Industry: Education

Service Area: Organisational design / Transformation

The Australian Ballet School was established in 1964 and over the last 58 years has transformed hundreds of aspiring dancers and produced professional artists of the highest calibre. The School has held a long relationship with The Australian Ballet, but is an independent entity with its own legal status, staff, finances and Board.

THE CHALLENGE

In the context of a drastically disrupted two-year period and a newly defined strategy, The Australian Ballet School was looking for a partner to conduct a complete review of the people structures and supporting systems needed to bring the strategy to life and sustain the school into the future.

Like many other arts organisations, the Australian Ballet School was impacted by COVID-19. This disruption across the sector, and internally created the opportunity to look deeply into the organisation, its purpose, function, and sustainability into the future.

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With an intentional focus on recovery, rebuilding and creating a bright future for students and for ballet in Australia, the four strategic priorities for the school were defined as:​

1. Education and vocational training ​
2. Operations and sustainability ​
3. Engagement and Partnerships ​
4. Governance​

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WHAT WE DID

To support the Australian Ballet School purpose and ongoing strategic direction we partnered with the leadership team in conducting a comprehensive Organisational Review. The scope for the activity included the development of an approach to undertaking the organisational review – with a focus on organisational capabilities, structure and roles required to deliver on the five-year strategy, as well as leading the execution of the organisational review, providing​ review findings, design options, a change roadmap and change plan.

Specifically the organisational review included

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• Project kick off workshop – including creation of an Evaluation framework ​and Stakeholder map​
• Full desktop review of relevant documents​ and external scan of industry and comparable fields
• Whole of organisation culture diagnostic using the Spring Point PerformX diagnostic tool
• Stakeholder interviews​ & group workshops​
• Thematic analysis of all data​ and data validation session
• Insights & recommendations report ​
• Operating model and organisation design
• Development of a draft change roadmap​ and change plan
• Final report with review findings, design options, change roadmap and change plan

IMPACT & OUTCOMES

Following the design and development of the change roadmap and plan the Australian Ballet School have now been able to prioritise and progress implementation of their five-year strategy, with a clear view on focus areas and outcomes.