BRIAN Diagnostics
Our Business Research Information Analysis Navigator (BRIAN) provides the business advisor with a powerful tool to measure and monitor both the business and social capital of an enterprise.
What some clients have said about BRIAN:
"BRIAN gave the directors a clear direction for the changes we needed to make to successfully convert from grant dependency to a sustainable business."
"It was extremely useful and gave us an insight into what we had been able to achieve and how much we were moving forward."
"BRIAN is exciting as it measures aspects of our work which no other similar tool does and helps us to focus and demonstrate some of the non-financial outcomes of our work."
"Thank you for the evaluation report ... I found the exercise very useful and have identified some areas where we could improve ... thanks again for your assistance the whole process was remarkably pain-free!"
What some business advisors have said about BRIAN:
“Got a clearer picture – for us and them”. - Rob Gittins, Co-active Ltd
“Good experiences – threw up action points – pro-active work”. – Bryonie House, Co-active Ltd
What is BRIAN?
BRIAN stands for 'Business Research Information Analysis Navigator'. It is a diagnostic tool for social enterprises to aid self-analysis and effective intervention by business support agencies. It offers businesses a chance to 'walk around' their enterprise in the company of a business advisor - and to jointly explore its strengths and areas which might need developing.
It was created by Peter Lloyd (Emeritus Professor of Geography at Liverpool University) and Co active Ltd under the Phoenix Development Fund. The Fund subsequently commissioned BRIAN's further development and piloting around the country which resulted in the version 2.
BRIAN has been independently tested by Professor Mark Hart of Kingston University using Cronbach Alpha and Confirmatory Factor Analysis techniques, which provided an indication of the robustness of BRIAN in the context of the 145 organisations that have experienced BRIAN. His report concludes:
"It would appear, therefore, that there is some substance to the claim that BRIAN offers, for the first time, consistent, quantifiable and internally segmented data for a complex population of social economy organisations".
BRIAN's development and availability to social enterprise business advisors around the country
Fairly soon in its development it became clear that BRIAN had the potential to be useful to business advisors social enterprises further afield that just Co-active and its clients.
With this in mind the Small Business Service resourced a BRIAN workshop in 2002 at which approximately 30 interested business advisors attended. Considerable interest in using BRIAN around the country was expressed; but there was not the resources or spare capacity to do much about it (with the exception of a pilot using BRIAN with The Guild in Norfolk as a project evaluation tool).
Once BRIAN had been further developed and used in Co-active's Phoenix project, in 2004 the Small Business Service, Peter Lloyd, Ecotec Consulting Ltd and Co-active worked on a national project to test the value of BRIAN. To begin, an independent reference group was established; the project then comprised three phases, each one being dependent upon the previous ones.
Phase 1 involved creation of BRIAN related resources and the training up of business advisors in the East Midlands, the North West and in London in using BRIAN so that they could carry out a series of pilots around the country. Once pilots were completed and the data produced analysed (both generated by BRIAN and feedback from advisors and clients) a decision was taken that BRIAN did indeed have some intrinsic worth and the project proceeded to Phase 2.
Phase 2 covered the statistical analysis (Kronback Alpha etc) of BRIAN data and the resulting recommendations to adadptations of its structure. This phase confirmed its effeciency as a statistical 'predictor' and resulted in the original five scales used in BRIAN being trimmed down to three. On completion of this phase the decision was taken to move to Phase 3.
Phase 3 comprised two parts; the further development of BRIAN and associated resources to the stage whereby business advisors could use it easily. The second part of Phase 3 was trimmed down to delivering two 'Train the Trainer' workshops held in Taunton and Woking helping senior business advisors not only understand how to use BRIAN, but how to support and train others in using it too.
Currently (May 2006) the DTI hold the copyright for use of BRIAN in England; and it appears this right to use BRIAN has been transferred to the East of England Regional Development Agency (excepting Co-active's use in its area of operations).
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Related Documents | ||
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BRIAN and the Business Advisor ( 44 KB) | |
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Co-active Ltd: Company Registration No. 2050566 (England)
Registered Office: 25 Wolseley Close Plymouth PL2 3BY