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According to governance leaders, the council meeting process is one of the most important yet inefficient processes in council. It’s the core democratic process of local government, yet: Few people can execute it end-to-end Inefficiencies and multiple systems and processes introduce hidden risks and stress Agendas, minutes and videos are made available for the public in a format that is not easy to consume or understand. We spoke to 40 council meeting administrators and governance leaders to fully understand the strategic risks and best practice opportunities the meeting process presents. Access the Insights Report here - The Unrealised Potential of Council Meetings In this report, we highlight the common challenges and provide best practice insights to help councils: Identify and mitigate key person risks Ensure business continuity Streamline the meeting process Improve sustainability and alignment of council actions with environmental goals Deliver a higher standard of transparency to the community. Access your complimentary copy of the report here.

Think about the dashboard in your car – it isn’t there for show; it displays critical information, including how fast you are going, how much fuel you have left, and any critical updates. Similarly, a public dashboard does much more than turn facts and figures into pretty graphics. When it comes to strategic planning software, customisable dashboards are the perfect way to share key data, helping councils to engage their communities, be more productive, and achieve their goals. They’re about more than just keeping stakeholders informed; they help to embrace transparency and build trust between council and communities. Here are five ways sharing your strategic plans on public dashboards can benefit your council. Increase Transparency and Build Trust with the public Today more than ever, accountability and transparency are top of mind for local government. Sharing your strategic objectives and your progress towards achieving them helps to build trust with key stakeholders. Highlighting key achievements towards community goals proves that you’re doing the work you promised to dero demonstrates the value that council employees and their departments provide. Providing visibility of your plans on a public dashboard allows you to share this information with the public in a clear and easy-to-understand way. You and your team can report the current numbers directly without having to involve your communications or IT departments. And, because dashboards allow you to select how much detail you want to offer, they’re a great way to demonstrate accountability while keeping you in the driver’s seat of your narrative. Motivate Teams When it comes to strategic planning software, you should have the choice of whether to make your dashboards public or private. An internal dashboard helps your teams see their contribution and understand their role in furthering high-level goals. This allows them to draw connections between day-to-day tasks and council’s strategic plan. Each team member can instantly see how they are part of a bigger picture and take pride in how they are helping to make your community better. Many departments see jumps in productivity after launching an internal dashboard. When teams can easily see how they’re tracking towards their targets, it helps motivate them to push through to completion. Providing visibility of your plans on a public dashboard allows you to share information with the public in a clear and easy-to-understand way while increasing transparency and building trust. Help Leaders make Data-Driven Decisions It’s easier to make smart decisions when you have reliable, current information in one place. A dashboard collects key metrics that might otherwise be buried in spreadsheets across different departments, offices and locations. You can see at a glance which departments, projects or processes may require more resources or a different strategy. During meetings or high-level discussions, you can pull the most current information whenever you need it. Highlight Key Messages While interactive dashboards visually represent your plans and progress, sometimes, it can be data overload for community members. Sharing data and insights that are important to your residents allows them to easily view information that is relevant to them. You can also highlight new and exciting projects to increase engagement and keep everyone across the progress. Eliminate Surprises A public dashboard makes it simple to provide regular progress updates, so there are no unpleasant surprises for you or your community. Instead of suddenly realising that a project is floundering, leaders and team members can see ahead of time where they’re falling behind and course-correct before it’s too late. Meanwhile, community members can be kept in the loop on why progress is slower than expected and informed about measures to fix any issues. Communication creates engagement - especially when it's accurate, regular, and visually appealing. Interactive strategy dashboards that include progress updates and performance measures drive visibility and community participation, and that's powerful. Discover how Envisio Strategic Planning Software can help you increase transparency, keep teams on track and help leaders make informed decisions.

