club success toolkit user guide - ...club success toolkit user guide 4 using data visualization and...

2017

By Fred E. Walker, DTM

7/10/2017

Club Success Toolkit User Guide

Using data

visualization and

analytics to help

clubs succeed.

Document & Toolkit Versions: 1.3

Using data visualization and analytics to help clubs

succeed. CLUB SUCCESS TOOLKIT USER GUIDE

1 Using data visualization and analytics to help clubs succeed| By Fred E. Walker, 2017

Document Intent

This document is a user guide intended to provide an overview, instructions, and suggestions for using the

Club Success Toolkit.

Intended Audience/Stakeholders

Club President, VP Education (VPE), other club officers, club members, as well as others who are

interested in the success of the club

District 44 leadership

Toastmasters International®

Notice

Toastmasters International® is a registered trademark of Toastmasters International®. All Toastmasters

International® resources and materials referred to in this document are property of Toastmasters

International®. Excel® is a registered trademark of Microsoft. Adobe® is a registered trademark of Adobe

Systems Incorporated. All registered marks are property of their respective owners.




I. Purpose and Scope

The purpose of this document is to explain how to use and apply the Club Success Toolkit (CST) to help your

club plan and manage goals, track key milestones, and measure other important metrics within the

Toastmasters International® program.

II. Assumptions and Comments

Please keep the following assumptions and clarification points in mind when reading this document and

using the CST:

The Club Success Toolkit, CST, and Toolkit are all the same. They are simply different ways of

referring to the same thing – a set of tools to help you manage and achieve success within your

club.

The Toolkit is NOT self-updating. In other words, the VPE or other assigned member(s) will need to

manually update the CST with club information on a regular and ongoing basis.

A basic understanding of Microsoft Excel® is helpful when using this Toolkit.

While anyone in the club can be assigned the task of updating the CST, this responsibility would

typically fall to VPE since he/she would likely already have much of this information readily

available. For the purposes of this document, it is assumed the VPE is the person responsible for

making these updates (although the VPE could delegate and/or even appoint a committee to keep

it updated, if so desired).

The figures in this document are intended to show the CST components in a general sense.

Meaning, the actual Toolkit itself may from time-to-time be updated and not exactly reflect the

visual representations contained herein.

The Toolkit is not intended to replace any Toastmasters International® materials, tools, or other

performance metrics, but rather to help augment them by providing a convenient way to present

data in an alternate manner that is intended to be helpful to clubs.

The benefit of this Toolkit is directly related to how often it is updated, used, and communicated. In

other words, if it is only updated once a year, it won’t be as beneficial as if it were updated monthly

or for every meeting. In addition, once updated the Toolkit should be shared with your

members/officers to get the most benefit out of using it. It’s up to each club to determine how best

to communicate this Toolkit (i.e. printed and shared during club meetings, posted on a

website/shared drive available to club members, etc.), but the key point is that it should be shared

with your members on a regular basis.




III. Overview

The CST will help you to better track and manage key indicators and metrics that are important to the

success of your club. The CST consists of several components. Each one serves a different purpose.

Together, they are designed to help you manage your club’s progress by providing convenient ways to

capture and organize information and display it in a visual manner. The three main components are the

following:

(1) Club Goals Overview

(2) Dashboard

(3) Communication and Leadership Progress Tracker*

*Note that the Communication and Leadership Progress Tracker has three different variations that you can

use. Choose the one(s) that best meets your club’s needs.

Below is a visual overview of the main components which will be explained in more detail later in this

document.

Figure 1




IV. Club Success Toolkit Components

This section provides details on each of the components.

A. Club Goals Overview

This component of the CST focuses on the ten Distinguished Club Program (DCP) goals a club

typically works toward completing every year. It helps you plan your goals for the club, keep track

of them, and communicate them to your club officers, members, and district leadership when

needed. This component is further broken down into two sections: (1) Educational Goals and (2)

Member, Training, and Administrative Goals. Refer to Figure 2.

To use this component, fill out your club’s Educational goals for the upcoming year as well as your

goals/plans for Membership, Training, and Administrative activities. At the beginning of a club year,

you might also consider meeting with your club members and requesting that they make individual

commitments toward communication and leadership goals. Once this is determined, list your

members who have committed to completing such goals in this component. For example, you

would list the names of members who are working on their Competent Communicator, Competent

Leadership, and Advanced Communication/Leadership goals in the first section or tab. As DCP goals

are completed, you then indicate “100%” complete.

The Member, Training, and Administrative section allows you to plan for these activities and to gain

commitment to attract new members, complete officer training (e.g., attending TLI or Toastmasters

Leadership Institute), and complete administrative activities. As in the first section, simply list the

member names (i.e., new members, officers trained, etc.) where applicable. For new members, you

could at first just set a goal of attracting eight new members (since you likely won’t know their

names at this point), and then when new members join, add their names for your club’s

tracking/recording purposes as desired.

