Developing strategy
We work with you to understand your strategic ambition and map a course towards it.
Developing strategy
Choice Support is a National Charity supporting autistic people and people living with learning disabilities and mental health needs. In 2019 it merged with mcch. Together they faced tightening funding and escalating needs of those they helped.
Choice Support asked Sonnet to help with a review of how best to maintain service delivery, impact and quality in times of reduced funding. The aim was to reframe their delivery models to enable both improved impact and better management of costs.
Sonnet worked with them to develop an understanding of their current delivery model, the needs of those supported by them, the impact sought and how activities and resources were being used to address these. The work helped them rethink (i) their ambition and the framing of that in terms of resident need, and (ii) their model of delivery and (iii) identified possible solutions for prototyping and testing. Having determined together the changes that management wanted to make, Sonnet developed with them an outline structure and timeline for the change process, showing in which order the different changes could be tackled.
Choice Support went ahead to make the principle changes in overall strategic focus. Notably this delivered changes in how the organisation saw and worked with residents as members of communities of support, and how local and area staff teams were structured to help them.
Contact Jim Clifford to learn more
Scenario planning
Building a framework for testing your strategic choices through ‘4 Worlds’ analysis and others.
Scenario planning
C is a producer and retailer of printed material and merchandise for Christian organisations of all shapes and sizes. In 2019 it had been starting to review its focus and plan for the future. It realised it needed to change to meet a changing market, to increase its digital capability, and to review its fulfilment approach and processes, and then the COVID pandemic added another layer of complexity and challenge. It needed support in assessing its viability and developing plans for re-imagining its business and operations.
Sonnet provided a financial review, and an assessment of insolvency risk to give boundaries within which the directors could work. It also led them through a scenario analysis, using ‘4 worlds’ and other approaches to help them to develop a strategy that would see them flourish whatever happened next. As the directors re-imagined their fulfilment side, Sonnet supported with comment, guidance and suggestions for developing and evaluating options.
C successfully repositioned, and by early 2021 was in a solid position. It reframed its market offering, developed new digital systems and approaches, and re-imagined its fulfilment arm. It is continuing to serve both its traditional and new customers, and grow its offering as churches and other organisations have come back to full operation after the COVID closures.
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Situational analysis and systems change
Drawing on impact evaluations to identify unhelpful systems and brokering influencing conversations at sector level.
Situational analysis and systems change
Changing Lives is a nationwide charity helping people facing challenging times to make positive change – for good. It works particularly with those needing housing, with women and children, people tackling substance abuse, and those out of work. As the COVID lock-downs progressed it saw a near tripling of those seeking its support and an escalation of numbers with mental health difficulties, including an increasing number with suicidal thoughts. Whilst seeking to reform and refine its own services, it was also looking at how trauma-informing public and community services around the individual could address the rising need.
Working with the Changing Lives team, and with the consultants helping it reframe internal focus and systems, Sonnet explored the outcomes being achieved for the people they work with. It looked at how they come about – not just what is done with them but how – and the value of those outcomes to different stakeholders. Sonnet also explored with them the situations in which those people found themselves, and how the systems – human, financial and infrastructure – around them worsen their situation or fail to respond effectively to help them.
Understanding this, and having the causes of those systems failures or harms analysed to their root cause, enabled Changing Lives to gain a deeper insight into what could be done to help. Areas in which systems change could be achieved were not only plain to see, but the analysis highlighted possible areas in which it could be tackled most effectively. This informed Changing Lives’ ongoing work, but also enabled them and Sonnet to develop discussions with other charities about how change could be instigated, and informed discussions with others such as energy suppliers, whose actions helped or harmed far too easily.
Contact Jim Clifford to learn more
Improving management control systems
Maximising the potential and integrity of your governance model using walkthroughs and observations.
Improving management control systems
Skanska UK is one of the country’s leading construction and development companies. Recognising that management controls rely not just on what is done, but the quality of the conversations and other functions within it they wished to review and reframe scrutiny and review functions over projects at all levels of the organisation.
The Sonnet team, working with Centre for Governance and Scrutiny and Mitzi Wyman, supported that review and reframing with (i) observations of review and scrutiny functions and a critique of the exploration achieved by them; (ii) guidance to the Skanska team in developing new online project quality review and monitoring, (iii) review of the functionality of those controls and how they fit with the human project review functions and meetings, (iv) training and tool familiarization workshops with senior management, and (v) support with designing the messaging and roll-out internally.
Skanska successfully embedded scrutiny as a part of the corporate strategy, behaviour and language, improved meeting efficiency and effectiveness and project governance. The project gateways and conversations based on them co-developed with the Skanska team have become a mainstay of ongoing project and organisational management.
