2015 ESOS Guidelines Chapter 6 – Role of Lead Assessor

The primary role of the lead assessor is to make sure the enterprise?s assessment meets ESOS requirements. Their contribution is mandatory, with the only exception being where 100% of energy consumption received attention in an ISO 50001 that forms the basis of the ESOS report.

How to Find a Lead Assessor

An enterprise subject to ESOS must negotiate with a lead assessor with the necessary specialisms from one of the panels approved by the UK government. This can be a person within the organisation or an third party. If independent, then only one director of the enterprise need countersign the assessment report. If an employee, then two signatures are necessary. Before reaching a decision, consider

  • Whether the person has auditing experience in the sector
  • Whether they are familiar with the technology and the processes
  • Whether they have experience of auditing against a standard

The choice rests on the enterprise itself. The lead assessor performs the appointed role.

The Lead Assessor?s Role

The Lead Assessor?s main job is reviewing an ESOS assessment prepared by others against the standard, and deciding whether it meets the requirements. They may also contribute towards it. Typically their role includes:

  • Checking the calculation for total energy consumption across the entire enterprise
  • Reviewing the process whereby the 90% areas of significant consumption were identified
  • Confirming that certifications are in place for all alternate routes to compliance chosen
  • Checking that the audit reports meet the minimum criteria laid down by the ESOS system

Note: A lead assessor may partly prepare the assessment themselves, or simply verify that others did it correctly.

In the former instance a lead assessor might

  • Determine energy use profiles
  • Identify savings opportunities
  • Calculate savings measures
  • Present audit findings
  • Determine future methodology
  • Define sampling methods
  • Develop audit timetables
  • Establish site visit programs
  • Assemble ESOS information pack

Core Enterprise Responsibilities

The enterprise cannot absolve itself from responsibility for good governance. Accordingly, it remains liable for

  • Ensuring compliance with ESOS requirements
  • Selecting and appointing the lead assessor
  • Drawing attention to previous audit work
  • Agreeing with what the lead assessor does
  • Requesting directors to sign the assessment

The Environment Agency does not provide assessment templates as it believes this reduces the administrative burden on the enterprises it serves.

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UK Hauliers Pull Together on ESOS

ESOS is what UK business needed, to encourage it to become more responsible for the environmental consequences of making money. Government has met with industry leaders to hammer out the finer details. Now there are heartening signs of intra-industry collaboration, for the example the FTA approach we discuss here.

The Freight Transport Association (FTA) is one of the UK?s biggest trade associations, and exists to represent the interests of companies moving goods by air, rail, sea and road. It is their representative at national, European and local level that advises them on legal compliance. In February 2015, it announced plans to help the industry comply with ESOS too.

The association has been active since the announcement of the UK?s Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme. It has engaged with government and membership through the portal of its Logistics Carbon Reduction Scheme (LCRS). The Environment Agency has singled this out as a benchmark other industries could follow.

FTA general manager for consultancy and tendering Karen Packham recently said, ?With our highly experienced and fully qualified team of transport auditors ?the FTA is best placed to offer practical advice and is able to provide specialist audits to ensure members are fully compliant ? and will gain all the benefits that the scheme has to offer.?

These co-audits with Environment Agency specialists advising, will focus on the full range of operational and supporting activities, and ensure that all haulage companies with over 250 employees do the following:

  • Assess energy use across their full spread of buildings, transport media and industrial activity
  • Examine energy-intensive pressure points and identify savings opportunities that provide financial benefit
  • Nominate an ESOS person to conduct future audits, or oversee and approve them independently
  • Report to the Environment Agency as scheme administrator per statutory intervals

Ecovaro has energy management software that turns metrics into high-level information that busy people understand. Give us a call if you are puzzling how best to present your data. We believe two heads can achieve so much more together.

Maturing Into CMMI

 

In all likelihood, the reason why you landed on this page was because you were seeking CMMI experts to help you meet the demands of a growing number of potential clients who require CMMI compliance.

Whether or not you’re here for that reason, you might want to know why CMMI or Capability Maturity Model Integration is steadily becoming a common denominator among highly successful software and engineering development companies. If you stay for a while, we can show you how CMMI can substantially increase your organisation’s chances of:

  • reducing development costs;
  • acquiring new customers and retaining old ones;
  • beating deadlines;
  • bringing down development time;
  • increasing the overall quality of your products and services; and
  • improving the level of satisfaction of customers, employees, and all other stakeholders.

Surely, no organisation can be too small or too big to aspire for such benefits of attaining high levels of maturity and capability.

If you want to look beyond Maturity Level ratings, then you’ve come to the right place. We focus on introducing CMMI principles and blending them into your organisation’s culture to achieve a truly superior and sustainable business advantage. Compliance will then be an inevitable offshoot of the actions you make.

Likewise, if you simply want to obtain a deeper understanding of CMMI and learn how it can be applied either to your entire organisation or to specific projects, we’d be happy to assist you in that regard as well.

Finally, when you’re ready, we can also conduct CMMI appraisals either for benchmarking purposes or simply for determining how well your process improvement initiatives are going.

CMMI Consulting

Are you worried that implementing CMMI might entail an overhaul of your current processes? Don’t be.

CMMI is all about improving current processes, not replacing them. Ideally, the final result of all process improvement activities should be hinged on your own business objectives and context, so we’ll make sure it remains that way when we work with you.

