Changes in store for WBC Judges and Competitors

During the recent World Barista Championships we saw Stephen Morrissey (2008 WBC Champion) discussing WBC judges' scoring with the comperes, Nicholas Cho, James Hoffmann and Stephen Leighton. For me his insights were fascinating. For example, he said (and I'm paraphrasing, so forgive me if this isn't exactly correct) that the ideal scoresheet as completed by a judge is one that should need no further verbal feedback... that for every score on the sheet, the judge should write a comment explaining that score well enough for the competitor to understand why that score was given. Upon hearing that I couldn't help feeling that, however, that Stephen's is perhaps an idealistic view of the transparency within WBC scoring. My own experience was extremely rewarding but it left me with many unanswered questions and not enough clarity of what I need to do differently in future competitions. (“Buy a watch” was the advice jokingly given by one judge, after I overran by 37 seconds.)

Stephen is on the Board of World Coffee Events (WCE), the organisation that runs and regulates the World Barista Championships - including coordinating judging activities. I wanted to understand more from Stephen's perspective, so I wrote to him. I'm sure he's a busy man and can't reply to every email from random baristas around the world. Nonetheless, I stuck my neck out because if you don't try then you will never know. Surprisingly, he did read my email and contacted two of his colleagues at WCE – Ellie Matuszak and Carl Sara, who are the Co-Chairs of the committee that oversees all of the competitions. The three of them decided to respond!

Thanks so much for agreeing to this. For the benefit of readers could you please explain who you are?

We're chiming in on behalf of the WCE Competition Operations Committee (COC). The COC is responsible for the work around this topic.

Great! So... judging & scoresheets seem to be a sensitive subject for competitors. What are your views on how well the current system works?

At present judges are evaluated based upon the Judge Competencies framework. However, no secrets... the current status of WCE is a bit unusual. The assessment tool, the Judges Calibration Workshop, was built before standardized training toward it was created.

So there is a gap in how judges are trained to attain the competencies required to judge?

That is why we are working on that training now. In fact, WCE is currently developing a standardized judge training program to be in use at the National Body level. We formed a specific subcommittee to develop these modules, the Instructional Design Subcommittee or IDSC.

Ah yes. I recall Instructional Design from the SCAA Instructor Development Programme. In short, it's a model for building training courses.

You will recall that proper Analysis, Design and Development can make all the difference in creating a successful training program or not (this is called the “ADDIE” model of instructional design). No point in doing any Implementation and Evaluation unless and until the AD&D are fulfilled. This training program is huge. It is going to be about 10 separate modules, and based entirely on training toward the Judge Competencies.

Sounds good, but what does this actually mean? What will be different?

The changes you should expect to see range from the obvious to the less-so. First, judges will be trained better, meaning they will be explicitly trained toward successfully meeting the Judge Competencies (= better judging: more fair, more transparent, more accurate)

That's a lot of training. So to clarify, would this new training only be given to judges at the World Championships, and not at a National level such as the UKBC?

No, actually the opposite. We still will not be training judges at the World Level- all training will take place at the National Body Level. Judges can qualify to judge in the World competitions by passing the Judge Certification Workshop. This means that judging from nation to nation will be more consistent. Judging from the National Body level to World Barista Championship level will be more similar. No more surprises as in "my Head Judge trained me to do it a different way" etc.

And hopefully it will go all the way through to Regional judging too (i.e. during National Heats), where there have been some high profile critics of the standard of judging. How do you hope to get this training delivered across so many judges in different places?

Long term, we hope to continue to leverage the parent companies to grow and distribute the training, but we are still working out the details of what that means exactly. (Full disclosure, I am employed by one of the parent companies.)

So we should have better trained judges in future, who will all have a better understanding of the rules and how to apply them. Great! But what about competitors? We need a clear definition of what the judges expectations are. No secrets! I have previously suggested a Competitors Calibration Workshop. What is happening to address that?

One of the forthcoming changes is that anyone who wishes to can sit the National Body level judge training. Active barista competitors may not judge in competitions, but can sit the training. Other interested parties who want to learn about WBC (coaches, volunteers, newbies) can participate in the training and learn something without committing to judge (though we hope they do if they want to).

So attending the judges training will help to prepare competitors for their performance on competition day?

In fact, some modules will be specifically designed for use in the months prior to a competition, rather than at it.

Thanks, Ellie. It sounds like a big improvement to me.

Thank you for your candor and enthusiasm for the process of improving WCE activity as an educational tool.

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As a first time competitor in 2012 I saw many good things and some not-so-good things. There is currently, I believe, an unnecessary communication-gulf between competitors and judges. Some judges seem to recognise this but are unsure how to make things better. When I have previously asked for more clarity from judges, I have been told “we are not allowed to coach competitors”. This problem presents a great opportunity for improvement! Both parties could and should work together more collaboratively. It seems to me that the guys at WCE have become aware of that, and are being very proactive in addressing it in a professional manner. I think the changes mentioned above are nothing short of a giant leap for barista-kind, and I look forward to seeing how this is rolled out globally. There will be challenges involved in implementing the new training program, I suspect, but if it is implemented well then the outcome will be a larger number of highly skilled baristas throughout the world due to the competition being an even better learning tool than it currently is. In my view the WBC remains one of the best possible avenues for learning and fulfilling our potential as baristas, and the future of the competition just got brighter.

To learn more about the voluntary members of the WCE Advisory Board go to http://www.worldcoffeeevents.org/about-us/advisory-board/