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Improving governance effectiveness
Assessing how good governance is embraced, and whether the board is accountable, transparent and encourages stakeholder participation.
Improving governance effectiveness
Jigsaw Trust is a charity operating a school for young people with autism and adult care for people with autism, as well as a package of related services. Jigsaw asked Sonnet, working alongside consultants supporting other areas, to support a review of their governance systems and processes as part of an exercise to look ahead at options for future growth and readiness to support their plans.
Sonnet met with management and trustees to understand the context of current operations and future options. We attended and observed management and Board meetings and reviewed key documents showing governance processes and the constitution of the organisation. Our focus was both on the systems, information and structures supporting governance, but also on the behaviours and relational dynamics that were helping or hindering it.
The observations were assessed against standards of current best practice, derived both from regulatory guidance and Sonnet’s and others’ experience of what works. This was summarised in an explanation of what was happening, where value was being lost through weaker structures and processes, and how the structure and approaches could be improved. This was presented in detail to management, Chair of Trustees and the Board secretary, and solutions developed. The Board was briefed on findings and proposals, and had opportunity to ask questions before formulating its response.
Contact Kirsten Naudé to learn more
Risk planning and management
Using situational and systems analysis (and other tools) to identify vulnerabilities and develop risk management responses.
Risk planning and management
NHS England and Improvement, in the context of the NHS long-term plan, recognised that, as Primary Care becomes increasingly important in supporting people in maintaining health across the UK, nurses in general practice are a key part of that. Indeed, representing around a third of professionals within general practice, they are key to its success. Yet numbers were falling, with recruitment lagging behind retirement, and the nature and structure of the role, fragmented across multiple private practices, was unclear. How was the system for recruiting and maintaining that part of the workforce posing risks and vulnerabilities that could be addressed?
Sonnet explored at macro and at local levels the situations in which the practices were operating. It looked at how nurses get into that branch of nursing, what helps and what gets in the way. It heard how the nurses function, what are the key factors that most drive the value they deliver, and where the risks lie in that. Sonnet interviewed those in their communities that interact with them and create the systems around them. In this ongoing project Sonnet is now looking in more detail into how the NHS can address those emerging risks and vulnerabilities with systems changes and other support.
The report identified six key systems risks, eight barriers to the delivery of value by nurses in this area, and six enablers of value that could go some way towards rectifying the challenges identified. The work was lauded by the RCN, QNI, and NHSE&I, and Phase 3 (ongoing) is exploring further how risks, barriers and enablers in the system can be addressed at National and local levels.
Contact Kirsten Naudé to learn more
Developing impact-based decision-making
Develop impact language and understanding, create impact questions and criteria for decisions by Board and line managers.
Developing impact-based decision-making
C is a Real Estate Investment Trust owning and developing public and retail space in built-up areas in England and Wales. It was planning the redevelopment of a town centre, and needed to understand, refine, and articulate the benefit that the redevelopment would bring to local people and the local economy.
Sonnet explored the plans with C, and understood their intentions and the options being considered. With the benefit of research into local need and provision for it, consultations with local residents and interviews with councillors and other leaders within the community, the local area need was better understood. The options for the redevelopment were then explored against this backdrop, and the potential gains to the local community or elements of it could be mapped, and in some cases valued.
C had minimal understanding of impact prior to engaging Sonnet with this piece of work. The process drew out a Theory of Change and quantified some of the outcomes delivered by the new centre resulting in a significant change in perspective from the company directors. Re-planning the layout and some of the facilities within the site resulted in a different impact, and this was presented to local residents in the planning consultations. C advised that there had been a noticeable positive shift in the perceptions of the Local Councillors, and in residents’ attitudes.
Contact Kirsten Naudé to learn more
Restructuring, repositioning and turnaround
Developing a better structure, a new market position, or handling a challenging time and changing to recover.
Restructuring, repositioning and turnaround
I is a UK charity and social enterprise developing infrastructure assets in five African states, funded by grant-makers and National governments. However some contracts were underfunded, cash flow was worrying, and they didn’t know whether to push on or shut up shop.
We reviewed their forecasts, impact plans, and income sources. We considered scenarios for change in their different operating jurisdictions and the effects of exiting some and the costs of opening in others. We looked at risks, and associated cash flow effects, at exit routes from the present situations and options for growth and development. We showed them options assessed against agreed criteria (including available cash and burn rates) establishing what courses of action could work.
I’s directors (trustees) were able to get comfortable that I was viable. They took some steps to terminate the most adverse contracts, but continued with many, with the benchmarks we had given them against which to measure whether they were getting too close to the line. With that confidence and direction they were able to trade through, survive, and grow.
Contact Jim Clifford to learn more
