There are just 31 working days until the national contract for the e-KSF comes to an end on the 31^stMarch 2012. For organisations not entering into local contracts with Radcliffe Solutions for the ongoing use of the e-KSF, we need to stop storing and processing organisation’s data before that date in order for us to fulfil our supplier responsibilities under the Data Protection Act.

Over the last couple of months we have been writing about a number of different options that we think NHS organisations should consider for recording performance appraisal in light of the national contract coming to an end. We have also been having detailed discussions with over 200 NHS organisations on what their plans are moving forwards. We would like to take this opportunity to summarise these discussions and provide you with links to all of the articles in our series in case you have missed any.

If you would like us to explain in more detail how these options may fit your organisation, or help you with the design and implementation of new systems, please do contact us for an informal, no-obligation discussion.

The Minimalist Approach

We’re still seeing a “minimalist” approach to recording performance appraisal and development review outcomes at the moment, with organisations looking to simplify their whole appraisal process and make it easier for managers and staff to have constructive discussions regarding performance and capture only core information centrally for critical reporting needs.

For organisations looking at adopting a minimalist approach to performance appraisal we would encourage you to look at what information managers and staff need prior to an appraisal and what they need to produce as a result of an appraisal. Of the information they need to produce as a result of their appraisal, how much needs to be formally written down and how much needs to be recorded in a centralised system?

We would also encourage organisations to consider how their performance appraisal processes fit within their wider workforce development strategies. Since one of the outputs of a good appraisal discussion is a Personal Development Plan – how does your appraisal process link with your learning and development provision?

We believe the key aspect of adopting a minimalist approach is that the process organisations adopt is effective to start with, before looking at which system to deploy.

Introducing a simple KSF Post Outline database

For organisations who may not want the full functionality that the e-KSF can offer but want to be able to reference their KSF Post Outlines (and continue to evolve these over time) one of our partners has developed a robust database using Microsoft Access^TM to enable you to easily manage ALL elements of your existing KSF Post Outlines centrally within your organisation, in the absence of the e-KSF. You will be able to import all Post Outline data that has been exported via the e-KSF, so none of your data will be lost if you decide not to use the e-KSF in the future.

If you would like more information on this solution please click here to access the product fact sheet. Or alternatively our Regional Account Management team are familiar with this cost effective solution and can provide you with an online demonstration or show you the full extent of the functionality at a meeting.

A Focus on ESR and Oracle

The benefits of ESR as a performance appraisal system are well known, it is strongly supported by the Department of Health, part of an integrated suite of HR tools, and is licence free to organisations. However, we think that the main considerations around ESR are less technical/functionality focused, and more to do with local and national strategy.

Since the publication of our first article on ESR, the pilot of the Performance Management Plan (PMP) functionality being developed for ESR has now been completed and findings are being reviewed by the Department of Health.

Our overall impression of the PMP functionality is that it is feature-rich, but complex; the potential flexibility and configurability offered by the functionality needs to be balanced against the administrative effort required to create and manage the Plans and Templates. Our other findings are:

• The system is capable of simultaneously managing multiple appraisal processes and approaches (using a combination of Objective and Appraisal Templates within separate Performance Management Plans, targeted at different staff populations), but our view is that the system’s current usability/navigation issues make these tasks quite complicated.
• Some advanced Talent Management practice is possible (e.g. suitability matching by role/competency); but this requires significant amounts of PMP data to be present in the system before it becomes practically useful.
• The functionality seems to have been designed with a highly structured, performance-related pay, corporate context in mind, and therefore does not readily fit with the traditional public sector model of developmental review and CPD recording; however, a growing emphasis on performance management and workforce efficiency/productivity could make elements of this approach increasingly relevant to NHS staff groups.
• The User Guides are fairly comprehensive, but the range of possible approaches and applications of the functionality make careful project/outcome planning and robust rollout methodology a necessity.

If organisations require any detailed advice on the future of ESR we recommend you discuss this with the national ESR team themselves.

A Focus on the Totara Open Source Solution

Totara is a custom distribution of Moodle, which adds ‘corporate functionality’ including department structures, positions/work structures, competency management, objective setting and powerful reporting. This makes it a viable enterprise wide solution for NHS organisations. Totara is generally used to enhance learning processes, but also works well as a performance management system.

