The agency task force for the YOS and COS Redesign Project officially started their work on redeveloping Big Brother Big Sister’s outcome surveys with a two-day onsite kickoff meeting in Tampa last week.

The first day of the kickoff meeting focused on getting task force members up-to-speed on the redesign project and the history of the YOS and COS. The day started with the team’s project manager, Kevin Turgeon, providing the task force with an overview of the project’s objectives and timeline. Then the project’s two research subject matter experts, Jessica Mitchell and Carla Herrera, walked the team through the history and design of the current YOS and COS. The first day ended with the team reviewing the results of the network survey on the content of the YOS and COS that was conducted in January.

The first part of the second day of the kickoff meeting was spent determining the guiding principles for the redesign of the YOS and COS. These principles will serve as the task force’s north star as they make decisions on how to redesign the YOS and COS. The redesign team’s guiding principles will be published on the project website in the coming days.

The task force’s guiding principles will guide the development of the new YOS and COS.

The second part of the day was spent determining the redesign process that the task force will follow as they develop the new YOS and COS. This process is as follows:

• The team will start their work redesigning the YOS and COS by removing full constructs from the surveys. A construct is a set of questions that work together to measure a specific aspect of BBBS outcomes. The decision of what constructs to remove will be based on survey feedback from the network and the importance of the construct to measuring key BBBS outcomes.
• The team will next look to replace any potentially concerning remaining constructs with other existing question sets. This work will be guided by network survey responses and the availability of replacement constructs.
• Next the team will turn its attention to editing constructs where possible. Some of the constructs that make of the YOS and COS can be edited and remain valid measurement tools. Other constructs will lose their validity if edited. For those constructs that can be edited, the team will work to clarify and shorten the language used in the construct.
• The team will then work to determine what, if any, sections of the YOS and COS can be made optional. Optional survey sections will be present in Matchforce, but agencies will be able to turn the visibility of the sections on and off as desired.
• Finally, the team will turn their attention rewording any cumbersome instructions that are present in the YOS and COS.

The result of the task force’s work will be released to the network in the form of draft surveys around the middle of March. All agency staff members will be able to provide feedback on these drafts and this feedback will guide the final revisioning of the YOS and COS.

If you are interested in learning who is representing your affinity group on the agency task force for the YOS and COS Redesign Project, click here. If you have any questions about the redesign project, please click here to submit your question the project team.