Background
The Composting Association was formed in 1995 and is a not-for-profit membership organisation promoting composting and the uses of composted materials within the UK.

Following a major restructuring in 1999, it has now grown to represent over 700 and Allman Horrocks Consulting were invited to facilitate its annual strategic review at the beginning of 2006. Its objectives are:

+ To advance the science of sustainable organic resource management and related topics
+ To advance the research and promote best practice in composting and the uses of composts
+ To achieve and maintain good standards of practice, competence and conduct by all its Members.

Approach
Like many membership organisations, the Association only had a very limited budget available for the project. However, we were able to obtain 50% Business Link funding and to tailor our approach into a programme of work that could be completed within two workshops, combined with tasks to be completed between workshops with access to mentoring support and feedback as the management team pulled the plan together.

In the first workshop, we initially reviewed the Association's performance from the previous year in order to establish successes and failures, learn from them, and move the Association's planning process forward for 2006. We then facilitated discussions to ensure that all stakeholders had a clear and common understanding of the role of the Composting Association. This element of the project focused on establishing a common vision for the future of the Association. This involved reviewing the Association's mission statement, establishing Critical Success Factors, Corporate Values and strategic objectives.

In the second workshop we reviewed the wording of the strategic objectives, ensuring that they reflected how the Association will achieve its mission and that the right measures and targets were in place to track and monitor performance. We then developed a strategy map to illustrate this. We worked with the team to define the key business processes and analysed these against the critical success factors identified in the previous workshop to develop a process improvement plan. We then worked with the team to pull together all of the work and establish strategic headlines and actions for next 12 months.

Following the workshops, we supported the team in implementing a management system with which to manage the implementation of the strategy through the development of a Balanced Scorecard and One Page Reports for the management team.

Benefits
The Composting Association has:
+ Developed a clear vision of the role for the Association
+ Involved key stakeholders in the development of this vision
+ Implemented a management system against which to measure progress against the plan

Testimonial
“AHC provided The Composting Association with a 'fresh pair of eyes', helping us to review our existing activities and identify priorities for the forthcoming year's business plan.”

“Through a series of workshops AHC provided the Association with a framework for debate, enabling the Board of Directors and Executive Team to identify strengths and weaknesses and translate these into a coherent plan of action.”

“AHC's key strength lies in their facilitation skills. The workshops led to lively debates, which AHC focussed into constructive dialogue. They helped us develop ideas, providing us with a mechanism to prioritise issues and convert them into key deliverables within the business plan.”

“Using the Balanced Scorecard approach AHC has improved our internal reporting process and provided us with the basis for further development and improvement.”
Jane Gilbert, Chief Executive, The Composting Association