The value of consensus in rapid organisation assessment: wildlife programmes and the Conservation Excellence Model

Increasing human-induced biodiversity decline requires greater effectiveness from conservation organisations, despite constraints on available resources. Lessons from business evaluations such as the Baldrige, EFQM and Deming Prize suggest that significant learning and improvement is possible. Limitations arise in these models where sophistications of management are less well understood by the host organisation, but shortfalls can be overcome by innovative assessment. This study examines the application of the Conservation Excellence Model (CEM) on a small, newly-established conservation organisation in the western Caribbean. The assessment process was examined for ease of application, scoring, bias, and benchmarking and involved assessors of varying levels of expertise. Whilst using 32 sub-criteria allowed comprehensive analysis, this was replicated by reviewing at the 9-criteria level in a consensus workshop. The study suggests that the greater familiarity that assessors have with the case organisation, the higher the score given, but greater knowledge of the CEM generates a lower score. Less time spent on assessment appears linked to outlier scores. The consensus process mitigates for biases to achieve a credible assessment score. A trained assessment team can make rapid, robust and well-informed assessments that assist the improvement of an organisation. This suggests that less sophisticated, resource-stretched conservation organisations can gain benefits from the CEM.