Since writing our article on the use of the Totara Open Source solution for recording performance appraisal we have become Silver Partners of Totara. This means that we are now even better able to run effective end-to-end deployments within organisations of this leading learning platform. In addition our Partnership status gives us more influence (on behalf of our clients) on the Totara development roadmap.

We like Totara because it provides all the benefits of an enterprise-wide, integrated learning and performance system but at a low cost compared with commercial tools. It’s also highly customisable and flexible, which means that it can be implemented to support your existing best-practice processes and forms. We think that Totara will have an increasing importance in this market – the Managing Director of Totara, Richard Wyles, has deep experience of learning systems in healthcare (in New Zealand) and is very focused on continuing to provide systems that improve healthcare effectiveness

A Focus on Microsoft SharePoint and InfoPath

The NHS still has free licences to use a couple of very powerful Microsoft tools – SharePoint (which can be used to automate workflows and store  and share wide ranges of information) and InfoPath (which automates data collection through customised electronic forms, which can be delivered to employee desktops).

We are supporting a number of NHS organisations to use SharePoint to support appraisal processes. Everyone we’ve spoken to has been very impressed by its capability and flexibility. These Microsoft tools can be used to quickly and cost effectively gather and report on appraisal and development information, through the creation of forms that can be used by specific departments or across an entire organisation. More sophisticated forms can also utlise workflow sequences.

If you are looking to automate data collection, we could help you to design forms in Microsoft InfoPath and workflows in SharePoint and deploy this locally. This could involve the following:

• A single form with configured data fields, accessible on your intranet through SharePoint and/or directly from Microsoft Outlook, with branding and instructions that match your appraisal process.
• Multiple forms, with different instructions and information for different staff groups, with workflow to allow manager sign-offs.
• Staff can complete the appraisal form and also record training needs, without having to enter another username/password.
• Data is accessible for both managers and staff to comment and sign off.
• Once appraisals are completed they are submitted and stored for future reference.
• Central HR teams can fulfill reporting needs by running key reports.

A Focus on Mahara for Recording Performance Appraisal

We identified a need within NHS organisations for a portfolio-based approach to learning and development. Historically, portfolios may have brought to mind the “evidence mountain” of copied paperwork and written notes. Mahara is a versatile, slick and online system which gives you the ability to design your own appraisal processes and workflows within an extremely configurable, secure, Open Source framework.

We can help you to design pages based on a set of user-friendly, online templates (journals, a document library, plans, and tags), which individuals use to record, upload and classify evidence. They can then provide appropriate access to Managers, Appraisers, Peers, Mentors, Responsible Officers for validation etc. Employees control the specific information they enter into Mahara and how this is shared, and organisations control who can access the system and what types of information employees store. For example, an employee could create an e-portfolio, then share part of it with their manager as an input to ongoing appraisal; request feedback from their mentor; give access to their professional body for their CPD record for registration / revalidation, and / or share a blog with professionals in the same community of interest.

We think that Mahara can provide a good organisation-wide solution for the light touch recording of performance appraisal, along with meeting a range of emerging Medical and non-Medical CPD and revalidation purposes, to record, organise and securely share CPD and competency evidence information. In addition, due to the low cost nature of this system, we also think that it could provide an ideal solution for organisations looking for a solution for particular staff groups who are more engaged with appraisal and recording evidence for their CPD portfolios and need to have something available for use within short timescales.

________________

As explained in our letters to HR Directors earlier in the year, we’d like to take this opportunity to clarify what will happen if we do not hear from your organisation by the 29^th February 2012 regarding your ongoing use of the e-KSF. We will have to assume that you no longer wish to use the system and on the 16^th March we will lock your e-KSF accounts and write all of your organisation’s data to a CD-Rom which we will post to you using recorded delivery, before permanently deleting all your organisation’s data from our system. Our preference would be for you to contact us and arrange a structured, supported download of your data. This option gives your managers and staff time to download any personal information and the data transfer can take place over a secure web link.

Finally, if you have not yet met with your Regional Account Manager please do get in touch to arrange a no obligation meeting to discuss what solution for recording performance appraisal best fit your local needs. If you are not sure who to contact please email info@think-associates.co.uk  and we will put you in contact.

January Final Notification Letters template

Totara is a new, powerful, open source learning and e-learning management system. We have been tracking the development of the system since it was first released, and I’ve been increasingly impressed by the growing functionality of the tool itself, but even more with the quality, flexibility and vision of the people behind it.

