Melbourne Water has engaged ACIG to:

• Review the design of the current innovation program and its implementation against best practices. This will be the current state analysis.

• Identify what the utility company’s innovation needs are to support its strategic goals.  This will be the future state analysis.

• Quantify the gap between current and future states.

• Develop a plan to bridge the gap (an Innovation Capability Improvement Plan).

Recent research confirms that organisations can tap into the complementarity of quality management and innovation.  Strong quality management systems have been found to reinforce innovation through the ‘hard’ components of quality management (quality control, standardisation and process improvement) as well as the ‘soft ‘components (culture change and total quality management).  Researchers also found that innovative companies are more likely to implement quality management and continual improvement.[1]

At ACIG, our innovation strategies help you transform the way you do business through creative strategy development, organisational change and service design.

CPA Australia is one of the world’s largest accounting bodies with a membership of more than 139,000 finance, accounting and business professionals across the globe.

This three-day conference focuses on empowering CPAs to improve processes and go beyond their comfort zone, take managed risks and be outstanding.

Details about the conference are available here.

Other speakers include:

• Rosemary Bissett, Head of Sustainability Governance and Risk, National Australia Bank
• Rob Brooker, Head of Australian Economics and Commodities, Group Economics, National Australia Bank
• Dugald Christie-Johnston, “The Barefoot Coach”, Founder and Director, Seventh Wave
• David Spong FCPA, Chief Financial Officer/Finance and Commercial Director, Australia and New Zealand, Ericsson Australia

How many women are in YOUR workplace?  Of those in charge, how many are women?  What about throughout your entire organisation?  Would you be surprised to know that even throughout government (at the federal, state and local levels) women comprise about one third or less of the executive managers.  See this ABS chart, for example, for the disheartening figures for the APS.  And this is the case even though women make up more than half of the APS’s ongoing workforce.

At ACIG we ask – today and during almost every assignment – why?

Why are women missing out?  Why are organisations missing out?  Why do we all let this happen?  And trying to answer those questions is what makes our jobs so very interesting….

What about the ACIG workplace? We are not a large corporation, full of political games.  And we’re not a tiny microbusiness either.  We think we offer women (and men) an important third option.  A boutique working environment where the Company Directors work side by side with the employees. Flexible working hours. A supportive organisational culture.  And an awareness that we can always do better (continuous improvement is, after all, our middle name…)

Happy International Women’s Day.

The Department engaged the Australian Continuous Improvement Group in July 2011 to conduct an analysis of the structure, functions, skills and capabilities of the Norfolk Island Public Service.

You can access the report at the Department’s website:                  www.regional.gov.au/territories/norfolk_island/public_service_review.aspx

And you can read more about ACIG’s work on Norfolk Island here.

And ACIG has been selected to join FaHCSIA’s prestigious Social Policy Research and Evaluation Panel.

As one of the companies selected for this panel, ACIG will be providing services such as:

• design and/or review of evaluation plans and frameworks, including program logics and performance indicators;

• conducting evaluations;

• managing evaluation projects within time constraints, including contract management;

• providing expert advice on program and/or policy evaluation;

• reporting and/or presenting evaluation outcomes to departmental audiences; and

• publishing and presenting evaluation outcomes to a wide range of audiences.

The Panel enables FaHCSIA (and most other Australian Government agencies) to seek a quotation from ACIG without having to go through an open tender process.  Talk to your corporate services or procurement area for more details.

Please don’t hesitate to give us a call at ACIG  to discuss (no obligations and completely confidential) your evaluation requirements.

In Kuala Lumpur we delivered a two-day seminar about evaluation in government.  In Northern NSW we implemented an improvement program for the NSW Sugar Co-op.  In Darwin we reviewed performance management at NT Health.  In Canberra we conducted evaluations for five new Australian Government clients. On Norfolk Island we reviewed the Norfolk Island Public Service.  In Sydney we implemented an improvement program for  Sydney Water.  And in Adelaide we delivered the 2^nd Annual Lean in Government seminars.

One of our senior consultants, Michelle Scott Tucker, has been invited to become a Company Director (and she said yes!).  And we’ve welcomed some more new faces, including:

• Dr Jason Kaminski, our business transformation and knowledge management expert.
• Ms Genevieve Wilson, our new Office Manager.
• Ms Samantha Comte, arts sector specialist.
• Mr Tom Dale, former Ministerial Advisor and federal government senior executive.

