We distilled more than twenty years’ experience of reviewing hundreds of boards into our online board assessment platform. It does so much more than grade performance, providing insightful analysis and reporting to help your board formulate a practical development plan.
Using Thinking Board for your board review
You can get a lot of more value out of a questionnaire-based board review than you might think. If you use the right tool.
Time saving features
We require minimal information from the Company Secretary, and just a few hours’ time in total. Respondents will only need 20-40 minutes. The whole process can be completed in three weeks, from sign-up to board report.
Thought-provoking questions
Our question process is structured to be educational, so that completing the assessment acts as training for respondents. The report is also designed to provoke valuable discussion that leads to practical development actions.
Insights that provoke action
Results are presented in easy-to-read formats. Bar charts and heat maps show response patterns and highlight trends. Flagged issues help identify reasons for expressed concerns.
Easy To Use Board-Ready Reports
With Thinking Board Evaluator you get an automated summary report highlighting main findings and suggested areas for board focus. Use Thinking Board for a more in-depth approach. You’ll get an analytical brief from us or a full Independent Audit report.
Great Personal Support
You’ll have a designated team member available to assist with set up and administration if you need it.
A Full Range Of Governance Assessment
For use at any time, our Thinking Board library has specific question sets to facilitate a deeper exploration of a whole range governance elements.
What really makes a difference is our questions.
Thinking Board questions are painstakingly designed to deliver far more insight than you might think is possible. We’ve built them to incorporate features that provide more value for your Board:
Question structure
- Thinking Board poses questions in a unique way that does far more than ask for a score.
- We ask respondents to think through several influencing factors before they give a response – and require them to pinpoint specific areas where they see room for improvement.
Better outcomes
- More engaging questions stimulate more thoughtful responses.
- It’s possible to identify the reasons behind the scores provided.
Question structure
- We use interesting, thought-provoking language and avoid jargon, word lifted out of codes, and all forms of “compliance-speak”.
- Questions use the language of the boardroom, and approach issues pragmatically, from a director’s perspective.
Better outcomes
- Respondents understand the real purpose of the question.
- Answers often include evidence and practical suggestions for further discussion.
Within the Thinking Board library, you’ll find a whole range of governance expertise captured in a series of questionnaires, designed to help you with everything from your annual board review to more focused assessments of risk management & culture, ESG, Internal Audit and more.
In Thinking Board you’ll find our governance effectiveness expertise captured across many different questionnaires that you can pick from to meet your needs. Some simply help you meet your annual board review needs by looking at the effectiveness of:
- The Board
- The committees: Audit, Risk, Rem, Nom
- Individual directors
- Specific committees eg: Investment, ESG…
- Chair and Committee Chairs
You’ll also find a wide range of questionnaires looking at specific aspects of the Board’s work or at the effectiveness of parts of the governance framework to support the committees. Here are just a few examples of questionnaires designed to help the Board do its job:
- ESG and the Board
- Cyber and the Board
- Risk Management
- Internal Audit
- Risk Culture
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Thinking Board combines:
We distilled more than twenty years’ experience of reviewing hundreds of boards into our online governance assessment platform. It does so much more than grade performance, providing insightful analysis and reporting to help your board formulate a practical development plan.
Internal review options
External review options
THINKING BOARD Evaluator
Short self-assessment questionnaires that provide an overview of Board and main committee performance
Guarantees secure, anonymous answers for respondents
Provides an automated, board-ready report
You handle administration
A cost-effective, standard-format board review solution
THINKING BOARD Supported
Fuller questionnaires covering the Board and committees
Question coverage and format can be adjusted to suit individual contexts
Friendly personal support to assist with setup and administration
Analysis of results by an experienced Independent Audit consultant
We’ll help you find the best solution for your specific needs
THINKING BOARD Plus
Questionnaires provide detailed assessment of the Board and committees
We work with you to adjust questions to ensure we achieve your objectives
Personal support and regular feedback throughout the review process
Supplemented by meeting observation and board paper review
We provide a full-length Independent Audit report that highlights areas of strength and suggests priorities for development
We’ll help you create a solution that achieves your Board’s objectives
Group Thinking Board: specialist support
for subsidiary boards
Group Thinking Board: specialist support for subsidiary boards
Quick view heat maps support a drill down to each board so you can see what is happening at each subsidiary
Compare ratings, areas for improvement and comments for different boards across the group.
What our clients say about us
“We wanted our board review this year to build on the previous one and Thinking Board provided us with both like-for-like comparison and fresh content that covered new developments. The process was clear with excellent support and the report provided the board with valuable insights. The Independent Audit team were professional, experienced and very
“The tool Thinking Board was comprehensive, easy to use and encouraged directors to give useful comments and thoughts, not just respond to the questions. We wanted a straightforward process that gave us a thorough and independent evaluation, which Independent Audit delivered.”
“Independent Audit’s automated online platform was really easy to use and very efficient in terms of the minimal time required to administer. The generated report was very helpful in that, beyond fulfilling compliance needs, it stimulated a worthwhile board discussion. When you consider the amount of CoSec time saved, the simplicity of the process and the quality of the report, it really is excellent value for money and a significant improvement on anything we could undertake internally.“