We rely on our extensive knowledge and experience in CMMI, engineering, software development, and technologies as well as in change and project management in providing model-based process improvement services. Whether you’re gearing up for an appraisal or simply want to employ CMMI-based practices, these are the things we can do for you.

  • Help you interpret how CMMI can be implemented in relation to your business.
  • Assist in convincing sponsors and stakeholders to support your CMMI implementation initiatives.
  • Introduce the necessary training to all individuals who need to undertake them.
  • Conduct a Gap Analysis to find out where your company’s current processes stand relative to their CMMI specifications.
  • Assemble a process group that will champion your process improvement initiatives. We’ll facilitate effective collaboration among its team members, transforming them into a cohesive force designed to carry out plans and motivate everyone else down the line.
  • Introduce tools and practices that will improve the efficiency of our process improvement initiatives.
  • Carry out periodic evaluations and produce reports to provide sponsors and stakeholders a clear picture of our progress.

CMMI Training

Still not convinced CMMI is right for you? There’s only one way to fully grasp the benefits of implementing CMMI – take the Introduction to CMMI course. Although what happens next is entirely up to you, we’re pretty sure you’ll make the right decision after passing it.

Do you need to include people from your organisation in a SCAMPI (Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement) team? They’ll have to undergo this course too. The Introduction to CMMI is for systems and software engineering managers and practitioners, appraisal team members, process group members, and basically anyone who want to grasp CMMI fundamentals.

This is what you’ll be able to do after going through 3 days of lectures and exercises:

  • Gain a deeper understanding of the various components of CMMI-DEV models and their relationships.
  • Discuss the process areas in CMMI-DEV models.
  • Extract and interpret aspects in the model relevant to your own organisation’s processes.

We also offer highly specialised training and workshops such as those for:

  • Achieving High Maturity Levels
  • Top Executives
  • Team Building in Preparation for Appraisals

CMMI Appraisal

An organisation new to CMMI will want to know first how far their current processes are relative to the implementation of model-based improvements in order to determine the resources and time that have to be spent to get there.

Similarly, an organisation already well acquainted with CMMI and has begun taking steps in improving processes, will eventually want to know how close it has come to the Maturity Level it has aimed for.

In both cases, these organisations will have to be assessed by a qualified CMMI appraiser to obtain an accurate picture of their current status. We can perform appraisals on either your entire organisation or on specific projects/practices within a process area. Our appraisers can conduct the following SCAMPI (Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement) appraisals:

  • SCAMPI Class A – This is what you’ll need if you’re aiming for a level rating.
  • SCAMPI Class B – You may want to use this for process reviews or for preparing for a SCAMPI Class A.
  • SCAMPI Class C or Gap Analysis – We typically conduct this for organisations who have yet to implement CMMI-based initiatives so that they can design the most cost-effective road map for the implementation proper.
The Child at Work: Fun Team Builds with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY

There is a child just below the surface in all of us. When were kids, adults lopped off the sharp bits that intruded into their ?genteel? society. Schools, to their everlasting shame sanded away our unique free spirits, as they stuck us into uniforms and imposed a daily classroom discipline. We received badges and prizes if we obeyed, and strict sanctions when we did not. This produced a generation of middle-age managers who no longer know how to play.

Life can be so deadly serious ?

Things work pretty much the same in business. Life is deadly serious. If we want to keep our jobs, we must deliver on the bottom line in our departments. There is little time for fun outside the Christmas party, when we may, within the limits of decorum engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation, rather than a serious or practical purpose.

Team builds (and strategic planning sessions) can be deadly boring affairs that proceed down narrow funnels defined by human resource facilitators. No matter how hard HR they may try, the structural hierarchy will remain intact, unless they find a way to set it aside during the program. Injecting fun into the occasion liberates independent thought, and this is why.

? But not for a little child at play

Next time you dine out at a branded family restaurant, select a seat that allows you observe the kiddies? play zone. Notice how inventive children become, when the family hierarchy is not there to tell them what to do (although parents may try from the wrong side of the soundproof glass). The ?serious play? side of fun team-builds aims to liberate managers by releasing their child for the duration. Shall we dig a little deeper into this and discover the dynamics?

Many of us have less than perfect oral communication skills. This is one of the great impediments to modern business meetings. We may not have sufficient time to formulate our thoughts for them to remain relevant when we speak. When we express them, we sense the group?s impatience for us to hurry up, so other members can have their opportunity to contribute.

Sharing better thinking with LEGO? bricks

Most of us feel an urge to click the brightly coloured plastic bricks together that carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen released into a war-weary world in 1949. The basic kit is a great leveller because the blocks are all the same, and the discriminators are the colours and the power of our imagination. Watching a free-form LEGO builder in action is equally fascinating, as we wonder ?what they will do next? and ?what is happening in their mind.?

Examples of LEGO Serious PLAY in action

Instead of asking team members to describe themselves in a minute, a LEGO? SERIOUS PLAY? facilitator may gather them around a table piled high with LEGO bricks instead, and ask them to each build a model of themselves. The atmosphere is informal with interaction and banter encouraged. It is still serious play though, as team members get to know each other, and their own personalities better

The system is equally effective in strategic sessions, where the facilitator provides specially selected building blocks for the team to experiment with as they learn to listen, and share. This enables them to deconstruct a problem into its component parts, and share solutions regardless of seniority, culture, and communication skills.

Creating problem- and solution-landscapes three dimensionally this way, enables open conversations that keep the focus on the problem. Participants at these team builds do not only reach effective consensus faster. They are also busy building better communication skills as they do.

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