Public Sector Client

Strategy for Demonstrating Impact

The Brief

This government agency exists to build the capability of public schools to ensure students with disability are able to access the curriculum on the same basis as their peers by promoting inclusive learning environments through research and evidence-based practice.

The executive team reached out to beech + willow for assistance to develop a mechanism for demonstrating their impact, both for the purposes of reporting and to reaffirm for their staff that they are accomplishing their mission.

The Delivery

While the agency provides regular reporting to its stakeholders (including the Minister) and endeavours to provide a fulsome account of its impact, due to the indirect nature of its services, demonstrating the tangible benefits at scale proves challenging.

After meeting with the executive team, beech + willow devised a methodology to conduct a gap assessment between the organization’s current state and aspirations, to highlight areas for improvement and enable informed decision making. We agreed a staged process with opportunities to reflect and iterate:

  • Ideation – facilitating a co-design process of the vision for impact reporting;

  • Current State – engaging with staff to understand current data, practices and learnings; and

  • Transition Planning – synthesising key learnings into a recommended approach and next steps.

The Impact

Through our work, we developed an overarching Impact Model and Theory of Change that encapsulated the agency’s good work and framed the key design principles that would be consistently applied.

We identified four key domains of focus, each with their own elements and recommendations for improvement, which, once addressed, would enable the client to establish a robust mechanism for measuring and reporting on their impact, both now and in the future.

The leadership team’s feedback was extremely positive; beech + willow created the conditions for strategic thinking and consensus decision making. Our client was able to deeply explore their delivery model, assumptions and ways of working, while reinforcing their state-wide relationships.

Implementation is expected to commence following key decisions on transformation options.