislation, regulations, standards and codes that the agreement should comply with. These should include references to the following:
- At least two pieces of legislation that are relevant for both organisations.
- Relevant clauses of legislated RTO standards
- Relevant WHS regulations for the state or territory you live in.
- College Staff Code of Conduct (Grow Management Consultants does not have one)
- Goals and objectives
- Roles and responsibilities: Outline the known and intended roles and responsibilities during the set-up stage of the partnership.
- Meetings: recommended minimum type and frequency of inter-organisational meetings.
- Reporting: recommended reporting standards.
- Confidentiality
- Dispute resolution
- Variations: how to change the MoU.
- Signatures
Use the Partnership Agreement Template to guide your work.
- Send an email to all staff (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.
It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachments and seek their feedback.
The email text should request the staff member to attend a meeting to discuss the partnership.
Attach the following to the email:
- Partnership Program
- Conflict Resolution Policy and Procedures
- Partnership Agreement
- Meet with staff.
You are required to hold a meeting with the staff of both organisations entering into the partnership.
During the meeting, explain the contents of the three documents that you submitted.
Ensure that any decisions that need to be made, such as the resources needed for the action plan, are made collaboratively.
Take notes on the feedback that you receive and the decisions that are made.
As well as discussing the three documents during the meeting, you are also required to:
- Generate trust, confidence and support from the assembled staff members by demonstrating a high standard of personal performance and conduct, as you demonstrated during the meeting with the Senior Managers.
- Encourage staff to undertake activities that develop their personal competence and performance
- Encourage staff to develop their own ways of working on the partnership within their competence, and any organisational or legal requirements.
- Use a range of communication strategies you outlined in your Partnership Briefing Report to encourage staff to support and promote the partnership.
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During the meeting, you are required to demonstrate effective communication skills including:
- Speaking clearly and concisely
- Using non-verbal communication to assist with understanding
- Asking questions to identify required information
- Responding to questions as required
- Using active listening techniques to confirm understanding
- Revise the partnership program.
Following the meeting, revise the program to reflect the input from the meeting’s participants.
Save this version of the document as Revised Partnership Program.
- Send an email to all staff (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.
It should thank them for attending and participating in the recent meeting and summarise the changes that you have made to the program in response to the feedback that you have received.
Attach your Revised Partnership Program to the email.
- Write a media release.
You are required to write a short (about half a page) media release that will be sent to the local press.
The media release should describe the partnership and its benefits, inviting the public to contact either of the organisations to give their feedback or enquire about what courses or services are available.
It should promote both companies as learning organisations and the partnership as enhancing both companies’ capacity for teaching and training.
The article will also be uploaded to both organisations’ websites and some online information hubs such as LinkedIn.
Save this document as Media Release.
- Send an email to the local media (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.
It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment and ask them to include it in their next publication.
Attach your Media Release to the email.
Assessment Part-C
Carefully read the following:
It is just over a year since Grow Management Consultants and King Edward VII College agreed to establish training and learning partnership. Both companies have performed well over the year.
Every one of the College’s courses is fully enrolled, as are the courses beginning next semester.
Grow Management Consultants has increased its client base, partly due to word of mouth recommendations from existing clients. They are considering hiring two or three more trainers and are discussing a trainer exchange program with the College.
As part of the ongoing assessment of the partnership, all employees of both organisations are given an annual questionnaire to help assess whether organisational learning targets are being met.
The RTO’s Administration Officer has compiled a list of student’s comments from their annual RTO assessment document, titled Student Feedback.
You are required to use these reporting systems to assess the success of the partnership that you have helped implement.
Complete the following activities:
- Write a Partnership Implementation Report.
Review the following documents:
- College Staff Survey Results
- Consultants Staff Survey Results
- Student Feedback
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Use the responses in the documents to map the partnership’s progress against the outcomes you established with both companies’ management and staff in Assessment Tasks 2 and 3.
Use the Partnership Implementation Report Template to guide your work.
- Send an email to both companies’ Senior Management Teams (your assessor).
The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.
It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment and seek their feedback
Attach your Partnership Implementation Report to the email.