Background:

SPARC, or Sport and Recreation New Zealand, is a national organisation dedicated to getting New Zealanders moving. That means everything from supporting elite athletes to getting out into local communities and encouraging people to get active. It is funded by the New Zealand Government and through the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board. SPARC spends $70 million each year to achieve its vision of “a nation inspired to be active, participate and win”. Some of this money is invested in organisations that contribute to SPARC’s desired outcomes, and some is partnering with National Sports Organisations (NSOs), Regional Sports Organisations (RSOs) and Regional Sports Trusts (RSTs) that have the capability to get people and programmes moving in their areas. They also provide a range of specific services, programmes, policy and research to support the sports sector. SPARC initially wanted to gain a better understanding of the capability of NSOs to deliver on the desired outcomes for their sport. They had an existing paper-based assessment tool focused around the management of the sport, as well as other tools more specific to coaching and high performance aspects.

How did QLBS.com help?

The Problem: SPARC conducted assessments of the capability of National Sports Organisations (NSOs) using three different paper-based tools that focused on three aspects of their performance (i.e. general capability, coaching and high performance). Assessments were conducted typically by one or two people, were time consuming, and the potential had been identified to consolidate these into one single assessment tool. The Solution: QLBS.com trained both the SPARC advisor and their independent consultant in the QLBS technology and criteria development principles. They then developed holistic criteria that could effectively allow a facilitated assessment of the capability of NSOs, with aligned criteria for assessing RSOs and Clubs. The tool, termed the Organisational Development Tool (ODT), has allowed more efficient and holistic assessment processes. The aligned criteria have also allowed consistency of assessment across the sector and within individual sports, as well as commonality of language and understanding. To meet SPARC’s specific development needs, QLBS.com improved the QPro software to allow split screen reporting entry fields, a comprehensive reference, help and best practice file for every assessment question, and a series of five custom reports. The inbuilt assessment support capabilities and automation of reporting have enabled SPARC to roll out the tool to trained assessors, ensuring a common assessment and scoring standard, with pre-formatted and branded reports for nationwide consistency of presentation. The efficiencies gained in particular from automated reporting have been significant. QLBS.com provided the technical training for a roll-out to around 40 assessors nationwide, with future training planned. QLBS.com supports the uploading of assessment results into a national database within InfoQ which has provided additional benefits for SPARC. Specifically a growing visibility and analysis into capability of the sports sector at national, regional and local level; identification of opportunities for coordinated sector training and development; and a mechanism for providing organisational performance standards and comparatives to drive sector-wide development and improvement. SPARC has purchased a series of licences offered to sector partners, as well as the access to the Confiq tool, and online access to and training of administrators in InfoQ us (to facilitate in depth analysis).

The Result: A larger number of assessments are being completed in a more efficient and standardized manner, allowing more organisations to identify and measure strengths and opportunities for improvement. The technology-assisted process has freed up time to allow a focus on development of organisations, rather than wasting resource on the assessment process itself. It allows measures for comparison between sports organisations, tracking of the organisational development progress of individual organisations, and visibility of good practice across the sector. From a knowledge management perspective, it has provided a database of information and references as both a resource and training aid.

The Future: SPARC is trialling Assessment Manager to help them control, check and upload the assessments into their database and also trialling WebQ. They have planned additional assessor training to meet and manage the growing demand that the ODT has created across the sports sector. A number of sports that SPARC invests in are using or have expressed a desire to use the ODT tool to identify the state of their sport and priorities for organisational development.