Hi Erik,
Thanks for your questions. I’m glad to hear that you have found the presentation to be useful.
We decided that we would have all of our assessors undergo assessment first before they were given the so-called “green light” to assess others. So we had a team of about 5 or 6 initial assessors in our office, and we assessed each other first. This allowed us to experience both being an assessor, as well as being the assessee. We decided that it was only fair that we should first demonstrate that we met the AMF competencies before assessing anybody else. In my own personal experience, this also helped me to be a better assessor, since I knew what it was like to be one being assessed. This was also beneficial since it gave the rest of the staff an opportunity to observe what the assessment process would look like, before they themselves would be assessed. Once all of us assessors had undergone the assessment process and were certified as AMFs we then begun to assess the rest of the staff.
As per your second question in regards to the assessor role being assigned to a leader or manager, I suppose that this is something that will probably differ from organization to organization. In our case with our team of assessors, each one of us has a role as either a sector lead or a shift supervisor, meaning that when we work in forecast operations, we are in charge of either a forecast sector or the entire shift respectively. I don’t think that this was necessarily a conscientious factor though in our selection of assessors; it was more about selecting forecasters with a decent amount of forecasting experience (at least 5 years in), and as it happens to be in our office, our more experienced forecasters end up taking on supervisory roles in forecast operations. Being in a supervisory role though, it is important not to abuse that authority over others. This is another reason why having more than one assessor can be beneficial, as it helps to maintain broader objectivity during the assessment.
I hope that this helps to answer your questions; if you need more clarification, please let me know!
Good luck with your assessments, and in all of your preparations.
Regards,
Natalie