19th ISPI EMEA Annual Conference
Achieving measurable performance results in the digital era
1-6 October 2020 - 1st Virtual Event
Open Assist Experience
WHAT IT IS
As in previous years, the 2020 virtual conference will be organized around an opportunity for participants to be immersed in a unique live teamwork experience recently renamed, Open Assist. This important centrepiece, which runs throughout our conference, provides an exciting opportunity for teams of participants to engage directly with senior management representing a real organization (client). The objective for the teams is to respond to the organization’s (client’s) Request For Proposals (RFP) to outline an approach for resolving a current problem the organization is facing and/or to identify and take advantage of opportunities to perform and produce “even better” results.
Through the Open Assist process the client organization receives real value for their participation, as measured by their immediate feedback at the end of the process and also, importantly, one year later. Participant teams gain valuable knowledge and actual experience, working on a diverse multinational team, as they interact directly with, present to and get feedback from a senior management team, all in a “safe”, supportive, constructive environment of learning, sharing and enriching each participant’s experience and ability to grow their professional network.
OPEN ASSIST RATIONALE
“open“: looking outside of the organization’s boundaries to get something (innovation, solutions, ideas, etc.) from external individuals or organizations in a crowdsourcing environment.
“assist“: putting the client in the best conditions to achieve its objectives. In basketball, an assist (the proposal) happens when a player (team at the conference) passes the ball to a teammate (the client) in a way that leads to a score by field goal (achieve the objectives illustrated in the RFP). It reminds the magic chemistry of Karl Malone (the second scoring leaders of NBA ever: 36,928 points, more than the legend Michael Jordan) and John Stockton (holding the NBA records for most career assists: 15,806): in the NBA, there is no other combination of passer and scorer that even comes close to Malone and Stockton.
At the conference, client is the scorer (the champion) and teams are the passer (who sets up the best conditions for the champion to make a field goal).
HOW IT WORKS
Seven steps:
TEAM LEADERS SELECTION AND INTRODUCTION
The process begins by inviting professionals, who are already registered to participate in the upcoming conference, to volunteer for the important role of Open Assist Team Leader, in advance of the conference. In order to properly introduce them, we ask them to provide us with a brief bio and a short statement about why they were willing to take on the Team Leader role.
THE CLIENT’S REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
The Request for Proposals (RFP) made by the Client is delivered to each participant at the registration desks. Team Leaders are provided with a package of Open Assist Overview Materials before the conference. The Client explains the key elements of the RFP during the opening session of the Conference.
RECRUITING TEAM MEMBERS
Each Team Leader has 60 seconds to introduce herself during the opening session and invite participants to join her team. Participants that want to try the Open Assist exprerience can join the preferred team. At the end of the “recruiting” session, team members of a bigger team are invited to join a smaller team on a voluntary basis, to balance the number of members of each team.
QUESTIONS AND ASWERS SESSION WITH THE CLIENT
In order to develop an effective proposal, teams often need more information than what is detailed in the request. Information about the request itself, the business of the client, the context in which it operates, its organization, structure and culture. A 2 hours session of questions and answers with the client held on Friday morning should help to clarify each additional detail.
TEAM WORKING ON PROPOSAL
The time to work on the proposal is never enough. An hour and a half on Thursday after the opening session, two hours on Friday afternoon, an hour and a half Saturday morning. These are the slots for team working. In a very short time you need to contribute in creating a collaborative team, exploring the request and making a winner proposal. This is the challenge.
PRESENTATION OF TEAM PROPOSALS
On the last afternoon, all the proposals are presented to the Client. Each team has 10 to 15 minutes to deliver its presententation, answer questions, and convince the Client that its proposal is absolutely perfect for them. The advice is to use few Powerpoint slides, and make them very effective.
FINAL EVALUATION OF PROPOSALS
After the presentation of proposals made by teams, the Client people move in another room, take some time to closely evaluate each proposal and choose the one that most suits their request and needs. Then they come back to the plenary room and announce who is the winner. No prize, just glory.
2020 OPEN ASSIST CLIENT
Introducing ISPI EMEA 2020 Open Assist Client
COMUNICARE
Communicare – Who/what is it?
Communicare, a non profit company, is the oldest provider of social housing in South Africa.