While we regularly interact with our clients and gain valuable feedback on their meeting management practices, there’s something to be said about connecting everyone to share ideas and insights. This month we held our inaugural Resolve User Forum. A one-day hybrid event that allowed key users to be part of our growing community. With clients joining us from Australia and New Zealand, we discussed how Resolve Meeting Management is becoming widely adopted to manage the most important process in council – the council meeting process. Here’s an overview of how the User Forum unfolded and the highlights. A huge thank you to everyone involved – we’re already planning our next session and eagerly anticipate getting everyone together again. Client Presentations – Transforming the most important process in council One of the highlights from the User Forum was the opportunity for clients to share their Resolve journey and how the solution works for them. Two generous clients shared their experiences, creating a discussion around shared learnings for established and new users. Wyndham City Council enlightened us on how they use their intranet to help end-users navigate Resolve. Along with refining their templates and making them fit for purpose, they have uploaded them to ensure they are easily accessible at any time. It’s apparent that this has contributed to increased stakeholder engagement across council and helped to create more visibility and participation. Wyndham City Council has elevated their meeting experience and now uses Resolve across other departments, including its Executive Leadership Team. The presentation was a perfect example of how to effectively manage organisation-wide change that truly makes an impact. A presentation from Tweed Shire Council followed this. They took us on a journey of how Resolve was set up for success and discussed the importance of selecting a solution that would enhance the end-to-end meeting process. Tweed Shire Council engaged councillors to be part of the process from the beginning, resulting in a streamlined transition that has transformed how they run their council meetings. Along with this, they explained how council is now saving a minimum of 20,000 pieces of paper per year since implementation. The entire forum was impressed at how they went from one staff member working two full days printing and binding agendas to running paperless council meetings. Read Tweed Shire Council’s Success Story here. What’s on the Horizon – Presented by Kurtis Redman Client Success Manager Kurtis Redman co-hosted the User Forum and gave a sneak peek into the future of the Resolve platform and how it will further be developed to support the most critical process in council. He shared the vision for Resolve as well as some enhancements that were in the works. We were all intrigued by what the next rollout will look like, and he provided an opportunity for clients to discuss important areas for them during their various implementation stages. Having our clients be part of this process and provide their valued feedback is fundamental to our success. Resolve Meeting Management is ever-evolving to help suit the needs of local government, and this User Forum provided the perfect space for collaboration. We can’t give too much away on the enhancement front – but watch this space! Workshops – Current Challenges and Future Goals With all clients at various stages of their Resolve journey, we wanted to share learned experiences and discuss current challenges each council faced with their current meeting process. Small breakout sessions were held, allowing everyone to discuss what was important to them and where they saw room for improvement – it was about giving everyone a voice. Upon bringing the teams back together, it was clear that everyone shared the same challenges around the desire to increase transparency, improve the change management process, enhance stakeholder engagement and break the reliance on paper. Elevating the meeting experience It was reassuring to know that all attendees were on the same page when it came to their desire to elevate the council meeting experience. Our one-day User Forum provided us with more than just a chance to connect – it gave us all the opportunity to share knowledge and learnings and work together to evolve Resolve Meeting Management. Thank you to our clients who gave up their time to join us – we can’t wait to see you all next year.

Arguably one of the most essential parts of the democratic process, community engagement can take a myriad of forms. In September, Redman Solutions were fortunate to host a panel discussion at the LGPro NSW Integrated Planners Conference in Newcastle. The session focussed on how three NSW councils approach community engagement and what works best for them. The insightful panel included Michelle Jack, Senior Corporate Strategy and Performance Officer, Wollondilly Shire Council; Luke Farr, Community Stakeholder Engagement Lead, Lake Macquarie City and Rachelle Robb, Director Corporate and Commercial Services, Orange City Council. Matt Pearce from Redman Solutions facilitated the session. Key themes of trust, transparency and relevance were prevalent, and during the 90 minutes, each panellist provided examples of how they engage diverse communities, create authenticity and measure what matters. The discussion shed light on how modern councils are applying traditional engagement strategies and adapting them to suit the changing nature of residents. As an organisation dedicated to enabling councils to be more transparent, effective and accountable, we were enlightened by the conversation and examples provided. Here’s a breakdown of the key insights discussed. Community Engagement - what does it mean to you? Voices, relationships and listening - the panel agreed on their true definition of community engagement. While Michelle reiterated the need to actively build relationships and create open dialogues, Luke explained the importance of using feedback to enrich communities’ lives. "Community engagement is about councils understanding the importance of