You can also manually track Percent Complete, Planned versus Completed, along with Target and

Actual Completion dates in this component.

Think of this component as a way to help you plan, organize, and manage your club’s yearly DCP

goals. It provides you with a mechanism to track the progress of the club and of members who have

committed to achieving certain goals for the year.

Additional Suggestions: Completing the Club Goals Overview component can help you with your

Club Success Plan at the start of the club year. It also provides a convenient way to capture all this

information in one place, which in turn can be printed and/or emailed to your club members and

Area Director (AD). Note: Your AD will likely request this type of information from you at the

beginning of the club year, as well as during his/her visits throughout the year. For education goals,

rather than list all your members in this component, list only the members who have committed to

completing their individual goals for the upcoming year.




Figure 2

This

component is

divided into

two sections

or tabs. It can

be used as a

planning

guide to help

your club

track

progress

toward your

DCP goals.




B. Club Dashboard

The Dashboard component provides a visual snapshot of important milestones, DCP progress,

meeting attendance, budget information, and other important metrics at the club level. When kept

up to date, this component shows a quick overview of club status in an easy to read one-page

format. It can be used during officer meetings, general meetings, as well as sent directly to

members and your District leadership team to keep them updated on your progress at any given

time during the year. Figure 3 below shows the Dashboard. The next several pages cover details on

its various sections. Note that the Dashboard has an “Input” section (tab) in which you enter

information that is displayed on the Dashboard itself (refer to the actual component for more

details).

Figure 3




Figure 4:

Section 1:

Club Name and Year: The club

name and year are indicated in

this section. Enter club year as

‘Year – Year’. Example: 2016-2017

Section 2:

Key Club Event Milestones: Important club

milestones are listed in this section. As you

complete the milestones, check ‘’them off on

the list in the Input Tab. An indicates the

milestone was not completed or missed. A blank

space simply means it is not yet started and/or

completed. Note: This milestone list is not meant

to be all inclusive, but rather cover most things a

club would typically complete during any given

club year.

Section 3:

DCP Progress Tracking Goals: The

number of Planned and Actual

completed DCP or Distinguished

Club Program goals are indicated

and tracked in this section.

1

2

3




Figure 5:

Section 4:

TI Education Program: This section is

for you to indicate the number of

Planned and Actual Toastmaster’s

educational programs your club

anticipates delivering this year (i.e.

Moments of Truth, programs from The

Successful Club Series, etc.).

Section 5:

Countdown to End of Club Year:

This section shows a count-down

(number of days remaining and %

remaining) until the end of the

club year. This provides a way to

quickly see how many days are

remaining in the club year which in

turn can help motivate your club’s

members to work towards

completing their goals.

Section 6:

Meeting Attendance & Attendance Metrics:

This section shows meeting attendance metrics

in graphical and numeric format.

4

5

6




Figure 6:

Section 8:

Club Membership: This section shows

your membership strength at the

beginning of the year compared to

your current ‘Active’ membership at

the time you generate your report.

Refer to the Toastmasters

International® website for information

on your club’s membership.

Section 7:

Club Budget for the Year: This

section contains club budget

information for the upcoming

year. You would indicate the

Planned amount your club

anticipates spending for the year

(i.e. this year’s budget) as well as

what you’ve actually spent to-date

(as the year progresses). This can

help you quickly see and keep

track of your club’s performance

from a budget standpoint.

7

8




C. Communications and Leadership Club Goal Progress Tracker:

The next component of the CST encompasses a visual representation of member progress towards

completing various communication goals and new membership growth for the club. There are

three separate variations of this component to allow you flexibility in using the one that works best

for your club.

(1) Communications and Leadership Club Goal Progress Tracker

(2) CC and CL Extended Progress Tracker

(3) CC Progress Tracker

The main component is called the Communications and Leadership Club Goal Progress Tracker (or

simply Club Goal Progress Tracker) and is pictured in Figure 7. It shows the different sections of this

component which includes Competent Communicator, Competent Leader, Advanced

Communicator Bronze, and New Members Joined by Month.

This “one-pager” is a quick visual overview providing an easy way to see how your members and

club are progressing toward achieving goals at any point during the year. As a side note, by showing

this information visually it may help be a motivator to club members to complete their goals. [In

one of my clubs and in using the Competent Communicator visual tracking portion of this toolkit, it

prompted friendly competition among members to see who could complete all ten projects in their

CC manuals first]. Note that due to page size limitations only 14 member names can be displayed

on this component at any given time. Therefore as a few suggestions, if you have more members

that you want to list you could decide to include only members who have committed to achieve

their specific goals for the upcoming year. If that number still exceeds 14, you may want to only

include members on the graph who have first completed a minimum number of speeches. For

example, set a minimum of one, two, or perhaps even five speech projects before listing them on

the Progress Tracker. You could even include all members (even if the number is greater than 14)

by simply printing a second page. Determine a number/method that makes sense for your club.