It began more than 90 years ago (1929), as the Citizens Housing League Utility Company, formed in response to poor housing conditions in Cape Town. Providing rental housing to a wide range of tenants, including a large portfolio of social rentals (properties rented at discounted rates), Communicare, today, is not just another landlord.
Socially Conscious and High-Impact Mission — Communicare is committed to an ambitious mission at the societal level, aimed at having a meaningful impact, not simply financially or with traditional real-estate success measures in the marketplace, but rather to make a difference in the lives of real people. Specifically, Communicare is dedicated to, “Providing opportunities for more people to live with dignity and an improving quality of life, so that caring communities can flourish.”
The Communicare Difference – Communicare’s unique social enterprise business model (below) enables it to provide social rentals while also growing sustainably. To finance the development of new social rentals, Communicare combines the state’s capital grants and subsidies with surpluses from its own commercially-established and viable residential property activities. This makes the social rentals financially feasible and sustainable.
In 1990, more than 60 years after it was established, the Citizens Housing League Utility Company renamed (rebranded), Communicare. Nearly 20 years later, in 2009, Communicare celebrated its 80th Anniversary by publicly accepting responsibility for its role in treating people inequitably in the past and committing to never again be party to unfair discrimination. The Communicare Foundation was formed in the same year to promote transformation in society. Today, the social development programme, run by the Communicare Foundation, Vulamathuba, supports healthy tenant relationships, assists vulnerable tenants and promotes the economic mobility of tenants.
Communicare is able to offer housing options and social development services that are both valuable and sustainable, as a result of its unique business model.
Cross Financing Funds Sources
Communicare targets a mix of tenants. In that way, tenants who pay market rates enable Communicare to achieve a steady flow of annuity income that allows the organization to sustainably add new social rental units. It also makes it possible for them to offer concessionary rentals to their most vulnerable tenants, especially those dependent on the old age pension.
Communicare uses its goodfind Properties brand, to develop residential property that is sold or rented in the affordable and middle-segment housing markets. This boosts the finance available for its social rentals.
Social Development Programme (Communicare Foundation: Vulamathuba)
Communicare Foundation’s programmes are offered under the Vulamathuba brand. The social development programme –
- supports healthy tenant relations across cultural, racial, generational and other divides,
- assists vulnerable tenants, and is uniquely designed to
- provide an enabling environment for the economic mobility of tenants, who begin their relationship with Communicare in its social rental units.
Background – Context for Performance
Given the age of the organisation and the nature of the services provided by Communicare, what was going on in society (the organizaton’s ultimate context for performance), particularly within its immediate/direct external customer “marketplace,” had a significant impact on how the organization operated its business(es) and, therefore, how it evolved over time.
Between 1929 and 1941, 1500 homes had been built by Citizens Housing League Utility Company, including Ruyterwacht Township established in 1938, in response to the dilemma of housing poor white Afrikaners (South Africans of European descent, whose native language is Afrikaans and classified as ‘white’ under apartheid).
Economically and socially, the Second World War had a profound effect on South Africa. – Though gold continued to dominate exports and export earnings, manufacturing grew enormously to meet wartime demands. Between 1939 and 1945, the number of people working in manufacturing, including African women, rose 60 percent. It is not surprising that urbanization also increased dramatically. By 1946 many people classified as ‘black’ under apartheid lived in squatter communities established on the outskirts of major cities such as Cape Town. Certainly necessary for war production, this migration to the cities and towns contradicted the segregationist ideology of the Nationalist government that blacks should live in their rural locations and not become permanent urban residents.
Further, urban ‘black’ workers formed their own trade unions, demanding higher wages and better working conditions and engaged in strikes throughout the early 1940s. The most important of these new trade unions, the African Mineworkers Union (AMWU), succeeded in getting 60,000 men to stop work. The strike was crushed by police actions that left twelve dead, but it demonstrated the potential strength of organized black workers in challenging the cheap labor system.
Apartheid was a system of institutionalized racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 until the early 1990s. Introduced in 1950, the Group Areas Act enacted by the Parliament of South Africa assigned and limited racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas. This system legislated and institutionalised the programme of separate development for people classified along racial lines. One consequence of excluding the ‘non-white’ majority from living in the most developed urban areas, was that many ‘non-white’ people were required to commute long distances from their homes to find work.
