CASE STUDIES
Across schools and communities around the world, we help people see their work through new eyes.
Avenor College
Bucharest, Romania
When Avenor College partnered with [YELLOW CAR], it wasn’t just a leap into a new tool. It was a commitment to deeper listening, greater transparency, and long-term cultural evolution.
For Diana Segărceanu, a corporate leader turned school founder, the collaboration felt intuitive from the start.
It felt like coming home. They’re not traditional researchers. They're people who understand schools from the inside. That makes all the difference.
Based on a conversation with
Diana Segărceanu, Co-founder and Executive Director
Listening with Intention
and Building Community Trust
SCOPE OF WORK
Avenor's collaboration with [YELLOW CAR] began with a pilot of the FEI survey, followed by focus groups with students, staff, and parents. Unlike conventional research agencies, [YELLOW CAR] offered a tailored, empathetic approach rooted in experience strategy, not academic metrics.
Key activities included:
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The Felt Experience Indicator (FEI): A school-wide, inclusive survey capturing sentiment across stakeholder groups
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10 focus groups conducted with teachers, students, and parents—designed to go deeper into the survey findings
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Leadership debriefs and data dashboards allowing internal teams to explore patterns independently
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Support in communication strategy, ensuring strong response rates and trust in the process
KEY IMPACT AREAS
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Transparency and Ownership Through Data
The interactive dashboard provided by [YELLOW CAR] was pivotal. Members of the school's Leadership had access to explore the data, drawing their own insights and identifying red flags independently.​
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Building Trust Through Follow-Through
Avenor’s history of honoring stakeholder feedback made the community more inclined to participate meaningfully. [YELLOW CAR]’s guidance in preparing the school - through clear communications, shared intentions, and defined next steps - enhanced that culture of trust.​
​​​Safe and Professional Dialogue via Focus Groups
Diana admitted to initial concerns about running focus groups in a school setting: potential missteps, mixed messages, or disruption. But [YELLOW CAR]’s structured, well-tested protocols provided clarity, consistency, and safety.​​
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Actionable Intelligence for Strategic Planning
The findings have directly informed Avenor’s updated school development plan. Survey responses and focus group themes now serve as a rationale behind specific initiatives, making them more grounded and more resonant across the community.​​​
We used to launch ideas because they sounded good. Now, we have evidence from our community and we can quote it.
ORGANISATIONAL IMPACT​​
The engagement helped Avenor move from intuition-driven strategy to evidence-informed action. The transparency of the process empowered internal teams to take ownership of insights. Rather than waiting on expert analysis, they explored the dashboards, discussed implications, and initiated change.​​
Key outcomes included:
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Initiatives tied directly to specific insights from students, staff, and parents
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More rigorous school development planning, anchored in community voice
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KPIs now being created to track the long-term impact of changes
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Greater teacher engagement, aided by respect for [YELLOW CAR]'s outsider-insider perspective
It’s more powerful when your own people identify the issues. The dashboard made it possible. They saw, they felt, and now they act.
STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
Looking forward, Avenor plans to rerun the survey in 2–3 years, using current findings as a baseline. This will allow the school to track the impact of specific interventions, particularly those targeting collaboration, communication, and culture.
Avenor is also integrating the Felt Experience Indicator data with other organizational culture tools to build a more cohesive picture of how the community experiences school life - day by day, and over time.​​
REFLECTIONS ON COLLABORATION
Throughout the process, Diana noted how [YELLOW CAR]'s dual lens - education professionals with a user-centered mindset - set them apart from conventional vendors. Their ability to design rigorous tools without alienating their audience made the difference.​​
We’ve always had ideas. Now, we can measure whether they work because we know what people were feeling before we made the change.
CONCLUSION
Avenor College’s collaboration with [YELLOW CAR] stands as a model of responsive, intentional leadership.
It demonstrates how listening done well can drive trust, shape action, and reinforce a shared sense of direction across a school community.​​