Our services
We help clients navigate devising and executing collaborative strategies
Overview of our service offerings
The toughest challenges in health are unlikely to be solved by organisations working alone. We believe that collaboration is the most impactful way to advance population health.
Collaborative ventures vary in their starting points and do not always follow a linear development path. Our service offering diagram reflects the dynamic and non-linear journey that leaders of strategic collaborations often undergo.
As collaborative ventures progress, they frequently need to revisit their strategic thinking to adapt to evolving circumstances. Our services are designed to support clients at any stage of their collaborative journey, facilitating their progression.
Here’s how we assist our clients:
Frame the vision – We work with clients, whether individual organisations or founding partners, to articulate the vision for their collaborative endeavor and develop a concept for their combined venture.
Identify partners – By understanding the collaboration's vision, we assess the necessary change levers and identify potential collaborators who can contribute to the venture's success.
Build coalitions – We map and analyse the stakeholder environment to develop stakeholder engagement plans, aiming to bring individuals and organisations with the required capabilities and access to change levers into the collaborative venture.
Design strategy – Utilising a variety of techniques, we work with key partners to develop pragmatic strategies and detailed implementation plans for the collaborative venture.
Execute strategy – With a strategic mindset, we excel in executing implementation plans for collaborative ventures. Recognising their inherent complexity and unpredictable challenges, we specialise in adaptive program management, governance, risk management, change management, startup operations, strategic recruitment, and procurement, ensuring our clients can deliver on their strategy.
Evaluate progress - We conduct formative, summative, and economic evaluations of collaborative ventures at various milestones to inform clients of the venture's impact and make recommendations for improvements.
By offering comprehensive services tailored to the unique needs of collaborative ventures, we empower our clients to navigate their journey effectively and achieve their desired outcomes.
Frame the vision
Collaboration often begins with a sense of the potential value in working closely with aligned partners. However, at this stage, the specifics of what the collaboration will achieve, who it will benefit, and the outcomes it aims to deliver may not be fully articulated. Framing the vision transitions us from this intuitive notion of collaboration's benefits to a clear articulation of our objectives.
Our methodology commences with a thorough understanding of the context. Through desk-based reviews and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, we delve into the collaboration's background, the capabilities of current partners, and the prevailing perspectives on opportunities.
Subsequently, we guide stakeholders through a Design Thinking process to develop a shared concept for the collaboration.
Our Design Thinking process is inherently non-linear. New information may emerge at any stage, necessitating a revisit to previous stages. This flexibility ensures that Design Thinking is continuously refined. Even post-launch, it enables us to respond to stakeholder feedback and evolving needs, adapting and enhancing the concept over time.
The approach encompasses the following five stages:
Empathise: Research users’ needs
Define: State the needs and the problems
Ideate: Identify innovative solutions to the problem statement(s)
Prototype: Develop a preliminary model of the concept
Test: Gather feedback from key stakeholders on the prototype
Non-linear Design Thinking stages
Deliverable: Concept paper
The primary deliverable from this service is typically a visually appealing and informative brochure, approximately 15 pages in length. This document serves as the initial marketing collateral, outlining the collaborative venture's opportunity and concept. It plays a crucial role in garnering support from the diverse stakeholders necessary for the venture's success.
Identify partners
To achieve significant objectives, we often need to access multiple change levers. Many of these levers may not be accessible to a single organisation, which is why collaboration becomes essential. By strategically identifying partners based on the requirements for success, we can form a consortium that brings together the necessary components for achievement.
Our methodology progresses from the developed concept to identify the critical ingredients essential for the collaborative venture's success—these are the key change levers. We then rigorously assess the extent to which current collaboration members have access to these levers, pinpointing any missing elements.
Subsequently, we engage in the process of identifying organisations and individuals capable of filling these gaps.
Deliverable: Target partner profiles
The outcome of this effort is a curated list of organisations and key individuals that the collaborative venture should aim to integrate into its partnership model. This compilation is derived from a comprehensive gap analysis, assessing the requisite access to change levers.
Change levers to effect major change
Build coalitions
Collaborative ventures need partnerships. Once we have a concept for the collaborative venture established, we work with clients to cultivate a coalition of active partners and key supporters for the project.
By conducting working sessions with clients and their current collaborators, we develop a tactical plan to attract additional partners and supporters to the venture. This process begins with stakeholder mapping of the identified target partners and other stakeholders critical to the venture's success. Understanding these stakeholders helps prioritise engagement efforts based on the impact the venture has on them and their influence and level of support.
Based on the analysis, we outline the target journey for each stakeholder, recognising that start and end points may vary.
Subsequently, we devise a comprehensive set of activities and tactics to guide stakeholders through their respective journeys, encapsulated within a Stakeholder Engagement Plan.
The next crucial step is to implement the Stakeholder Engagement Plan and commence building the coalition for the venture.
Deliverable: Stakeholder Engagement Plan
The Stakeholder Engagement Plan outlines the intentions, objectives, and strategies for engaging with pertinent stakeholders, such as the internal workforce, target partners/collaborators, government entities, and the public. This comprehensive plan details the engagement journey for each stakeholder, mapping their progression from initial awareness to becoming active partners or supporters of the venture. Furthermore, the plan delineates specific tactics tailored to each stage of the engagement journey, ensuring effective communication and interaction with stakeholders at every step.