In keeping with the Group Areas Act, Citizens Housing League Utility Company built (1951) its first ‘coloured’-only residential township in the Bishop Lavis suburb, located 15 kilometers (9 mi) east of Cape Town city center, close to the Cape Town International Airport.
Later in the 70s Citizens Housing League Utility Company expanded from providing family housing, in 1976, when it developed Creswell House for seniors. In the same year, resistance against apartheid mounted when an estimated 20,000 students across South Africa took part in protests in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in local schools. Met with fierce police brutality, the number of people killed is often quoted as 176 (a reference to the year), but estimates of up to 700 or more have been made. Several developments for seniors were developed by Citizens Housing League Utility Company in the years that followed.
By 1989 the South African government reduced its financial support for housing for seniors. Citizens Housing League Utility Company welcomed Shell as its first corporate sponsor and adapted its business again by introducing its first market rental development (Ascot Square in Milnerton). Such market rental developments would enable ongoing reduced rentals for seniors and other vulnerable households. In 1989, Citizens Housing League Utility Company also developed its first bonded housing project for ‘black’ people in Mfuleni.
As mentioned above, in 1990, there was a name change and the Citizens Housing League Utility Company organization became Communicare. Then, some 19 years later, in 2009 the Communicare Foundation was formed to promote and support positive transformation in society.
Recent History and Looking Ahead
In 2010 the South African government established the Social Housing Regulatory Authority (SHRA) in 2010. In keeping with the Social Housing Act of 2008, the State Owned agency is responsible for investing in, regulating and capacitating the South African social housing sector. The Social Housing Act defines Social Housing is an affordable rental housing option for households earning between R1 500 – R15 000 per month, which has received capital grants from the SHRA, which is provided by accredited Social Housing Institutions, and is located in designated restructuring zones.
Communicare, previously Citizens Housing League Utility Company was quickly accredited as a Social Housing Agency and built its first regulated social housing development (Drommedaris) in 2010. Followed soon after by a second development Bothasig Gardens. At the same time throughout the 2000s Communicare developed residential housing in the middle income sales market to drive its cross-subsidisation model.
In 2015, Communicare embarked on a new strategy to drive a more aggressive housing development agenda to achieve the delivery of 10,000 new units in 10 years. Proceeding with the transformation, in 2016 Communicare rebranded and made an important pledge, leading to the statement of its current mission – “Providing opportunities for more people to live with dignity and an improving quality of life, so that caring communities can flourish.”
Communicare owns and manages a growing residential portfolio, currently 3375 rental units in well located areas in Cape Town and it has begun a journey to grow larger and stronger in pursuit of its valuable and challenging mission for the people of Cape Town and the Western Province.
OPEN ASSIST TEAM LEADERS
Sylvia K. Lee
Kieran Patrick Consulting
Sylvia inspires leaders to let go of standard leadership approaches, transforming how they lead to become confident, credible and trusted leaders whose teams deliver consistent high performance. Working with leaders at the intersection of leadership, team culture, and high performance, she emboldens leaders to create a greater vision of what is possible, for themselves and their teams.
Email: sylvia@powerup-leadership.com
Website: www.kieranpatrick.com
John B. Lazar
John B. Lazar Associates
John has been a performance consultant and coach since 1983, including 23 years as an executive coach to executives and senior managers through his company John B. Lazar & Associates. He works with individual leaders and their teams, altering their perspectives, skill sets, and performance to produce socially and emotionally intelligent leadership and management, breakthrough execution and business results.
John has been a member of ISPI since 1981 and now serves on its board of directors
Email: john@jblacoaching.com
Website: www.jblacoaching.com
Daniela Robu
Director, Knowledge Management Infrastructure, Systems Innovation and Programs, Alberta Health Services (AHS)
Daniela has a Master’s of Science in Biomedical Engineering, Certification in e-Learning, Adult Learning (U of Calgary), Performance Technology (ISPI, USA), Return on Investment (ROI Institute, USA) and Certified Health Executive (CCHL, Canada). Daniela integrates innovative approaches in her work that aim to solve the current business challenges to increase efficiency and efficacy of core business processes, where knowledge is central to organizational performance and shared those at 20 conferences (EMEA, ISPI, APQC, CCHL, ECKM).