people having the opportunity to be involved in decisions that affect their lives," he said. "It’s about listening and setting a clear agenda of what we intend to do with the feedback we receive and making sure people are aware of engagement and have the opportunity to participate if they choose to." Rachelle summarised her definition of community engagement as "hearing everyone’s voice. Listening to it and then acting upon that." Community engagement is about councils understanding the importance of people having the opportunity to be involved in decisions that affect their lives. Engaging communities at the right stages Redman Solution’s latest Insights Report uncovered that some councils struggle to get engagement from the community in some of the initial planning stages. Ultimately, this can result in pushback on some initiatives when it might be too late to change and create the perception that council is out of touch or frustrations within internal teams. The panel agreed that this was a challenge across each council and spoke about how they try to alleviate this during the planning and delivery stages. Michelle mentioned the importance of the IAP2 spectrum and how Wollondilly Shire use it to enable communication between council and community. "This is a challenge that is common across all councils. It’s about utilising the IAP2 spectrum as a tool transparently, authentically and understanding that if we’ve come from a place where there is a lot of mistrust with council, that trust isn’t going to be rebuilt overnight just because we said we’ve listened to you. Trust can be broken quickly, but it takes a lot of time to rebuild, and you need to follow through and do what you say you’re going to do. You need a strong communications campaign that constantly links back to what people said in a consultation and what plans you’re putting in place." Luke elaborated on how Lake Macquarie City identifies key projects and takes a three-step approach to community engagement. Therefore allowing residents to be involved and see their feedback result in action. "We identify key projects that we know will have a great interest in the community. We then look to go out with pre-engagement to get the communities thoughts on what’s working and what’s not working," he said. "From that feedback, we then prepare a discussion paper where we will come back with the community and check in with them - have we interpreted what you told us correctly? This way, you can iron out issues before a report goes to council recommending public exhibition. The community then has three opportunities for feedback, they have had the opportunity to be involved, have their say, and can see their feedback interpreted into the draft strategy. This potentially allows for a smoother public exhibition period." There was a consensus that communication is vital when engaging communities at the right time. Rachelle also elaborated on her concept of The Engagement Revolution to avoid engagement fatigue. "We tend to be engaging with the same sector of the community over and over again, and we don’t actively go out and hear the voices of the whole community and then get that groundswell of support. The Engagement Revolution is about having continual dialogue. How do you identify key priorities, how do you champion them through the lifecycle from project initiation to delivery, and how do you look at the sentiment of your community? You need to have a continual conversation across many channels to elevate those voices." We tend to be engaging with the same sector of the community over and over again, and we don’t actively go out and hear the voices of the whole community and then get that groundswell of support. From left to right: Matthew Pearce, Rachelle Robb, Luke Farr, Michelle Jack The role of authentic storytelling "You need to invest in your narrative." Rachelle expressed the importance of having your own narrative, and the panel agreed that your narrative needs to come from the top down and be authentic to create trust. Luke expressed how important it is for council to see the value of undertaking good community engagement and not just doing it to tick a box. He also provided an example of how Lake Macquarie City recently achieved this with their Lake Mac 100 Voices Summit. "We brought together 100 diverse community members from across the city to participate in a one-day summit to help us prepare our draft community engagement strategy. This allowed us to be transparent and talk to our community about why we are here, what we intend to do with their feedback, and how giving up a day of their time will help us prepare for future engagement projects. It allowed us to be transparent with our community and build trust." Michelle also acknowledged the importance of communicating with residents to increase confidence in future projects. "Once you develop a strategy with a process that starts with community engagement, you can feel confident that the voices are valid and representative, and you can then trust in the direction and not be reactive." Engaging a Diverse Community While communicating clearly and exhibiting authenticity is essential, the panel recognised that communities are becoming increasingly diverse. They then delved into how they ensure every voice has the opportunity to be heard. Rachelle explained how Orange City truly listens to their community and goes beyond traditional engagement strategies to have real conversations. "It’s about being real. Understanding your segment, who they are, where they live and what they do. But also, who don’t you hear from?" She said. "We wanted to seek the voices that we never hear from. So we had teams go down to playgrounds to speak to mums, dads and kids to hear their feedback. We have so many frameworks, templates, processes and checkboxes in place, but have we forgotten the art of conversation and the art of engaging, not engagement? You need to find the voices that are never heard, start listening to them, and then somehow create a narrative." Michelle extended this by reiterating the importance of knowing who you are talking