In this section

Other topics

Toolbox

Contact Us

3.1 Assessing your governance

• How do you know if you have a problem?
• What is evaluation?
• Evaluation methods
• Different approaches to evaluation
• Why evaluate your governance?
• What to evaluate and when
• Quick governance health check-up
• Write up a governance development plan

How do you know if you have a problem?

There are a number of signs that show when you might have a governance problem. These may include:

• internal conflicts
• poor performance
• complaints by members
• poor audits
• inability to respond to change
• low staff morale
• high staff turnover
• a bad working relationship between the management and the governing board

Everyone has a role to play in keeping governance on track. It is important to do your own job the best way you can, but also to ask questions when the organisation doesn’t seem to be achieving goals.

The leaders of a group, community or organisation are responsible for making sure things stay on track and that the various goals and responsibilities of the group are met.

If a leader is seen to be doing the wrong thing and not leading well, it can affect how people both inside and outside the organisation feel and react.

What is evaluation?

Evaluation is the process of thinking about and analysing the worth or value of what you have done in your group, community or organisation. Evaluating your work or your governance should allow you to tell what’s working and what needs some more attention..

• Are things working and why?
• What has changed (intentionally or unintentionally) or needs to change?
• Can I measure these things?

Evaluations generally focus on issues of:

You can evaluate a process, an event or program, policies or procedures, the structure of an organisation or board, the performance of people, the outcomes achieved, or the way resources are managed.

Finding out what is working and what isn’t will help you find ways to improve how you do things.

Evaluation methods

Methods of evaluation include:

• Interviews – ask your clients or the group you are working for about what they think of the job you’re doing and where and how you might do it better.
• Surveys – draw up a simple survey and distribute to the base of people your organisation is servicing/working for or the community you are representing. The results will tell you whether you’re on the right track.
• group meetings and workshops – bring people together to share their opinions on your governance and your work.
• research – how do other organisations/communities fulfil the same functions as you? Are they doing a better job? What can you learn from them?
• data analysis – for example, how many people are using your service last year compared to this year? How many members are attending AGMs? Look at some numbers to get an idea of your performance and how you might work on it.

Using a combination of these methods means you can gather different kinds of information and different viewpoints.

You can use an external evaluation expert or do the evaluation yourselves. Often people do both.

Using a small survey (a list of questions) or group discussion means you can ask people the same questions and compare the answers. This way you can see if people raise the same sorts of issues and concerns. By individually surveying each person, you can make sure their answers are confidential, so they are likely to be more frank and open.

It is useful to be flexible in the methods you use as everyone will have different ideas about the best way to evaluate and improve governance. Try to include as many different people and views as possible. Don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions and be honest about answering them.

Different approaches to evaluation

Two types of evaluation include self-evaluation and participatory evaluation.

Why evaluate your governance?

There are a number of reasons why carrying out an evaluation of your governance on a regular basis is a good idea. It helps you to:

• be accountable to the community and other stakeholders
• improve the quality of your work, your governance and your actual services
• strengthen your decision making
• develop more effective governance policies and rules
• prevent out-of-date procedures and people not updating their skills
• inform everyone
• cope with unexpected crises and changes
• keep you on track to achieve your goals

What to evaluate and when

You could evaluate how well the different aspects of your governance are working. This might include:

It is best to evaluate at regular intervals so that you can immediately consider what needs to be done and develop actions to address any problems or weaknesses before they get out of hand.

An evaluation should lead to further action and consideration.

See: Resource 3.1 What can we do?—Seven steps to evaluation

Quick governance health check-up

This evaluation can be used by organisations, but also by communities and informal groups.

It shouldn’t replace a thorough evaluation of your governance arrangements. It simply starts you off, by giving you an overall picture of how effective your governance is.

Its main purpose is to help you:

• identify major areas of your governance where there might be some problems
• identify your governance strengths
• start discussions and get people involved

• work out which areas need closer evaluation and possible change

Once you’ve identified a problem area or gap in your governance, you can go to a specific topic area in the toolkit for more detailed information and tools.

See: Resource 3.2 Check-up—Quick governance health check-up

Some tips for filling it out...

• Do the check-up on your own or as a group and then compare results.
• Do you all agree on the same problems and strengths?
• Or do some people see things differently? And if so, why?
• Think about getting someone from outside to conduct the process, so that each person can say what they think in confidence. This person can then put the responses together and write a report.
• The check-up uses positive statements because it’s important to identify your strengths as well as your weaknesses.

Your responses should be spontaneous.

And when you’ve finished...

Go back and look at your answers to the statements:

If your rating shows your organisation has a governance problem, go down the list and write what level of priority (low, medium or high) you think they should be given. This helps identify what your main governance issues are, and where to start making changes. Otherwise it can seem an overwhelming task.

Once you have identified and ranked your governance problem areas you can then:

• develop ideas for solving the problems
• develop a strategy and set of actions to make the changes you want

Write up a governance development plan

Caption: Kununurra’s MG Corporation’s governance structure.

It helps at this stage to write up a governance development plan. In this plan you'll need to consider issues such as:

• What are your ideas and options to improve problem areas?
• How will you achieve them?
• Who will do it?
• What will you need to help you get there?
• What are the risks involved?
• How will you know if you're getting the outcomes you want?

There is a template for a governance development plan in chapter 5. You can use this with the quick governance health check-up, and the other check-ups in the toolkit that look at more specific areas of your governance.

See: Resource 3.3 Tips—Top 10 tips for rebuilding governance

See: Resource 3.4 Template—Governance development and action plan

Read next: 3.2 Mapping your community for governance

Read previous: 3. Getting started on building your governance