Rose Baker
Associate Professor in the Department of Learning Technologies, College of Information, University of North Texas
Dr. Rose Baker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Learning Technologies, College of Information, University of North Texas. Her research includes open learning, management techniques and statistical applications for operations and performance improvement, survey and evaluation design, theory development, and game design. Rose holds a PhD in Instructional Systems and an M.Ed. in Adult Education Theory and Practice from The Pennsylvania State University and is certified as a PMP® by the Project Management Institute.
Email: rose.baker@unt.edu
WHAT THEY SAY
“The Simulation Case Study (now Open Assist) was a great, interactive way to meet people, try out new ideas, and get practice making a pitch to a potential client. I met great people and thoroughly enjoyed the valuable experience. I hope I am able to return again in the future.“
PREVIOUS CLIENTS
2019 – Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia – Wines of Macedonia (WoM)
WoM is an NGO that has proven itself as a valuable industry representative and marketing resource, not just for member wineries, but also for the Republic of North Macedonia (RNM) wine industry overall, and, by extension, to benefit the country’s economy.
Feedback: “Thank you for this exquisite opportunity! We had received excellent proposals yesterday, and hope that we can implement some of them very soon! Could you please send us their presentations and contacts? At least of the team leaders please so we can send them thank you notes.”
2018 – Gothenburg, Sweden – City of Gothenburg
The City of Gothenburg is a vibrant, growing, international, multicultural port city – in 2018, the largest port in the Nordic countries, trading with the world. Gothenburg is Sweden’s second largest city, strategically located between Oslo and Copenhagen. It is the heart and growth engine of the Gothenburg region and Region Västra Götaland, home to a variety of strong industries. As a department of City government, the Culture Administration has an important role to play in supporting the City’s important sustainability goal. In fact, as stated in the City of Gothenburg (strategic) Cultural Program, the City’s leadership believes that, “A society that is not sustainable from a social, ecological, cultural and economic perspective, is not wholly sustainable.”
Feedback: “We had such a wonderful experience at the conference – we got a lot of boost and pride, great ideas and some eye openers. Thank you for that great opportunity. Our Board spent two days together, working through various ideas from the team proposals. We have a plan now“
2017 – Bologna, Italy – City and Municipality of Arezzo
The Municipal Government of Arezzo provides basic civil functions: registry of births and deaths, registry of deeds, and contracting for local roads and public works, for the local community. Other services include: cultural events, tourism promotion, environment protection and urban planning. The municipal government also maintains a municipal police force, which is responsible for public order and urban security. Traffic control is their primary day-to-day function, in addition to controlling commercial establishments through a licensing process and requirements.
Feedback, 1-yr. Later – The Client joined us virtually to describe the process they used to review all proposals in detail, to permit them to organize and prioritize valuable ideas from all proposals that have supported achievement of positive results.
2016 – Bonn, Germany – Never Again Ruanda
Never Again Rwanda (NAR) is a peace building and social justice organization that arose in response to the 1994 genocide perpetrated against Tutsis. Guided by a vision of a nation where citizens are agents of positive change and work together towards sustainable peace and development, NAR aims to empower Rwandans with opportunities to become active citizens through peace building and development. NAR places a particular emphasis on the youth as the future of a peaceful society. NAR is one of the leading national peace-building organizations with nearly 13 years of experience building a cornerstone for peace.
2015 – Istanbul, Turkey – IETT – Istanbul Electric Tram and Tünel Company
2014 – Warsaw, Poland – Al Majmoua – The Lebanese Association For Development
2013 – Tbilisi, Georgia – EQE – National Center for Educational Quality Enhacement
NCEQE (National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement) in Georgia has a constructive, quality-focused and continuous improvement-oriented mission and goals articulated when the former National Center for Educational Accreditation became the NCEQE on September 1, 2010 and further enhanced in June of 2013. The Center is in place to serve and support the success of the Georgian Education System
Feedback: Thank you and the whole team that was working with us! Special thanks for involving NCEQE, which has moved this interesting project forward! This endeavor was quite timely for the Center, as it will help us in our plans to move the organization forward and develop its capacity.