to rather than simply pushing a message to your community. "It shouldn't start with you wanting to share a message. You need to know the different groups of people you are talking to, what’s in it for them, what is relevant for them, and why they care. If we are actively building relationships, we need to understand who it is we are building a relationship with for them to have any chance of leaning into any type of communication with us." Having real conversations and listening to your residents was a clear theme, and Luke also identified the importance of choosing the right channels to connect with the right community members. "You can try all you like to attempt to engage your whole community - but if the story or messaging doesn’t resonate, then you’ve missed the boat," he said. "We understand that a mailout won’t necessarily attract a younger audience, but a social media campaign will. It’s about accessing the relevant person in your organisation who is the touchpoint and making sure the way you are seeking feedback is accessible for everyone." It shouldn't start with you wanting to share a message. You need to know the different groups of people you are talking to, what’s in it for them, what is relevant for them, and why they care. Measuring Diversity and the importance of data Engaging diverse community members and creating authentic narratives are great, but how do you actively measure sentiment and engagement? The conversation around data and the need to capture the right information identified the need for local councils to use the right tools to measure what matters to help make evidence-based decisions. "You need evidence to create a case, and that comes from data," said Rachelle. "You need to be able to listen, hear, understand and capture information. Many of us don’t tend to capture very well, and if we do, it’s a narrative, not trend data. It’s about having the right tools to monitor and measure community sentiment. Data is the science, and you can’t make clear decisions without evidence." Luke then mentioned that while there can sometimes be an abundance of data, you need to be smart with the insights you have. "There’s definitely data overload, but it’s about what we do with that data and how we can interpret it from our community. Our community tells us things through our community satisfaction survey, and we interpret that data, but it’s about looking at the data we’re receiving from community engagement projects and ensuring we’re not going back out and asking the community the same thing that they told us two or three consultations ago. It’s about being smart with your data." Michelle admitted that measuring what matters is a challenge that she faces, and while social media can help you gauge sentiment, it’s important to always follow up on the so what. "Measuring what matters is a challenge. How do you measure the vibe? How do you know if people are happy? At Wollondilly, we use Facebook a lot as our social media channel, and you start to see sentiment shift and community advocates form. But to Luke’s point, it’s also so important to follow up with the so what - we’ve measured this, and we’ve got these results, but so what? What are we doing with that internally, and what change is being influenced by this data? When we communicate that change, we’re building trust and encouraging people to provide more input." There’s definitely data overload, but it’s about what we do with that data and how we can interpret it from our community. Redman Solutions are proud Corporate Supporters of LG Professionals NSW and look forward to attending and hosting more thought-provoking discussions in the future. You can watch the full video of the Community Engagement Panel Discussion here.

Chances are that if you're a customer of Redman Solutions, you would have had the pleasure of speaking to Support Consultant Craig Elksnat. As well as a passion for helping our customers, you might be surprised to know that Craig spent a large part of his career in the Royal Australian Airforce, lived in the UK for ten years and loves getting out on his motorcycle. Here's your chance to get to know Craig a little better. Where are you originally from, and where do you currently live? I’m from Adelaide originally, although I haven’t lived in SA for many years. From my time in the Royal Australian Airforce, I’ve enjoyed stints in Melbourne and Sydney and, after finishing my RAAF career, was fortunate enough to spend ten years in the UK. These days I’m settled in ‘sunny’ Brisbane and love the endless things to explore in and around this laid-back city. How long have you been at Redman Solutions? It's coming up to nine months now, and it's been a whirlwind! It’s been great getting to know the team and the solutions we provide to local government, and I have enjoyed learning about and building a rapport with the councils we support. These days, I'm settled in 'sunny Brisbane' and love the endless things to explore in and around this laid-back city. What gets you up and going in the morning? I’d like to say it’s a 5km run or session at the gym, but it's really coffee! Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing? There's nothing quite like a hike, and there's no shortage of beautiful places to see in Queensland. I don’t do it as much as I’d like to, but I also love getting out on my motorcycle and searching for incredible scenery and twisty roads. I love getting out on my motorcycle and searching for incredible scenery and twisty roads. You seem to be a natural in your role as a Support Consultant; how do you strive for customer excellence? It's important to get to know our clients and the challenges they face in their everyday roles. Listening to and understanding the difficulties makes us better placed to offer the proper fix or solution. For me, customer excellence is about being proactive when possible and recommending options that might add value or benefit current working practices or processes. The feedback and suggestions we receive from our customers are vital in steering the future development of our products and services.

