Improving Programs and Operations Module
DRAFT FACILITATOR GUIDE
UPDATE: 11/2/16
Timing of session:
- Session 4 in the AM (after program alignment, same day as decision-making)
Context for and goal of the session:
- In the previous session on Aligning Programs participants will have reflected on their programs,
and how they rank on dimensions of impact and “financial contribution” (or such).
- In this module, we'll explore some tools and approaches for how to improve programs on these
dimensions (both program impact improvement and efficiency / cost improvement, but with an
emphasis on cost), and we’ll give opportunities for teams to discuss what to do for a subset of
programs they have identified for improvement
- By the end of this session, participants will:
o Understand how to start to identify cost and impact drivers for programs
o Be familiar with a set of tools with which to improve their programs on dimensions of
cost and impact
o Start to develop a plan for how to improve a subset of their org’s programs (which they
can follow-up on with TBG coaches)
o Have a framework to guide thinking about continuous improvement within the
organization
o Believe that a role of the Executive Team is to set the agenda for continuous
improvement
Homework

Each team member should identify 2 programs with potential for improvement – one
focused largely on cost / financial improvement, the other on impact
Materials and setup for session:
 WB – for case study brainstorm
 Flipcharts:
o Agenda / objectives
o “Biggest bucket of cost” and “what ratios drive this cost”
 Everyone in plenary
Total time: ~2:50 hours
Section / timing
Slides / materials
Setting the stage /
intro
Case study slide
Content

10 min

(0:10)


Case study set up
and reflection
Slide on OCS
information

At our last session, we used the program alignment matrix to
think about the extent to which your programs help you to
achieve the impact you seek, (within the constraints of cost /
finances)
Since then many of you have begun to conduct that analysis
for some or all of your programs
Today, we’re going to move beyond the static picture of the
matrix and talk about what it takes to move individual
programs up and to the right, and in general how to improve
costs and quality across the organization
For your homework, we asked you to identify 2 programs
within your org, one that could be improved on the dimension
of impact, one that could be improved on the dimension of
cost / financial contribution. We’re going to dig in on those in
a bit, but first, we’re going to explore this through a case study
Let’s imagine that you are the new ED of an organization –
Oakland Community Collaborative
20 min
(0:30)
OCS program
alignment matrix



OCS is a multiservice organization that serves a neighborhood
in West Oakland with a number of services - Behavioral health
/ Counseling for adults and families, an Early Learning
program, an after school tutoring program for teens, and a
community recreation program (dance classes, movie nights
etc, open to the public)
So you are on the leadership team of this organization, and
your team has just done this analysis. Your charge, as a team,
is to think about growth and improvement. Take 3 minutes, as
a team, and think about 2 questions: Given just what you see
here, a) What does this matrix tell you about OSC (easy, open
question), and b) What one question would you like to ask?
o Answers expected:
 What does this tell us: They have four
programs, some subsidize, some are
subsidizing, some programs are doing better
on impact
 What questions: Would want to know about
why XX program is low on impact, would want
to know why XX program is not contributing
financially, would want to know why XX is so
much bigger than others
Teaching points – Having the PA matrix is a starting point for
asking questions that lead to opportunities for improvement this is not meant to be a static picture – you’ll likely always be
trying to move programs up and to the right. AND, for the
2


Cost improvement
20 min
(0:50)
Divide Whiteboard
into two halves (left
for cost, right for
impact); on LHS,
write: buckets of cost
+ variables that drive
the cost
Framework slide with
buckets (as a build)





programs that are already there, you’ll be trying to grow them,
scale them. But also, how you think about doing that is
important, and you’ll need to keep tradeoffs and implications
top of mind.
Okay, so now let’s focus on one program, the Early Learning
program (or if they already went there, build on that). It’s a big
program, high impact. But remember that the y-axis here is
financial contribution, and the EL program is sort of middle-ofthe road in terms of financial contribution, likely requiring
some level of subsidy. To date, OCS has focused on the
revenue piece of this – raising unrestricted revenue to
subsidize the program. But now you need to focus on the cost
side of the equation. Recognizing that you all have no specific
knowledge of the program or org, beyond the fact that it’s a
multi-site classroom-based early learning program, what might
be some options for reducing the cost of the program?
o Capture on whiteboard, you might get:
o Increase students per classroom
o Decrease “overhead”
o Redesign processes (e.g., hiring, applications for
students, payment)
[Ask one person] XXX, if you were the ED, How might you think
about the order in which to pursue these options? Why? [Then
ask for another volunteer or two] [Answers to look for or
summarize]
o Think about which are biggest opportunity – will it be
worth the effort? (but you need to really understand
where the cost is)
o Which will have least impact on the core
First step in this is doing a cost x-ray – really understanding
where costs are for the program and what the main cost
drivers are
[Share cost x-ray guiding questions, written on whiteboard]
o What are the major buckets of cost?
o What variables affect this cost?
So – for OCS – what might the major buckets of cost be for the
ECE? [site costs, if leased. Teacher costs – build off previous
brainstorm discussion]
Show framework slide with buckets (only) –We find that these
major budgets usually fall into one of these categories.
3
Costs bar slide