We’ve won so much new work that our client list for 2011 reads like a government who’s who.

NT Department of Health & Families, Wyndham City Council, NSW Sugar, Australian Land and Coast, Consumer Affairs Victoria, Department of Primary Industries (Vic), Department of Sustainability & Environment (Vic), City of Brimbank, AusAID, Department of Justice (Vic), Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, City of Stonnington, City of Boroondara, Department of Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government, Port Stephens Shire Council, Melbourne Water, Department of Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy, Public Libraries Victoria Network, Austrade, Department of Health (Vic), Department of Agriculture Fisheries & Forestry, Department of Business and Innovation (Vic).

Here’s hoping that 2012 is even bigger and even better – for the team at ACIG, for you and for all our friends and families.

A Development Grant provides funding support to individual researchers, research teams or a HMR company in partnership with one or more researchers to undertake research at the early proof-of-principle stage.  The grants support the development of a product, process, procedure or service that if applied would result in improved health care, disease prevention or provide health cost savings.  The scheme focusses on health and medical research that has the potential to be commercialised.

In particular our focus will be on the outcomes and benefits accruing to the Australian Government, industry and the wider Australian community.

In line with the Australian Government’s Budget Expenditure review Principles, ACIG’s evaluation will also assess the program for:

• appropriateness;
• effectiveness;
• efficiency;
• integration; and
• performance.

ACIG employs a team of in-house consultants and supplements their extensive expertise by the use (on an as-required basis)of associates.

Our associates range from single person freelancers (retired academics, for example, or former senior executives and public servants) through to larger organisations such as Roy Morgan Market Research.   Our associate model enables ACIG to remain responsive and flexible, yet still able to meet the diverse needs of our clients.

If you are interested in joining our Panel of Associates, or think you have what it takes to become one of our employees, please contact us.

Some of our existing associates

Peter Johnstone OAM is principal of PJ Governance Pty Ltd and has been Chief Executive of a number of public sector organisations.  He has pursued a strong interest in the development of effective forms of corporate governance, entrepreneurial management and community engagement.  Peter worked closely with us on ACIG’s a review into the capacities and capabilities of the Norfolk Island Public Service.  Our review actively informed Australian Government funding and resourcing decisions in the face of the Norfolk Island Government’s insolvency crisis.  More details about this assignment are here.

ACIG, in collaboration with Roy Morgan Research, delivered an evaluation of the Industry Capability Network (ICN) industry support program.  ICN Victoria assists its clients to maximise Victorian, Australian and New Zealand content in their procurement activities under the Government’s VIPP policy and matches local suppliers to government buyers acting on behalf of significant Victorian projects.

ACIG worked with Registered Training Organsation (RTO) CEG to deliver a Certificate IV in Competitive Manufacturing to Stegbar Windows and Doors in Victoria.  The Certificate in Competitive Manufacturing is a nationally accredited qualification in Lean Thinking for the manufacturing sector.  The certificate course takes around 14 months to complete.  Stegbar in Victoria achieved significant improvement in performance as a result of the training and ACIG is currently delivering both certificate III and IV to other members of the group, including Stegbar’s Queensland Plant , Airlite Windows and Doors in NSW and Stegbar’s Lansvale site also in NSW.

We helped SLV develop a comprehensive best practice framework based on Australian and international quality and business excellence frameworks, international library best practices and the SLV’s research project Libraries Building Communities.  We are now implementing evaluations against the framework, called Being the Best We Can, throughout Victorian public libraries. The participating libraries are a mixture of metropolitan and country, single-municipality and regional corporation services.

Read an article in the Oct-Nov 2011 edition of Local Government Manager magazine about the Being the Best We Can project here.

Euan Lockie, from ACIG, and Melanie McCarten, from the State Library of Victoria, also presented a paper about the project at the NSW SITCH Conference (Nov 2011).  A copy of the paper is here.

The Being the Best We Can project won the 2011 LGPro award for Innovation in Management.  You can read more about the award here.

The objectives of ACERA are to deliver practical, rigorous solutions and advice related to the assessment, management, perception and communication of biosecurity risk.  ACERA is delivered by the University of Melbourne under a four-year Funding Agreement  with DAFF.  ACERA was established in 2006 to research risk analysis methodologies and build on Australian expertise in risk analysis techniques.

ACIG will evaluate the:

• effectiveness of ACERA in meeting its Funding Agreement objectives; and

• suitability of the current ACERA objectives for a future Centre of Excellence for Risk Analysis.