Spreadsheets have been around since the 1980s, and if you’re still using them to track performance on your strategic plan, you’re not alone. With over 750 million users worldwide, Microsoft Excel is the traditional tool of choice for presenting and analysing data. While static spreadsheets have their uses, are they costing your council unnecessary time, effort and resources? Are they falling short of providing a complete planning and reporting solution? Here are nine ways that static spreadsheets may be hindering your strategic planning and reporting outcomes. 1. Reporting is manual, and it takes time. Creating a spreadsheet might not seem daunting from the outset, but when you break it down, you realise there is more to this process than you thought. You have to gather data and verify its accuracy, create appropriate formulas without error, and manually convert your data into charts and graphs. You also need to factor in the time spent maintaining formulas that others have inadvertently changed. These seemingly small steps start to add up and become a significant drain on your time. The lack of automation within spreadsheets can also increase the manual workload. When updates are due, you rely on human processes to notify your user base rather than tools that schedule notifications and reminders to track what is overdue. 2. There’s a lack of data integrity Excel’s permission setting is great if you are trying to limit the entire file to read-only vs write. But if data integrity is important, then Excel might not be the best solution for you. Once a strategic plan is developed and implemented, you rely on each user to update their progress on the deliverables they are responsible for. If someone is not paying attention and overwrites or deletes someone else's update, or provides an incorrect progress update to the wrong deliverable, then the integrity of your data is being compromised. There’s then the chance of uncontrolled versions being created due to users wanting to work with their own copies. This can result in incorrect and inconsistent business decisions and impact the quality of your strategic plan and tasks. 3. They can become extremely large and difficult to manage Running an entire department or council’s operation on a spreadsheet is no small undertaking. Before you know it, you can have 100+ spreadsheets containing deliverables from multiple departments within multiple tabs. Trying to find the correct data to report on can confuse stakeholders, and depending on your computer’s resources and version of Excel, there are limitations when working with large spreadsheets. 4. Overall reporting is almost impossible Have you ever tried to create a comprehensive report from all the progress updates in Excel and thought there must be a better way? A spreadsheet is great for the initial creation of a strategic plan’s hierarchy, and if you’re using google sheets, it makes it easy to collaborate. However, when it comes to tracking your plan's progress and reporting overall progress to stakeholders unless you love to spend your days collating and summarising the information line by line, spreadsheets will become your foe rather than a friend. 5. Information can get lost in the clutter, and execution stalls We’ve all seen those Excel spreadsheets that have been around for years, constantly being updated with new data — all the while becoming more cluttered and more difficult to decipher. This is the result of manually building out your progress updates. Keeping everything in one place makes the most sense to gain the best understanding of your progress, but that much information in one place can go from being clear and concise to utter chaos in no time. These complex spreadsheets may make sense to some, but for others, much of the data becomes meaningless and confusing, which can stall execution and become too complex for staff to keep track of. 6. Data can be difficult to analyse An additional problem associated with a high volume of data presented by an excel document is the potential for misinterpretation and error when it comes time to analyse and put information into context. When tracking progress on your strategic plan, it is vital that you have an up-to-date and accurate understanding of what your organisation has achieved. Misread or misinterpreted data provides an inaccurate picture of your overall strategic plan progress, hindering your ability to achieve goals and provide accurate reports to stakeholders. 7. Talent is going to waste By the very nature of how spreadsheets are developed and shared, they are usually worked on by team members from all levels of an organisation, particularly when tracking progress on your strategic plan. So while it’s great that your top-level executives are well-versed in Excel, they shouldn’t be stuck fine-tuning spreadsheets or manually adjusting formulas or data points on a chart. 8. There’s no external visibility, trust or transparency Communication creates engagement - especially when it's accurate, regular, and visually appealing. While spreadsheets keep everyone on track internally, how are you communicating your strategic plan with your community, volunteers, and partners? Being able to demonstrate progress and performance enhances transparency, which then builds trust. But if there’s no way for anyone externally to see how your council is progressing, trust can be challenging to achieve. 9. Opportunities are being missed While your team members are manually formatting spreadsheets and reports that could easily be created automatically, opportunities are falling by the wayside. It’s time to ditch those spreadsheets, let an automated tracking and reporting software take the reins, and allow your team more time to understand the data to effect positive change within your organisation. Make static excel spreadsheets a thing of the past. Spreadsheets are a business management and reporting tool that are simply unable to keep up with the high demands of busy and modern councils. Static tools lack the ability for businesses to automate their tracking and reporting, forcing your team to engage in tedious data entry regularly. Selecting the appropriate solution for your organisation is sure to mitigate your team’s wasted effort, time and resources and streamline your efforts toward achieving your overall strategic plan. Discover how Envisio can transform the way you develop and execute plans and track performance.