Overall, it’s up to you how you want to list your members. Just keep in mind only 14 member

names can be displayed at any one time. The same goes for Advanced Communicator Bronze and

Competent Leader tracking. With this said, Figures 8 and 9 shows variations of the Progress Tracker

that gives you the flexibility to add more member names.

Overall, use the Progress Tracker component/variation(s) that best meets your club’s needs.




Communications and Leadership Club Goal Progress Tracker

Figure 7:




The CC and CL Extended Progress Tracker pictured below allows you to enter up to 30 member

names.

Figure 8:




A larger version of the Progress Tracker (CC Progress Tracker) showing only members working

towards their CC goals is pictured below in Figure 9.

Figure 9:




V. Technical Details on Saving and Distributing the Files

To make updates to the Club Dashboard and Progress Trackers, click on the Input Tab in each component

file and follow the directions. To make updates to the Club Goals Overview component, enter the updates

directly on the worksheet.

When making your updates, it’s suggested that you save the files under a different name (i.e. with different

dates appended to end of the file name such as Club Goal Progress Tracker_May252017) for your tracking

purposes.

For distribution, rather than send the Excel® files which could be inadvertently updated, consider saving

instead as an Adobe® PDF file. In Microsoft, perform a Save As and select PDF format for the Save As type.

Select Options and indicate Page(s) as applicable. For example when saving the Dashboard as a PDF, select

Page 1 to 1. In doing so, you only create a PDF of the Dashboard worksheet and not the entire Workbook

which includes the Input tab. In addition, by saving as a PDF you don’t have to be concerned if some of your

members may not have Excel® or an applicable viewer and would therefore be unable to open the

spreadsheet file.




VI. Key Success Factors (KSFs)

To get the most benefit out of using the CST, below are a few Key Success Factors (KSFs) to consider.

A. Ownership and Accountability: For the CST to be of the most benefit to your club, the VPE or

designated administrator in charge of updating the information must commit to the job for the

duration of the club year. Members must also commit to providing updated project completion

information in a timely manner, and the VPE must regularly update the various components of the

CST.

B. Data Management: As briefly mentioned earlier, there is no automatic data feed for updating the

CST. Updates will need to be made manually. Therefore, making sure information is updated in a

timely and accurate manner is critical to success.

C. Member Commitment: Members should commit to working toward their individual goals, as well as

to helping set and achieve goals for their club. Club officers should help motivate their members to

work toward completing various DCP and other club goals, as well as promote programs to grow

the club’s membership.




VII. Author Commentary

Hopefully this document has provided you with some beneficial information on how to use the Club

Success Toolkit. Using it can help your club to better manage and track important metrics that are critical to

your success within the Toastmasters International® program. The CST is a tool that can help your club, but

it will only work if the content is continuously updated and made available to your members. Keeping the

information up to date is very important and does take work. Since there is no automatic data feed,

someone in your club (again, likely the VPE since he/she will already know much of the information the CST

uses) will need to take ownership and update the Toolkit on a regular basis. Since the key benefit of the CST

is to help you manage and achieve your member and club’s goals, it will only work if you make a

commitment to keep the information up to date.

Regarding the various components and sections, I advise you to simply use what works best for your club. If

all are of help, great! However, if only one component of the CST is helpful to your members and the others

are not, just use that one component and put the others aside. The same goes for various sections within

the components. Use the component(s)/section(s) that most help your club to achieve its goals.

Once you decide on the CST component(s) and/or section(s) you will use and begin making updates, you

will also need to decide how you will communicate the information to your members (e.g., send via email,

post on a shared site, etc.). You will also need to determine how frequently you will provide updates. For

instance, you could update and publish the Toolkit weekly, biweekly, monthly, or quarterly. Just choose a

communication method and consistent timeframe that makes the best sense for your club and stick to it!

The CST isn’t something that has a theoretical benefit. It works! I know this because I have used some of

the earlier versions of the components outlined in this document. For instance, as mentioned previously,

when I used a visual graph showing members working toward completing their Competent Communicator

manuals, it promoted a spirit of friendly competition amongst the members in my club to see who could

finish all ten projects first. I also experienced how members were more actively engaged in working on their

communication projects when they could see their progress and the progress of their fellow members.

Regarding the Dashboard, I used this while serving as president at one of my clubs. It helped frame our

current progress regarding DCP goals over the course of the year and was a “quick read,” showing at a

glance how we were doing as a club. It also provided insight into how many people attended our club

meetings during a typical week, as well as other useful metrics.

I hope this CST can assist you and your members to better track, manage, and measure metrics that are

important to your club and ultimately help your members and club achieve success within the Toastmasters

International® program.

VIII. Contact Information

My email address is listed below if you have any questions or would like additional information.

Fred E. Walker, DTM; [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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