The Connection at St Martin’s (CSTM) faced a number of challenges and opportunities: a changing funding environment; fluctuations in the demographic mix of its client base; an offer of support for organisational development from corporate sponsors; the impending retirement of a key member of the management team; and a major building refurbishment project that meant moving the whole operation into temporary buildings for a considerable period of time.  Colin Glover, Chief Executive, felt it was an appropriate time to review CSTM’s strategy, services and approaches and commissioned J Hill Associates to facilitate the development of a strategic plan.

Managers and staff at CSTM were, appropriately, very focused on front-line service delivery and the upheaval created by the move to temporary buildings, however it was important to create an environment in which they could participate in creating a vision for the future of the organisation.  We worked with Colin and his senior managers to design a workshop that gave the context for the strategic plan, outlined the process and used a visualisation technique to enable participants to think creatively about and develop a shared vision for the future organisation.  The workshop also gathered participant’s views on the external environment, key stakeholders and how CSTM was positioned within its sector.  From this start-point Colin developed a draft strategic plan that identified CSTM’s clients and services, strategic aims and an initial view on the internal development required by the organisation.  We also provided Colin with a coach to support his thinking process and his interactions with the board.  Through a series of meetings with a core team of senior managers, J Hill Associates worked with CSTM to identify and refine a set of strategic goals whilst a steering group comprising members of the board, senior management team and the corporate partner regularly reviewed progress and posed useful challenges and questions.  Once the strategic plan “Building on Success” was agreed we jointly designed a workshop for the Service Delivery Managers to identify the implications of the strategy and the resources needed for implementation.  The outputs from this workshop were a set of prioritised areas for change, some in the Service Delivery area and some in central services such as HR, IT, Finance etc.  By the end of the project, CSTM had a clear strategic plan with which to communicate its goals and direction both internally and externally, Service Delivery Managers were improving the way they worked together, and there was a clear set of required outcomes for Central Services.

• CSTM has a clear, shared and compelling strategy to drive its future development
• Service Delivery Managers are clearer about CSTM’s direction and their roles in helping to achieve the strategy
• The process facilitated effective communications across the organisation and with the board
• Increased clarity on the development required within the organisation to implement the strategy.

Colin Glover, Chief Executive commented:  “J Hill Associates not only brought the right skills and expertise to us but also understood how our culture would influence how we approached and managed change. At end of the process we therefore had a strategic plan which not only identified the way forward and the steps we needed to take to get there, but which also had been produced in an inclusive way being owned by Senior Management, the Board and the staff.”