We’ve all been there – we spend significant time and resources creating a strategic plan, and then when it comes to executing it, something else takes priority. While we understand the benefits of creating clear goals for our teams, they can sometimes be challenging to translate into tangible actions. Successfully implementing your strategic plan helps you engage your team and stakeholders, show meaningful progress, and demonstrate transparency. It also allows you to track and measure results and make the most of budgets and allocated resources. Alternatively, failing to implement a strategic plan can expose your organisation to various risks. Setting a course without anyone steering the ship in the right direction can result in unutilised resources, wasted time, and investment. So, what usually goes wrong? After creating a strategic plan, we tend to focus on what to do next and become stuck in the weeds. We rarely create a well-defined action plan that aligns with the budget, sets clear priorities, or measures progress. On top of this, not every action plan is created equal. Many are loosely defined, not adequately assigned, or aligned with key performance measures. We've put together A Practical Guide to implementing your strategic plan. This guide: Discusses the differences between strategy, action and execution Provides five Tips to turn your strategic plan into action Outlines the elements of a well-designed action plan Provides tips on tracking and sharing your progress Discusses how to evolve your living plan and share and recognise success Access your copy of the guide here!

We’ve all been there – we spend significant time and resources creating a strategic plan, and then when it comes to executing it, something else takes priority. While we understand the benefits of creating clear goals for our teams, they can sometimes be challenging to translate into tangible actions. Successfully implementing your strategic plan helps you engage your team and stakeholders, show meaningful progress, and demonstrate transparency. It also allows you to track and measure results and make the most of budgets and allocated resources. Alternatively, failing to implement a strategic plan can expose your organisation to various risks. Setting a course without anyone steering the ship in the right direction can result in unutilised resources, wasted time, and investment. So, what usually goes wrong? After creating a strategic plan, we tend to focus on what to do next and become stuck in the weeds. We rarely create a well-defined action plan that aligns with the budget, sets clear priorities, or measures progress. On top of this, not every action plan is created equal. Many are loosely defined, not adequately assigned, or aligned with key performance measures. We discuss the elements of a well-designed action plan and provide tips on how you can execute it for ultimate success. Strategic Plans vs. Action Plans vs. Execution Your Strategic Plan Looks at the big picture. It creates a vision of your destination, the significant steps or initiatives it will take to get there, and looks at what roadblocks may arise along the way. It is likely community focussed and represents the vision of your elected members. Your Action Plan Translates your strategic plan into specific steps and performance measures. It covers the nuts and bolts of what steps you will take when you get there, how much it will cost, and who is responsible. Action Plans help staff connect to your broader strategic goals through what they do every day. Execution This is where all your planning comes to life. You can have the best-laid plans, but execution is about getting things done and knowing when to pivot or change direction when things aren’t going to plan or have changed course. It's essential you have the right people in the right seats to deliver on your strategy and implement your actions. 5 Best Practices to turn your Strategic Plan into Action. 1. Align your plans with the budget Even the most innovative strategy will fail without dollars behind it. Early on, ensure your strategic goals are genuinely reflected in the budget. Consider building your budget process around contributing to the outcome areas in the strategic plan. It’s essential that council, policymakers, and the public can see how the strategic plan feeds into operations and capital improvement expenditures. 2. Be Specific with your initiatives. Vague action plans will result in ambiguous outcomes. Without specific, concrete steps and tasks, an action plan lacks urgency and feels separate from everyday reality. The high-level goals of your strategic plan come alive when you break them down into a series of bite-sized initiatives or tasks. Rather than serving as a glorified to-do list, each item should tell the person completing precisely what they’ll be doing.  Here’s what you should consider when breaking down your initiatives: What are the moving parts of each initiative? Who will tackle each task? What are the start and end dates for each? Are they realistic? How will you know when the initiative or task is complete? How will you know if each task has been successful? 3. Consider the WHY Once you’ve set your action items, take a look at each and ask yourself two questions; What problem are you solving? What does success look like? This helps to define why each action step is essential. The people assigned to each action item need to understand why it exists and what they’re aiming for—otherwise, it simply won’t happen. 4. Set Clear Priorities When you’re creating a plan, it’s easy to be optimistic about what you’ll be able to accomplish. Prioritisation will help with the tough decisions necessary to ensure the important things get done. Setting priorities can be tricky—after all, everything in your strategic plan is important. However, the oft-repeated saying, “if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority,” applies here. Without a pecking order, you may do a lot of running around without any results. Here are some tips to help you set clear priorities: If possible, arrange a time to sit down with your leadership group and a calendar. Start by staggering the start and end dates for each action item. If nothing has a due date, or if everything is due at the end of the planning period, then your team could spend valuable time guessing what a priority is. Staggered end dates also avoid the rush of delivering everything at once. For each initiative, discuss where you are now and where you’d like to be in a year and put the action items necessary to do so into the calendar. In doing this, everyone can see how much work will be involved and where they will have to prioritise. 5. Involve the Entire Organisation Too often, the flow of information surrounding the action plan stops with department heads and supervisors, leaving front-line staff in the dark. However, to implement a plan, everyone - down to interim and seasonal employees - needs to understand where you’re going and how they fit in. It’s essential to reassure the council and stakeholders that their priorities are top of mind. It also motivates staff and managers, affirming their hard work is paying off and builds trust with the community, showing steady progress towards meaningful goals. Here’s some tips to help you with internal communication: Use a visual dashboard: A performance management program with a visual dashboard lets you share strategic plan updates and KPIs openly and quickly. Everyone can work towards common goals with the same accurate information. Leverage existing meetings: Ensure that the strategic plan is on the agenda of every monthly departmental meeting - and use this time to discuss progress on the plan. Performance evaluations and employee recognition programs: Both are excellent opportunities to highlight how individual team members contribute to the big picture. Other regular communications: Many organisations already have a regular employee newsletter or intranet. It’s a simple way to add a strategy update when there’s news to share. Implementing your strategic plan is no easy task - but it’s incredibly worthwhile. Envisio aligns people, plans, and performance data and helps local councils to develop and execute plans, track and improve performance, and communicate results. Discover how you can enhance Strategic Planning and Execution today.