Our partnership means that we can bring our clients the latest Totara developments, and also gives us, on your behalf, an influence on the future development roadmap. The Totara community is large, active and expert, and this allows us to bring together best of breed suppliers to provide brilliant systems implementation and support.

Our research and work with large UK organisations suggests that open source technology has a very bright future to support individual, social and organisational learning. We’ve already started recommending and implementing Totara to revitalise learning processes, and I’m looking forward to a long and successful partnership on behalf of our clients!

Mahara (meaning ‘think’ or ‘thought’ in Te Reo Māori), uses Open Source technology and is an ideal tool to support the evidence-based appraisal requirements of the NHS and wider healthcare organisations. Click here to read more about the UK governments’ encouragement of the procurement of Open Source systems.

We identified a need for a portfolio-based approach to learning and development in the NHS. Historically, portfolios may have brought to mind the “evidence mountain” of copied paperwork and written notes. Coincidentally, there is a similar perception of some NHS appraisal systems. Mahara is a versatile, online system which gives you the ability to design your own appraisal processes and workflows within an extremely configurable, secure framework.

We can help you to design pages based on a set of user-friendly, online templates (journals, a document library, plans, and tags), which individuals use to record, upload and classify evidence. They can then provide appropriate access to Managers, Appraisers, Peers, Mentors, Responsible Officers for validation etc.

Employees control the specific information they enter into Mahara and how this is shared, and organisations control who can access the system and what types of information employees store. For example, an employee could create an e-portfolio, then share part of it with their manager as an input to ongoing appraisal; request feedback from their mentor; give access to their professional body for their CPD record for registration / revalidation, and / or share a blog with professionals in the same community of interest.

Mahara is a learner-driven, organisationally-configured e-portfolio tool, where individuals can:

• Record evidence of their continuing professional development in a very flexible way; this can include documents, images, blogs, written reflections and hyperlinks).
• Create “tags” to group, sort, identify and label evidence (e.g. competencies, behaviours, activities). These can then be used show that one piece of evidence is contributing to demonstrate the achievement of multiple competencies.
• Create blogs and share these with other colleagues using the same system, creating a social learning environment.
• Combine items of evidence into pages, each page can then be shared with different audiences.
• Ask for 360 degree feedback and comments, to receive a rounded view of their evidence.
• Record CPD evidence/reflection/events in a personalised ‘journal’ format.
• Upload and export documents in a wide range of formats.

• You define who has access to items within your system:
• Give access to specific individuals inside (and outside) your organisation.
• Sharing can include the rights to view-only, or view-and-comment, on evidence.
• Specify start and end dates for access.
• Completely customisable design and on-screen text to reflect your local policies and requirements.
• System flexibility enables you to incorporate ‘Job Planning’ and the ‘GMC Good Practice Medical Competencies’ in a range of meaningful ways.
• The system can store GMC numbers and keep Doctors updated with RSS feeds from professional websites and journals.
• The software is Open-Source, so there are no licence fees to pay, ever (you only pay for hosting, support and implementation).

Mahara is based on the following infrastructure:

• A secure, hosted solution, or the option to install on your intranet.
• Confidentiality – password protected access and industry-leading technical security ensure that only authorised people see sensitive appraisal and development information.
• Mahara is Leap2A compliant, which is the emerging standard for e-portfolio systems. This means that evidence data can then be imported into other standards-compliant portfolios, minimising the need to re-type data for regulatory and professional body requirements.
• It is very configurable – in general, if you can describe a function, that function can be built in a quick, cost effective way. So, as more becomes known about revalidation requirements, and how these link to your local organisational requirements Mahara will extend with your processes.
• It interfaces with Moodle/Totara, giving your organisation a complete Open-Source solution to learning and evidence gathering if you so wish.

We can help you to:

• Create a business case for portfolio-driven learning and evidence.
• Understand how the Qualifications and Credit Framework and Quality Assured Lifelong Learning provide significant opportunities for moving from “measuring training” to “measuring achievement”.
• Configure and implement Mahara to reflect the exact needs of your organisation.
• Create a design theme so that Mahara matches your organisational branding.
• Host and maintain Mahara for you, or advise you on what resources and skills you’d need to maintain it yourself.

