We have updated our Strategic Management tools to incorporate feedback from schools and our consultants. The new tools are user-friendly and have added interactive features. You can access the tools by registering and logging into the website. Access is completely free, and you can choose from:
- Project Management Tool: Do you ever find that projects overrun and exceed their budget? Or perhaps it is not clear who is responsible for each task in the project? This simple template helps you manage your timescales, workforce and tasks so that projects are completed as efficiently as possible.
- Accountability and RACI Tool: How do you align roles and responsibilities? How do you ensure that tasks are distributed fairly among your staff? The RACI tool (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) applies a simple methodology to tackle these issues. It is particularly useful when you are planning out your SDP and its implementation.
- SDPs and Budgets: How do you calculate the cost of implementing your SDP? This tool helps you understand if your intended SDP plans are viable and cost-effective.
- Prioritisation: Schools often have to juggle lots of different projects and initiatives. How do you know what to tackle first? How do you know which projects best address the needs of your school? A prioritisation tools helps you set out a range of key criteria (e.g. cost, impact, urgency) that are important to your school and assess your projects against these criteria. The tool automatically ranks your projects in order of their importance. You can then use this as an action plan to tackle your projects in the appropriate order.
- Surplus and Deficit: Is your school in surplus or deficit, and you don’t really understand why? This tool asks you a list of questions to help you understand your current situation and offers practical advice and next steps to help you improve your financial planning.
- Risks and Issues matrix: What exactly is a risk? What is an issue? How do you plan for risks and issues, and how do you manage them if they materialise? This interactive tool gives you an introduction to this important subject and provides you with useful templates for you to use in your own projects.
Over the summer term we will be updating the rest of our tools, as well as releasing some new tools. Keep an eye out for these helpful new tools, due to be released soon:
Procurement benchmarking
Managing change
School Skills matrix
Stakeholder management
Guide to the Schools Financial Benchmarking website
