Redesigning Fundraising & Communication Division’s Ways of Working
Cancer Council Victoria
When Cancer Council Victoria (CCV) first engaged with Neu21, we were tasked with redesigning the Fundraising & Communications (FCD) division’s ways of working in line with their future structure. Like many organisations, FCD saw themselves incredibly busy and focused on what needed to be done but lacking the agility about the way they worked. The teams were high-performing, and yet going through a period of rampant changes with the 2020 pandemic, remote working and an increased demand for delivering value without the traditional and successful Cancer Council live events.
Through initial conversations, Neu21 and FCD discussed two key elements that were critical to how their teams organised to deliver on their strategy: lean portfolio management which refers to what work gets done, and finally, the system of work, i.e., dimensions in the organisation that impacts how teams work. This involved decision making, leadership, strategy & planning, among others.
INSIGHT INTERVIEWS • USER RESEARCH • USER TESTING • UX DESIGN • UI DESIGN • PROTOTYPING • DIGITAL DESIGN SYSTEM • ONGOING SUPPORT
THE OPPORTUNITY
How might we empower Cancer Council Victoria's FCD division to embrace agility, transparency, and value-driven approaches, while navigating the challenges of a changing environment?
OUR APPROACH
The project approach focused on addressing the challenges faced by Cancer Council Victoria's Fundraising & Communications (FCD) division. It began with a deep dive into FCD's needs and challenges and included the alignment of teams around an inspiring purpose and a new operating model. The introduction of cross-functional Value Streams, iterative planning, and process reviews played pivotal roles in fostering collaboration, improving transparency, and enhancing decision-making, ultimately leading to a more agile and value-driven division.
Our process
From the start, the teams working with Neu21 were committed to and passionate about change. There was also a very positive understanding from the leaders at FCD that building new ways of working without considering the organisational structure wouldn’t yield the best results, so we worked closely with the stakeholders responsible for designing their new structure.
PASSIONATE FOR CHANGE
After a short period of discovery where we immersed ourselves into their world and ran ideation, 1-1 interviews and group sessions to understand their ideal state, who their customers were and how teams were tracking, we started working on a few key areas that would deliver positive change in the short and long term.
DISCOVERY
First, we embedded ourselves into the senior leadership team meetings and proposed a new operating model for the division that started by aligning the teams around an inspiring purpose, without losing sight of CCV’s powerful mission of Prevent cancer. Empower patients. Save lives. After crafting a divisional purpose together, we unpacked Cancer Council Victoria’s values and what that meant to the Fundraising and Communications team.
EMBEDDED TEAM
With that done and later circulated for feedback and alignment with teams, we started crafting how their strategy would align with their operating model. How do we bring clarity to teams? How can we foster more collaboration? How can we prioritise work to minimise context switching and support proactive planning? How do we promote this change during a very challenging year?
CRAFTING A STRATEGY
All these questions were carefully assessed with the help of the teams, and we finally landed on a model that enabled the creation of fluid delivery teams called Value Streams that self-organised to deliver on different CCV outcomes. These teams still have functional homes which aligned with their structure and supported professional and personal development.
ENABLEMENT MODEL
Each Value Stream had practices that enabled forward-thinking, ongoing progress of work, reflection and the ability to shift priorities as needed. We also supported the use of tools and technology available at Cancer Council Victoria and created cross Value Stream team practices that fostered better prioritisation and resourcing and capacity planning, considering that some roles were working on multiple initiatives and campaigns.
VALUE STREAMS
On top of this, we were part of assessing and reviewing internal processes, decision-making guidelines and other organisational areas that had an impact on how well the division operated. All of this was backed and supported by a leadership team that role-modelled the behaviours and practices themselves while empowering teams to make decisions when relevant to enable agility.
QUALITY ASSURANCE
The Results —
Agility
The division embraced a mindset of agility
Culture overhaul
FCD’s has been transitioning to a culture of increased transparency, collaboration and accountability – teams speak the language and live by these principles
Newfound purpose
The division has a new purpose - “We create ways for people to play their part in saving lives and reducing the impact of cancer” - which is supporter-centric and aligned with their new ways of working
Introduction of value streams
Teams re-organised as Value Streams (cross-functional teams to deliver value to supporters and the organisation), and now understand the benefits, definitions and are now integrated into the division
Value model
The division now has a value model that enable better prioritisation division-wide
Better consistency
Consistency across Value Streams, leading to a common language to their ways of working
Iterative planning
The division now has an iterative planning approach to support their strategic direction
Adaptive teams
Teams now can better foresee changes and the impact on resourcing, enabling more foresight, less overwork, increased value creation and less reactivity
Improved clarity
Improved clarity on decision-making at all levels within the division
Ways of working
Strategy documents and communication have been streamlined to reflect their new teams and ways of working
Deeper transparency
More team transparency through the visualisation of work and the effective use of tools
Internal champions
FCD now has a group of internal champions, trained and supported by Neu21 to continue to inspire, activate and embed the work in the future