It’s exciting times for Redman Solutions. We’re expanding our team and have recently opened offices across the ditch. David Webb recently joined us as General Manager of NZ and will support our friends in New Zealand. With over 19 years of local government experience and a passion for fly fishing, we thought we would get to know David a little better. You’ve worked in the local government sector for some time now, David. Can you tell us more about your background? I’ve been working in local government in New Zealand for just over 19 years now and have built many trusted relationships within the sector. I spent ten years working at Onstream Systems as Sales Director, two years at Objective, and was the CEO at Master Business Systems. My experience has allowed me to provide solutions that deliver efficiencies to councils and foster those relationships. I’m about delivering value and always ask myself - how can I add additional value to what councils are doing? Whether that be solutions or services. It seems like you love what you do. I really do. I think it’s because I don’t see my customers as customers but as friends and partners. I like to provide solutions as a trusted advisor to make their jobs easier. I don’t find work tedious or stressful and enjoy working with people. Team Redman is excited to have you onboard - why did you decide to join the team? I am driven and excited by Redman’s passion for providing its customers with value. They aren’t a faceless team - they stand by what they do, and it is always about the customer. I am not looking to provide New Zealand councils with technology and widgets, I want to build relationships, and Redman’s values resonate with that. I was also drawn to their product portfolio and recent partnerships. They complement what councils are looking for in this current environment but are also forward-thinking in their approach to new and emerging technologies. You live in a beautiful country, so how do you enjoy spending your time outside of work? Fishing, and more fishing! I enjoy fly fishing on the river and regularly take my boat out. In the past, I ran a small business where I would conduct guided tours and teach people how to fly fish. It’s a passion of mine, and I feel fortunate to be able to spend my downtime out on the water. You can connect with David on LinkedIn here.

Redman Solutions has partnered with Envisio - a leading provider of strategic planning solutions for local government. The partnership will allow Australian and New Zealand councils to access the most widely used strategic planning, performance management, and transparency solution in local government. Leaders from more than 100 cities, counties, and towns across the US and Canada use Envisio to execute plans, measure and report on performance, make evidence-based decisions, and build trust and transparency with their elected officials and communities. CEO of Redman Solutions, Michael Redman, explains how the partnership helps local councils enhance their strategic planning while becoming more transparent and accountable to their community. “Developing high-performing, transparent, and trustworthy institutions is one of the biggest challenges facing government organisations today. Envisio has been designed with the local government planning process in mind. The platform will allow councils to take their strategic planning to a new level and help them build trust with their communities through customised and automated dashboards. Envisio speaks to our purpose as a company, to enable councils to be more transparent, effective, and accountable.” Envisio CEO and Founder, Mike Bell looks forward to introducing Envisio to Australia and New Zealand and working with Redman Solutions. “I cannot state more emphatically how delighted we are to be working with Redman Solutions to represent Envisio in the Public Sector in Australia and New Zealand. We share a common passion for the work of local government and empowering our customer’s ability to execute and track plans, improve performance and share progress transparently with their residents. Redman has extensive experience and expertise in supporting and empowering local government teams with adopting and benefiting from the latest Govtech productivity solutions.” Envisio is now available to local councils based in Australia and New Zealand through Redman Solutions.

