Four steps to successfully implement Mesma quality assurance software: Step Four

You’re clear on the return on investment for purchasing Mesma but with so much going on, it’s difficult to see how you’ll find the headspace to implement it successfully.

Sound familiar?

Juggling the day job and implementing changes to the way we do things can feel tough. There’ll always be day to day pressures that keep us rooted in the status quo.

So, combining our years of change management consultancy with the experiences of our clients, here are a series of short blogs covering the four steps to help you to plan for success and make that return on investment a reality.

In this series we have covered:

Step 1: Case for Change

Step 2: Motivation to Change

Step 3: Upskilling the Team

This post focuses on Step 4: Embedding the change.

Embedding the change

The time when a project moves from having someone managing it closely to oversee the roll-out, to it moving into a more operational day to day state is important to get right and requires a bit of planning.

Update existing processes and documents

There are a range of processes you’re likely to already have in existence. Implementing Mesma usually means some changes to the following processes:

Completion of SAR or QIP/ SEF or SIP/ SA or QA/ AMR. Depending on where you sit in the education or employablity sector you’ll call it different things.
Undertaking developmental observations of teaching or other practices.
Undertaking deep dive enquiries or reviews.
Making the link to CPD records and appraisals.
Updating training for new recruits who will use Mesma.

However small, celebrate the successes

People like to see that the effort they’ve put in to making the change to a new way of doing things has been worthwhile. Plan to share good news with staff members. Engage the champions in supporting you to evidence this.

“We regularly shared case studies of end users who had embraced Mesma which gave great tips to other users. Many are now involved in focus groups with the team at Mesma sharing ideas on how the software can be developed.”__

“We were able to show the senior leadership team that our quality improvement plan was more impact focused and that we were making progress against the milestones.”__

“Some of our staff are now involved in Mesma’s improvement partner programme where we work with other providers to solve problems. We make sure we share their hard work with the wider team in our newsletter.”__

“We started using Mesma after a difficult apprenticeship early monitoring visit. Both the software and support from their team played a role in our success at our first full Ofsted inspection.”
__**


Act upon ongoing training needs swiftly

In step three, we introduced the importance of knowing how best to capture ongoing training needs. Step four is about acting on this. Ensure there is a process in place to capture feedback and any residual training requirements. Use the user champions/ subject matter experts to support with this, resolving any issues as they occur, directing team members to online support in the software itself so they can help themselves and capturing any trends that may require a more formal training intervention.

Step 4 Simple Checklist

We have:

Identified any processes or documentation that will need to be updated and who will do it.
A mechanism (such as a generic email inbox) for users to share good practice, ideas, successes and training needs.
A standing agenda item to identify early impact of using Mesma which we can share with others.
Ensured we are familiar with the Mesma support available to users.
Agreed with the team at Mesma how we can share ideas for developing the software or user guides.
Confirmed how we will roll-out any training on an ongoing basis and who will do it.
Ensured users know who the user champions/ subject matter experts are and how to contact them.

A reminder of the steps covered in this series:

Step 1: Case for Change

Step 2: Motivation to Change

Step 3: Upskilling the Team

Step 4: Embedding the Change

Join the Mesma online community to download a free resource covering the checklist for all four steps here.

Updated on: 04/05/2022