Show slide with costs
Ok, so teacher costs are the biggest cost. This probably isn’t
surprising. So we’d need to cut teachers right? No? Why not?
(Ask one person who is shaking their head) Oh, we’d want to
know more – what’s the impact? There are other ways to
affect this cost, perhaps, without cutting teachers? So what
variables drive or affect overall teacher costs?
(write up answers...e.g. salaries, benefits, class size);

Show framework slide with variables – again, we find that most
organizations, for these buckets of costs, have a few common
factors that drive cost

But you need to know which of these things most drives cost –
one analysis to help with this is a sensitivity analysis
Okay – so student to teacher ratio is a key cost driver – now,
this might lead us to see the initial list of options differently.
Seems to me that this would be a good first place to look –
student: teacher ratio is the biggest driver of cost, but is it the
best cost opportunity? Let’s recap where we are: we found the
biggest driver (student: teacher ratio) of the biggest cost
category (teachers) of the biggest program (EL) – what else
would we need to know, to really think about what to pursue?
(Expected answers / discussion – should be around the
tradeoffs – how much could you actually do this? Impact on
outcomes? Impact on morale?] Summarize with the teaching
point – so the size of the prize matters, but it’s not just about
that – it’s also about the other tradeoffs associated with any
cost opportunity.
Framework slide with
variables (as a build)
Sensitivity analysis


Opportunities slides /
analyses


How should you go about examining class size / student:
teacher ratio? [The idea of internal benchmarking, etc., might
surface, survey teachers, survey students]
You can use a set of analytical tools that might surface
opportunities, and importantly will help you understand the
tradeoffs (show slide with three cost opportunity tools)
Cost opportunity tools:
o Internal analysis – (if this came up) just what we talked
about. You’d need to know more than just this metric,
you’d want to understand performance across the
organization. For example, are class sizes different in
different preschool settings? Can we increase class size
a bit without compromising quality?
o External benchmarking: What do we know about what
other organizations are doing related to these big cost
4


drivers – for example, what is the average preschool /
early learning class size? What does research tell us
about the right student to teacher ratio for this age
group?
o Looking at other models – this might not apply in the
early learning setting, but this is the notion of
innovation – is there a way to really redesign a
program model to shift how this primary cost shows
up in your organization. For example, for counselling,
would you want to think about moving from a 1-to-1
counselling model to a group counselling model?
That’s obviously a huge shift to consider, but should it
be on the table? What would the impact on impact
be?
Now, you can think about applying these tools at either the
program level or at the broad organizational level (considering
support functions as well). For example, you might think about
your organizations IT costs – you’d go through the same
exercise – what are the key cost buckets, and what variables
drive these costs – might be personnel, might be certain
systems. Then you can use the same tools – internal / external
benchmarking, etc., to identify opportunities for improvement.
We’ll take a short break and then start to do this with your
teams

Break – 10 min
(1:00)
Team time –
exploring cost
improvement – 30
min
(1:30)
Slide with exercise
instruction



HANDOUT to fill out



Debrief– 15 min
(1:45)

Get into teams
Share the programs that each team member considered for
cost improvement, and as a team pick one (5 min)
Go through the exercise to identify what the biggest cost
buckets are
Then, develop a hypothesis for what variables affect this cost,
that you think you might be able to improve upon (coaches
may need to help – see sample cost drivers handout)
Then, reflect on the three cost opportunity tools, and think
about which you might apply to test your hypothesis about
where they might be an opportunity
NOTE – IF teams have more time, they can do more than one
program
Quick debrief: Ask: Were there cost opportunities that your
team discussed where there was disagreement between
members of the team?” Ask an org to share where there was
disagreement and why, and then ask OTHER teams to help
think about how they might address / resolve this challenge?
(e.g., The cost / impact tension might surface; another team
5
might suggest to do a small test, monitor, to do research, etc –
to collect more staff input) (Prompt coaches to listen for points
of disagreement)


Program
improvement – 15
min
(2:00)

OCS Program
alignment matrix
Go back to RHS of
whiteboard – right
now “elements that
drive impact” and
then “factors that
influence these
elements”


So again, we might ask – where do we start? Well, we can use
a similar process to what we did with program improvement
here. (Go back to whiteboard and right impact “equation”
beside cost equation)

And we have some guidelines here (Show framework slide as a
build)– typically, we thing of those elements being essentially –
what is the program’s logic model? Meaning, what is the
stated purpose of the program? Then, what are the program
practices – so how are you delivering the program (because
even if the program is exactly the right program, if you’re not
delivering effectively, you may not realize your outcomes)