We think that Mahara can provide a good organisation-wide solution for the light touch recording performance appraisal, along with meeting a range of Medical and non-Medical CPD and revalidation purposes, to record, organise and securely share CPD and competency evidence information. In addition, due to the low cost nature of this system, we also think that it could provide an ideal solution for organisations looking for a solution for particular staff groups who are more engaged with appraisal and recording evidence for their CPD portfolios and need to have something available for use within short timescales.

If you would like more information or a demonstration of Mahara please contact us.

We would like to share good quality materials that we come across with our clients in order to reduce the cost associated with searching for materials and also hopefully stop duplicate materials being commissioned at greater cost to the NHS.

Pukka Films have created a great video-learning resource that we’ve come across which helps managers to understand how to act in cases of Industrial Action. The e-learning is presented as a series of dramatic scenes following a manager as he attempts to cope before, during and after an industrial dispute. The film is divided into 5 modules each with its own learning points for discussion and advice.

It highlights issues relating to behaviour, communication, support, consultation and disciplinary action. The accompanying course materials include discussion points and practical advice on how managers can deal with the stresses, conflict situations, dilemmas and confused loyalties that can arise in strike situations.

We know the NHS has a great record of partnership negotiations and constructive solutions to employee challenges. However, we were also struck by some research from YouGov (Nov 2010) which found that 1 in 5 senior HR professionals believe that trade union action is likely to affect their organisation in the coming months, but that 54% of HR professionals in the UK are working in teams where nobody has any experience of dealing with trade union action.

Our view is that the right time to undertake this sort of learning is when you might not need it, rather than when you find that you could have done with it last week! You can see a preview of the e-learning content on the Pukka films website. You can then ask for further information and I understand that preferential rates are available for NHS organisations.

When we come across additional materials we will add details to our website as a point of reference. So make sure you add our RSS feed to Outlook so that you don’t miss any articles we post or alternatively follow us on Twitter.

My main observation is that the education sector for children is massively competitive, creative, and technology-led, and that some of the underlying ideas would work very well for adult education. Important for a number of reasons, not least because today’s schoolkids are tomorrow’s employees, and from what I can see these employees are going to have very high expectations of how learning should be delivered!

For example, I talked to:

• A company that delivers “artificial intelligence” characters, who can be programmed to respond to learners with facial expressions, moods and spoken word. This would be great for softer-skills training – for example training people in child protection, using scenarios with child-like cartoon characters who respond with realistic moods – giving a level of feedback that can’t otherwise be done because it’s very hard to use “real children” in training!
• A company that provides e-learning and e-assessment “App” development tools, allowing you to design rapid e-learning and quizzes and deliver these to employees’ mobile and tablet computing devices.
• Two companies that deliver high-resolution, 3d models of the human body that could be delivered through, or used to enhance, e-learning technologies.
• A technical developer who has code to integrate Moodle (e-learning) and Sharepoint technologies, providing an integrated learning and knowledge management system and giving e-leaning systems the ability to deliver any structured organisational knowledge to the learner

…and I also spent far too much time on the “Lego for education” stand but that’s another story….

Part of our role as consultants is to research the best that other sectors have to offer, and then to bring these best practices to our clients. So expect to see and hear us talking more about these sorts of approaches when we next see you!

We spend lots of our time helping organisations with pragmatic, rapid approaches to using technology in learning. Please contact us for an informal, no-obligation discussion about how we could help you!

• Appraisal processes and data capture such as for appraisal dates and outcomes.
• Competency profile and job description development and management.
• Medical supervision, appraisal and revalidation processes.
• e-Portfolio using SharePoint My Site.
• Balanced scorecards and organisational objective setting.
• Information Governance tracking and processes.
• Tracking and reporting organisational audit requirements such as CQC, NHSLA, QIPP & Board Assurance.
• HR process management including sickness absence and change of circumstance.
• e-Learning content development, collaboration, management and delivery.
• Internal project management process and documentation (inc. Prince2).
• HR policy development and publication.

SharePoint is often seen as just a document storage or content management system, but more recent versions are so much more than that, moving SharePoint to become a highly configurable, workforce productivity solution and providing an enterprise-wide HR Portal and Workforce Collaboration platform. SharePoint can be configured through forms and workflows to become a bespoke, flexible and cost effective appraisal and learning tool, deployed within your own local network. So whatever your local processes involve we can replicate using SharePoint technology. Reports and customisable dashboards can then help everyone to make better, more timely decisions.