Stakeholder mapping
Stakeholder journey
Design strategy
While framing the vision provides a direction for collaboration, further strategic planning is necessary to delineate the pathway to success. We work with clients to delve deeper and design a comprehensive strategy for realising a successful collaborative venture.
This process often involves refining the initial concept, considering any adjustments based on insights gained from coalition-building efforts. Subsequently, we articulate how the venture will operate and how we will navigate the journey, addressing the following key components:
Target Operating Model: We articulate a blueprint for the future collaborative venture, outlining its key components and how they interconnect to achieve the collaboration's ultimate objectives. This includes establishing effective collaboration structures, processes, and systems that leverage the capabilities of each partner organisation.
Collaborative Governance: We define how multiple stakeholders will collaborate to achieve common goals within the venture. This involves determining leadership roles, representation mechanisms for partners and interested parties, decision-making processes, progress monitoring, and risk management strategies.
Funding and Financial Models: We develop a funding plan to kickstart the venture and sustain it in the long run. This encompasses identifying initial funding sources, revenue streams for long-term sustainability, and financial considerations to ensure the venture's viability.
Monitoring and Evaluation: We establish a framework for ongoing monitoring and periodic evaluation to objectively measure the venture's success. This framework, often represented by a logic model, links activities to outputs and outcomes. Meaningful indicators of success are identified, and a plan for monitoring and evaluation is outlined.
Implementation Plan: We provide a detailed roadmap that delineates specific steps, tasks, and timelines to transition the collaboration from planning to successful and sustainable operation. This plan breaks down overarching objectives into manageable components, serving as a guide to translate strategy into action.
Deliverable: Collaborative strategy
All components of the strategy design are consolidated into a collaborative strategy document. This document serves as the overarching guidance for the collaborative venture, empowering partners to take the initial steps towards translating the concept into reality.
Execute Strategy
Regardless of the quality of a collaborative strategy, effective execution is paramount. As pragmatic strategists, we possess expertise in both strategy development and execution. This dual proficiency allows us to craft actionable strategies and apply a strategic mindset to implementation.
Our approach goes beyond completing tasks outlined in the implementation plan; it involves responding to changes, challenges, and opportunities that necessitate adjustments to the plan. While strategic plans may be comprehensive, they cannot foresee every scenario, making some deviation inevitable. By adopting a strategic and flexible mindset, we can make informed pivots while staying true to the strategic intent.
We believe that effective program and change management are central to successful strategic execution. These practices create an environment where changes to the plan can be anticipated and addressed while maintaining a clear focus on our objectives.
Key aspects of effective strategic execution, particularly relevant to collaborative ventures, include:
Program Governance: Managing information flows is essential for good program governance. Timely and accurate information enables decision-makers to make informed choices, while workstreams stay aligned with the program's objectives.
Risk, Issue, and Opportunity Management: Effective tracking of risks, issues, and opportunities enhances the program's chances of success by minimising risks, addressing issues promptly, and exploiting opportunities.
Detailed Planning: While the implementation plan provides a high-level roadmap, detailed planning at the workstream level may be necessary to ensure success, whether employing traditional waterfall or agile approaches.
Stakeholder Communication: Clear and consistent communication among stakeholders fosters understanding, alignment, and support for changes throughout the execution process.
Change Management: Guiding individuals and organisations through change is critical. Effective change management involves planning, implementation, and monitoring strategies to minimise resistance and maximise adoption.
Monitoring and Reporting: Regular tracking of progress against the program plan and communicating outcomes to relevant stakeholders ensures transparency and accountability.
Managing Cross-Organisation Teams: Collaborative ventures often involve teams comprising individuals from multiple organisations, which can present challenges due to differing objectives. As an independent third party, we facilitate resolution of tensions without bias, ensuring alignment with collaborative goals.
Deliverable: Progress reports
In this service, there isn't a single key deliverable; rather, multiple outputs may be required throughout the implementation of the collaborative venture. Monitoring and reporting are integral parts of this process, with progress reports typically provided at regular intervals.
Evaluate progress
To ensure collaborative ventures are meeting their intended goals or are on track to do so, regular evaluation is crucial. The evaluation process begins during the Strategy Design stage, where a monitoring and evaluation framework is developed.
We recommend creating this framework based on a logic model for the venture, which clearly outlines the venture's need (the problems it aims to solve), required inputs, activities, outputs, and desired outcomes. This model enables us to establish a set of measures and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can be tracked throughout the venture's lifecycle.
This framework not only guides ongoing monitoring but also facilitates discrete evaluation exercises to assess progress and provide recommendations for course corrections.
We collaborate with clients to design and execute evaluation projects, comprising hypothesis generation, data gathering and analysis, and reporting findings and recommendations. Our evaluation services encompass various types of evaluation aligned with the components of the logic model:
1.Formative evaluation: This type ensures correct implementation of an intervention and validates the relevance of the addressed need. It focuses on assessing the ongoing strategy implementation to confirm its soundness.
2. Summative evaluation: This aims to verify the achievement of intervention outcomes and assess the desirability of longer-term impacts. It provides a comprehensive understanding of the overall effectiveness of the intervention.
3. Economic evaluation: This type reviews the value of the intervention, assessing the appropriateness of resource allocation (whether private or public). It provides insights into the economic impact and efficiency of the intervention.
Evaluation types linked to logic models
Deliverable: Evaluation report and recommendations
We produce a comprehensive evaluation report that provides a summary of the findings of the evaluation exercise and our recommendations to make improvements to the venture / intervention.