Then, once you align on what these key elements are, there
are a similar set of tools you can use to identify opportunities
for improvement: [go through each of three tools quickly]
Framework slide with
impact drivers (as a
build) – elements,
then what influences
these elements
Program
improvement
opportunity slide
So we’ve talked about one axis of the program alignment
matrix – finances and cost. What about the other axis?
Improving impact is tricky – if it were easy, all programs would
be on the right hand side of the matrix
But we can think about a similar process to identify
opportunities for program improvement
Let’s go back to the OCS example and look at the community
recreation program. Generally strong financially, but you want
to think about potential movement to the right – on impact.
What options might you think about?
o Answers – it would depend on what we are currently
doing, and what we are trying to do. We could try to
change who we’re serving with this. We could look to
enhance the activities that we provide through this
program. We could look out outcomes and see if they
can be improved.
o Probe: Depends on why we’re low on this – is it
because we’re not serving the right people? We’re not
doing the right things? Or we ARE doing the right
things, we’re just not doing them well?
6
o
o
o
Program
improvement
exercise – 20 min
NOTE – Meera might want to go through this for LFI with
Preeta; Kirk, you might want to do this with Beth in ATL; OR
facilitator could do this with a team (if a team has an
improvement activity underway)
(2:20)




Team pair share–
20 min
(2:40)
Internal analysis – this starts with the logic model – are
we doing what we’re supposed to be doing?
Sometimes it might be as “simple” as that. Then,
similar to cost, it’s looking at internal best practices.
For OCS – are there particular recreation activities that
are working? Why? It might be looking at dosage – so
maybe we’ve noted that the secret sauce of the
community recreation program is the time that adults
spend with kids, playing basketball, etc. But that these
interactions really need to be happening regularly –
like several times a week – but that’s not always
happening.
External analysis – again, benchmarking can be helpful
here. And also research – what does the research say
about what drives impact?
And there may be no easy answers out there – there
likely aren’t, especially when it comes to impact. So
then it’s about innovation and experimentation – what
are some ways you can tweak or shift your program
model to search for better outcomes? What would you
be looking for in these experiments?
(slide with team
pairings)


Share the programs that each team member considered for
impact improvement, and as a team pick one
Reflect on what might most drive impact in that program –
e.g., the model, or program practices
Identify what factors might most influence those elements,
and craft a hypothesis on how you might modify those
elements to improve your outcomes (e.g., do you think you
might be able to deliver a program with different staff to
achieve better outcomes? Do you think you actually need to
modify the activities / logic model in some way?)
Then think about what improvement opportunities tools you
might apply to test your hypothesis
Great, now pair up with another team
Just think about impact improvement – share the program in
question, your hypothesis about how you might improve this
program, and how you might start to test
7

Closing – 10 min
(2:50)

Listening team – imagine that you’re staff of the presenting
team’s organization. What questions might you have, to
pressure test this improvement opportunity?
This is a process – we’ll continue to talk about how to build
these habits in future sessions, including giving you more tools
for how to do this (e.g., dashboards)
8
HANDOUT: HOW TO IDENTIFY COST DRIVERS?
What program-related factor causes this cost item to increase or decrease?
Cost item
Cost per program varies
with…
Possible cost driver (units)
Salaries/benefits of staff
members who work on a
program or more than one
program
Time required of staff
member, or client /
beneficiary load held by
staff
 Hours spent by the staff member on each program
/ total hours worked by the staff member
 Client or beneficiary load
Salaries/benefits of staff
members who work toward
general organizational
initiatives (not identifiable by
program)
Time required of staff
member (if possible to
allocate by program);
otherwise, size of program
Office space rent and facilities
maintenance
Number of people; amount
of space utilized
 Hours spent by the staff member on each program
/ total hours worked by the staff member (if
identifiable)
 Proxy drivers: For marketing, number of
beneficiaries/ total beneficiaries; For fundraising,
finance, and management, total costs of program/
total costs of organization; For human resources,
size of staff on program/ total staff
 Number of office staff in each program / total staff
 Sq. ft. Occupied per program / total sq. ft.
Utilities
Utilities used
Supplies
Supplies used
IT hardware and maintenance
Number of people using IT
equipment; units of
equipment requiring
service
IT software licenses
Number of licenses
required
Depreciation (equipment)
Equipment used
Legal fees
Hours of legal services
required
Shared marketing materials
and advertising costs
Materials printed; number
of advertisements; number
of beneficiaries
Subscriptions used by more
than one program
Number of subscriptions
Training, conferences and
special events
Staff attendance
 Number of office staff in each program / total
office staff
 Supplies ordered by program/ total supplies
 Other potential drivers, depending on the supply
category (paper, toner, stamps, …)
 Number of laptops used by program / total laptops
 Proxy drivers: number of staff per program / total
staff
 Number of software licenses utilized by program/
total licenses
 Proxy driver: flat allocation across programs
 Amount of equipment ordered by program / total
equipment
 Hours that the equipment is used by each program
/ total hours used
 Legal hours billed by program/ total hours billed by
organization
 Proxy drivers: flat allocation across programs
 Materials ordered by program/ total materials (if
available)
 Advertisements produced for each program / total
ads (if available)
 Proxy driver: number of beneficiaries per program/
total beneficiaries
 Number of readers per program / overall staff
 Number of attendees per program / overall staff
* The cost drivers listed here are meant to be illustrative, not exhaustive. The cost driver may change
depending on how your organization operates
9