Implementation and validation
Putting an agreed change into practice, then finding out whether it reached the people doing the job.
Why this is a separate engagement
The eighteen months after the report
A department usually knows what to fix. Eighteen months later the report is in a drawer, three of the twelve items got done, and which three is anyone's guess.
Two halves
Getting it done, and finding out whether it got done.
These are different pieces of work, and a department can buy either one on its own. Northline can validate a system someone else put in place two years ago, and it can implement a change whether it is exercised later or lived day to day.
Implement
Getting the change into practice
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Implementation planning
Sequencing the work: what happens first, what has to be true before each step, who owns it, and what the department can realistically absorb alongside running calls.
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Rollout of new systems and processes
Getting a designed system into operation. Briefing the people who will run it, working through what breaks on contact, and adjusting the design to fit.
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Procedure and guideline revision
Turning an agreed revision list into revised documents the department can put through its own adoption process. Northline drafts and recommends; the department adopts and owns.
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Corrective action tracking
A register of what was agreed, who holds it, and where each item stands.
Validate
Finding out whether it reached the job
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Exercises
Designed against a scenario the department is exposed to, run with the partners it would rely on, with stated objectives and findings recorded against them.
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Operational validation
Checking whether a change reached practice: whether the people doing the work know about it, are trained in it, and are doing it on an ordinary shift.
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After action review
Structured review after an exercise or a real incident, focused on what the systems did, with findings that carry owners and dates.
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Reassessment
Re running the original assessment against the baseline recorded at the time, so movement can be shown per area, with evidence. Improvements and declines are both reported.
Reassessment
Measuring against the same ground.
Where a Department Readiness Assessment has been done, the report records the basis it was made on. A reassessment works from that basis, so what is reported is movement against a comparable baseline.
It is faster and cheaper than the original, because the profile, the document set and the department's own context already exist.
What a reassessment reports
- What improved, by area, and what the evidence for that is.
- What stayed the same, stated as plainly as what moved.
- What declined, reported as prominently as what improved.
- Priority issues from the original assessment, and whether the evidence shows each one closed.
- Anything new since the baseline.
Afterwards
Ongoing advisory support and an annual review.
Where Northline has delivered an engagement, an ongoing advisory arrangement can follow it: standing access for the questions that come up between projects, and an annual review of what has changed.
This follows an engagement, and it is offered once one is complete.
Scope of this work
Northline plans, supports, drafts and evaluates. The department adopts, operates and remains the authority over its own systems and procedures.
An exercise or a validation activity reports what was observed against the objectives that were set for it.
Equipment testing, legal opinion and occupational health and safety program work sit outside this scope. Where the work identifies one, it says so and names the kind of specialist required.
Scope, exclusions and what each side provides are set out in writing before work begins.
Next step
Bring the plan that stalled.
Bring an existing report, an agreed action list or a system that went in and only half took. We start from what already exists.