Overview
Strategy that reaches the operating model, the budget and the organisation chart.
Most strategies are not wrong. They are unimplementable, written for an organisation with different funding, different delegations and different people than the one that has to execute them.
We work from the diagnostic outward. What the institution can actually do today, what its mandate requires, and what has to change in structure, budget systems and internal control to close the gap. For public bodies that usually means public financial management and governance reform. For organisations pursuing institutional funding it means programme design, logframes and a compliance architecture that will hold.
Diagnose the operating model
Capacity assessment precedes recommendation. The binding constraint is usually structural rather than strategic.
Follow it into the budget
A strategy that does not change the budget, the delegations and the controls has not changed anything.
Build the compliance spine
Risk frameworks and internal controls are what allow an institution to take on larger and more heavily scrutinised funding.
Services
What we deliver in this practice
Each line can be commissioned on its own or combined into a single scope of work.
- 01Corporate and organisational strategy developmentDirection, priorities and the operating model to carry them.
- 02Institutional capacity assessment and organisational diagnosticsStructured assessment of what an organisation can currently deliver.
- 03Public financial management advisoryBudgeting, revenue, debt and expenditure systems.
- 04Governance and public administration reformMandates, structures, accountability lines and service delivery.
- 05Policy analysis, drafting and regulatory reviewFrom evidence through to drafted instrument.
- 06Restructuring and change managementSequencing, transition planning and internal communication.
- 07Board governance and corporate structuringBoard composition, committees, delegations and reporting.
- 08Programme design and theory of change developmentLogic, assumptions and measurable pathways to result.
- 09Donor-compliant proposal developmentLogframes, budgets and technical narratives.
- 10Grant management and donor compliance advisoryEligibility, reporting, sub-award oversight and audit readiness.
- 11Risk management frameworks and internal control designRegisters, appetite, controls and assurance mapping.
Standards
The rules this work is held to.
Technical defensibility means working to frameworks a third party already recognises. These are the ones that govern this practice.
- Public financial management diagnostic frameworks
- Theory of change and logical framework design
- Internal control and enterprise risk frameworks
- Board governance and delegation structures
- Institutional funder compliance and sub-award oversight requirements
Adjacent capability
Work in this practice most often runs into these.
Bring us the constraint, not just the request.
A tender that keeps attracting the wrong bidders, a pipeline nobody can see into, a finding that has to be answered. That is where this practice is most useful.