The Australian Centre for Social Innovation

As TACSI grew in size and complexity, they needed better processes and tools to support their growth. Optimi helped TACSI develop fit-for-purpose systems which allowed the team to scale their impact without compromising their human-centred culture.

The Client

The Australian Centre for Social Innovation empowers people to shape the world around them in order to achieve better outcomes for all.

Formed in 2009 as an initiative of the South Australian Government, TACSI is now an independent social enterprise developing new ways to build social and economic prosperity for all Australians.

The Challenge

As an agency experimenting with new ways of working and with more than 40 people, TACSI was struggling to find the right systems and tools to support their continual growth. Furthermore, no one in the team had the right expertise to select tools and systems that would a) work well together and b) put the culture of the organisation first.

The team tried outsourcing this task but found that IT consultants didn’t understand TACSI’s human-centered culture and process needs.

An internal working group was formed around these business system needs and Optimi’s job was to facilitate change via that group.

Requirements

Key elements that needed changing and upgrading included:

A sales pipeline system that was visible across the organisation, was easy to update, maintain, and report on;
An effective knowledge storage system;
A financial data dashboard for projects that would easily track all available contracts, project costs, revenue coming from each part of the organisation, and individual responsibilities.
Better time tracking
More effective project management tools
Using online communication tools better

Solution

We migrated all files and folders from Dropbox to Google Drive which reduced the risk of important information accidentally disappearing. We also integrated information storage into existing Google Workspace (one less login!).

We upgraded the Google Sites wiki to make sure key information wasn’t lost in Google Drive and was easy to find (essentially a “front end” for Google Drive and a place to store permanent references that get lost in Slack)
Moved the sales pipeline to Pipedrive and followed up with training resources, coaching, and customisation which enabled easier interaction and visibility of all sales information. Once the Project database was built, it was integrated with Pipedrive as well.
Developed a “single source of truth” for project finances and revenue forecasting in a Knack database. This helped to collate all the key financial information from each project up to an organisation-wide revenue forecast while also allowing each person to store all financial data to enable smooth end of month processes.
Created various automations to reduce the amount of manual admin people were needing to do.
Optimised spreadsheet templates so they are as simple as possible to understand and fill out (they still have a place, but not at the centre of crucial business systems).
Secured Google Workspace to reduce online security risks.

30+

Staff

1.5 terabytes

Data migrated to Google Drive

6

New digital tools implemented

100+

Project milestones to track

Client Painpoints

Some of the client's pain points included:

A project management tool integrated with Xero was proving very painful for the organization, however there wasn’t a clear solution;
The team was using Dropbox which wasn’t suitable for the complexity of the organisation and wasn’t integrated with all the other Google Workspace tools;
It was hard to find all types of information or to know who to ask;
The accountant spent many hours compiling all the information required for invoicing;
Sales pipeline information was incomplete and hard to keep track of;
The tools weren’t empowering TACSI’s decentralised approach.

Opportunities Found

With our help, TACSI:

Removed the need for a “silver bullet” project management tool, which had been doing lots of things poorly;
Decreased frustration with tools that weren’t fit for purpose;
Improved online security;
Made information easier to find;
Optimised end of month financial workflows to save a massive amount of time across the organisation.

Single source of truth using Knack

One of the most challenging problems for TACSI was the sheer volume of “orphaned” information living in many different contexts, which made it very difficult to collate a revenue forecast.

By building a Knack app we were able to co design the business logic required to help the organisation to effectively manage their project budgets. Once each person could manage their own milestones, budgets and invoices for each project, it made it far simpler to create a real time, dynamic, revenue forecasting report.

This tool was integrated to both their CRM (Pipedrive) and Xero (their invoicing app) to enable a reliable single source of truth.