Integrated Management Practices – Action Plan

Table of Contents

1. Background

a) Context and rationale

This Action Plan follows on the Assessment of NSERC’s modern management practices carried out during the winter of 2003. It focuses on five aspects: planning, training, performance evaluations, lateral communications and service improvement. These were selected because: 1) they regroup a large number of the opportunities for improvement that were identified during the Capacity Assessment (CA) and 2) they are consistent with the current priorities and planned activities of NSERC. In addition, a significant proportion of the activities included in this plan will be lead by staff in the Common Administrative Services Directorate (CASD) shared by NSERC and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and important synergies and economies of effort and resources will thus be achieved for both Councils.

b) Approach, methodology and timeframe for conducting the Capacity Assessment

The Capacity Assessment (CA) for NSERC was carried out by BDO Dunwoody and Associates (BDO) from January to April 2003. The KPMG model was used.

Following an orientation session to introduce all managers to the CA process, the assessment was conducted through individual interviews with all five senior managers of NSERC (the president, three vice-presidents and the director general of CASD) and two focus groups in which a total of 16 directors and managers participated. A consensus approach was used to determine the rating for each of the 33 assessment criteria during the focus groups. A draft report was prepared jointly by BDO and NSERC’s project director for Integrated Management Practices (IMP) and validated through a session in which about 40% of the EX level managers participated. The final version of the CA was approved by the Management Committee.

A complete description of the approach and methodology used for the CA is included in the CA report.

c) Executive summary of CA observations

See Appendix 1.