In brief, if you can describe a workforce process and/or the use of a form, SharePoint can be customised to run that process and facilitate that form to capture any required data. When we run a SharePoint enabled performance appraisal project we would typically engage with you on the following steps:

1. Help you to understand and document your processes.
2. Analyse and improve your processes (including forms, accountabilities and sign offs) so that they are effective and lean.
3. Transfer these optimised processes to SharePoint – we can often create first working versions within days of you signing off a process flow.
4. Link existing free or low-cost third party tools to add specific advanced functionality to the SharePoint system.
5. Help you embed these processes via internal communications and training programmes, backed up with robust stakeholder, change and project management.

In its simplest form then your appraisal process could involve the following:

• A single form with configured data fields, accessible on your intranet through SharePoint and/or directly from Microsoft Outlook, with branding and instructions that match your appraisal process.
• Staff can complete the appraisal form, without having to enter another username/password.
• Data is accessible for both managers and staff to comment and sign off.
• Once appraisals are completed they are submitted and stored for future reference.
• Central HR teams can fulfil reporting needs by running key reports.

We primarily like SharePoint solutions because of the control over the processes that the technology affords organisations. In addition the things that we think will make this an attractive solution for NHS organisations are:

• It utilises the historical NHS investment in the Microsoft Enterprise Wide Agreement (EWA) where Microsoft SharePoint & Office 2010 Core Client Access Licences (CALs) are provided free to all NHS organisations in England. The agreement has now come to an end but you still have access to licences that were provided under the agreement. This can help to generate massive cost efficiencies across the NHS.
• It utilises familiar technology for your workforce such as Outlook.
• It utilises single sign-on technology and therefore once you login to your network, you are also logged in to SharePoint and your customised appraisal processes.
• It is a completely configurable approach – SharePoint can be designed to reflect your exact appraisal/development processes and forms, including local branding. If processes need to change, this can be easily configured and managed, allowing you to respond quickly to business needs.
• Your IT department can maintain full control of the system, or we can help you to do this if required.
• Freely available plug-ins can turn SharePoint into a repository and player for e-learning, which will run quickly inside your organisation’s network.
• It can pull in data from other HR and corporate databases and provide you with a great Business Intelligence solution providing, for example, appraisal progress monitoring dashboards for senior managers.

So, in summary, you can cost effectively create and manage your own local appraisal process, with a familiar look and feel of Microsoft technology, give access to managers and staff with minimal login problems, all of which reduce the total cost of ownership of the system.

There are a number of things that you should consider if you are looking at SharePoint to provide a solution for recording performance appraisal (and potentially other business processes). We have listed some key ones below:

• There are resource implications for your own IT Department. Depending on how your organisation decides to use SharePoint, resource will be required to host, maintain and support the solution. However it is normally within the capability of your IT department to deploy and manage SharePoint solutions. Alternatively, we are now Microsoft partners and have two Microsoft Certified IT Professionals for SharePoint  and a number of similar associates for larger and more complex implementations,  who can help with the configuration and ongoing maintenance and support.
• There are some features within SharePoint Server 2010 that require additional licences that did not fall under the Enterprise Wide Agreement. We can advise on this if the scope of your local requirements extends to this level of functionality, e.g. some of the advanced Business Intelligence (BI) functionality falls under the Enterprise Client Access Licence (ECAL), however they are mainly not required and where they are, can be purchased on an ad-hoc basis
• SharePoint is a Swiss Army Knife of a solution – it can be made to do pretty-much whatever you need. So it’s important to be very clear about the aims and detail of the process you want to implement, before you start developing the technology, to avoid scope- and budget-creep. We would of course help you to do this as part of our engagement process.

For more information on SharePoint or to arrange a no obligation demonstration of the possibilities that this technology can provide then please contact us.

At Think Associates we’ve also been through changes of our own, we’ve moved to being entirely independent advisors about workforce technology, and now focus on developing people and streamlining processes, as well as great technology solutions. During 2011, we’ve been working with hundreds of dedicated and expert workforce and learning professionals from NHS organisations across the UK, with the overall aim of helping organisations to find better ways to develop and manage staff.

If you’ve been one of the people who’ve helped us understand the needs of the NHS, co-develop solutions and implement new ways of working in your organisation, then thank you very much for your ideas, enthusiasm and engagement! When we’re successful, it’s as a result of working in partnership with you rather than imposing pre-defined solutions. And if you’ve worked with me, you’ll know I like nothing better than drawing pictures with you on a flip-chart! (Sometimes the low-tech solutions are the best ones. And I have asked Father Christmas for an Etch-a-Sketch!)