Without a high degree of trust amongst the community, council progress can stall or face backlash. In the wake of COVID-19, councils are facing record demand for information about how they operate, distribute funds, and resolve societal issues. Meanwhile, remote working demands are making governance processes increasingly difficult to manage. Modern governance technology helps councils manage the governance workload and build community trust by making key processes more transparent, engaging, and efficient. However, the most well-intentioned (and funded) investments are unlikely to deliver promised results if councils don't take a “people-first” approach to solutions. We interviewed 35 governance leaders across the country to uncover shared challenges and best practice to help councils around Australia maximise ROI on governance technology investments. In this exclusive report, you’ll learn the 7 key risks that other industry leaders are paying close attention to, and strategies your council can use to face them effectively. Watch the video above for a sneak peek into the report In this report, you will gain insights and tips on how to: Make the council meeting process more efficient Speed up the handling of informal public information requests Get better participation and engagement around strategic initiatives Avoid change fatigue + more! Access the Industry Insights Report here

"Administrative," labour-intensive," and "complex" - are just some of the words that come to mind when many think of the council meeting process. However, technology has come a long way. These days, the ability to manage meetings, connect with communities, and track meeting actions and resolutions is right at your fingertips, thanks to digital meeting management solutions. But is your council meeting platform future-proofed? Will it keep up with the increasing demands of your community and other stakeholders to increase efficiencies and transparency? Here are some questions you should ask to determine whether your solution can keep pace with the changing nature of local government. How do you navigate large documents? Agendas, business papers, and attachments uploaded into your meeting management platform can sometimes be substantial in size. The process for your team to upload and manage large PDFs should be easy, and the last thing they should have to worry about is your system being able to handle the file size. Stephanie Papadopolous from Tweed Shire Council explains how her team experienced this with their previous system. “Our papers can include thousands of pages, and within those, there’s large attachments and files made up of plans and diagrams,” said Stephanie. “We found our current system would regularly not cope with the large and diverse attachments.” Future-proofed council meeting solutions should support large files and allow your team to quickly compile all supporting documentation into bookmarked PDF packets with minimal bandwidth consumption. Administrators should be able to easily make last-minute changes, set up email notifications, and choose what they publish with minimal effort. Are your meetings automatically bookmarked for on-demand viewing? The viewing experience of recorded videos and content should be effortless and allow the community to engage with issues that are relevant to them. Platforms that provide bookmarked video recordings automatically timestamp agenda items corresponding to the discussion held in your meeting. This means your community can quickly access topics of interest to them making it more inviting for them to engage with your meetings. Information is instant, and finding content about issues that matter to them can be achieved without having to sift through mountains of irrelevant information. There’s no doubt that this feature enhances the online viewing experience. And with streaming technology and online video content ever-evolving, your council meeting platform must provide a solution that allows you to automate the process. Bookmarking recorded meetings should be automatic to remove the burden from meeting administrators and reduce tasks once the meeting is over. Is your voting process integrated? Electronic voting has many advantages over traditional voting methods. It increases accessibility, participation, provides an audit trail, and allows you to report and publish results much faster. The benefits are amplified when your meeting management platform enables members to vote from any device. Governance Subject Matter Expert, Matthew Pearce, explains how an integrated voting process can improve meeting efficiency. “For council meeting voting applications to be future-proofed, they need to impact the entire process, not just the voting action itself,” he says. “Modern Meeting Management systems should allow Minutes Takers to record motions and votes instantly and initiate voting when they choose to. Likewise, your motions and votes should seamlessly integrate with agenda items and minutes. It’s really about creating an end-to-end experience.” Do your councillors have access to an easy-to-use portal? A future-proofed meeting management platform should help councillors feel more prepared and supported to participate – before, during, and after the meeting. Online Councillor Portals provide ultimate accessibility. Many meetings contain thousands of papers. Councillors should be able to navigate to current items for discussion or search past, and future meeting content in a few simple clicks. This allows them to work faster, manage well-organised meetings, and eliminates the risk of them getting lost in the sheer volume of pages to navigate. A best-practice solution ensure Councillors can join meetings anywhere and participate in the meeting, including built-in voting that integrates directly with council minutes. About Resolve Meeting Management Resolve is a responsive web-based agenda and meeting management solution that improves communication, collaboration, participation, and engagement. You can now streamline, automate and execute your council meetings from one central portal and enhance the experience for all stakeholders. Discover more about Resolve here.