If you haven’t yet worked with us, then please do get in touch to talk about how we can work together. We always make time to discuss and learn, and all our conversations are informal and without obligation.

I want to make sure that you’ve not missed any of the articles that we’ve featured on our website, so below is a summary of some of the things that we’ve been writing about over the last couple of months, which I hope will be of interest to you. We will keep listening, creating, implementing and writing throughout 2012 and I plan to write occasional emails like this one to signpost new things on our website. If you like what you read here, please circulate to your colleagues and consider signing up for more regular updates via RSS or follow us on Twitter. If there’s anything specific you’d like us to write about, or if you have great work you’d like us to showcase for you, please let me know.

I’m excited about 2012, more about my New Year’s resolutions to follow in January!

Season’s Greetings, and Best Wishes.

Tim Newham
Managing Director

Our team’s new Microsoft and BCS accreditations
We’re focused on continuing development of our team, so that we can offer you the best independent advice.

Performance Management Thread

Breadth versus Depth
NHS KSF users – are you simplifying the wrong thing?

NHS appraisal system options – what we’re hearing
Common themes arising from our recent performance appraisal discussions with NHS clients.

The Minimalist Approach to Recording Performance Appraisal
We’re seeing a “minimalist” approach to recording performance appraisal and development review outcomes at the moment, with the pendulum swinging away from time-consuming, detailed recording of targets, competencies and achievements.

A Focus on ESR for Recording Performance Appraisal
Should ESR be the central system for recording performance appraisal or a core data repository which accepts data from bespoke localised solutions?

A Focus on the Totara Open Source Solution for Recording Performance Appraisal
A powerful and cost-effective enterprise wide performance management and learning solution for NHS organisations.

Using the Balanced Scorecard – practical advice for healthcare
The practical use of balanced scorecards in healthcare. A guest article by Lindsey Holman.

Learning, e-learning and Talent threads

How to buy a learning platform
A nice post from eLearning24/7, with some additional thoughts from us.

My reflections on the European Totara conference
The Open Source mission: “To fundamentally change the marketplace for learning management systems”.

Creating, corralling or connecting?
Is it possible to create a culture where we trust learners to find their own learning?

Department of Health Framework for Technology Enhanced Learning
The Department of Health published a new framework in November. Here’s what we think.

UK government toolkit encourages use of open source systems
Did you realise that the UK government strongly encourages the procurement of open source systems?

Collaboration using e-Learning Technology
Navigating through the technological options raised by the Framework for Technology Enhanced Learning.

To be sure not to miss out on what we are saying in the future why not sign up for our RSS feed  by adding http://www.think-associates.co.uk/feed/ to Outlook or alternatively follow us on Twitter.

A quick reminder of our Regional Account Management team:

We specialise in implementing e-enabled systems which help organisations improve the way they manage their staff. Specifically, we focus on talent management processes including performance management, learning management and e-learning. If you’d like to hear more about how we can help you then please contact your Regional Account Manager, their details are listed below or you can contact info@think-associates.co.uk.

East Midlands, East of England & Northern Ireland
Mark Parry
mark@think-associates.co.uk
+44 (0)7779 086 473

London & Scotland
Shaun Wilde
shaun@think-associates.co.uk
+44 (0)7966 164 558

North East, North West, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber & Wales
Richard Bradbury
richard@think-associates.co.uk
+44 (0)7803 125 075

South East Coast, South Central, South West
Matt Mundey
matt@think-associates.co.uk
+44 (0)7717 445 129

Rob Winson
rob@think-associates.co.uk
+44 (0)7766 415 533

All Other Enquiries 
info@think-associates.co.uk
+44 (0)117 644 5007

All of our team can be found on Linked in so why not become part of their professional network!

I am delighted to announce that Think consultants Shaun Wilde and Richard Bradbury have been awarded with the Microsoft Certified Technology Professional (MCTP) and Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) accreditations. Their accreditations reinforce our specific capability with SharePoint technology. This means that the advice that you can expect from us on the Microsoft solutions that we are recommending is of the highest calibre.

Also, all Think Associates staff are now members of the British Computer Society (BCS) – the leading professional body for IT.  This is part of my commitment to ensuring that the consultancy advice you receive from us is of the highest standard.