The Corporate Finance, Property and Sustainability team (CFPS) within the University of Melbourne (the University) plays a key role planning and delivering capital projects throughout various stages of development.
Capire supported CFPS to develop an Engagement Framework (the Framework) and Toolkit to support delivery of a long-term capital plan and master plan for the development of University campuses.
The Framework
The Framework articulates overarching principles of engagement and provides guidance on how and why to undertake engagement. The Framework provides a description of engagement concepts and expectations around roles and responsibilities for staff relating to formal or planned engagements to support the work of CFPS. It provides a practical guide to drive a consistent approach to how CFPS assists with planning and delivering engagement that is meaningful to participants and inclusive of those impacted by projects being planned and delivered.
The Toolkit
The Toolkit is an accompanying guide that provides further information about processes for planning, delivering and evaluating engagement activities and interactions. The Toolkit is a standalone document and provides useful reflective prompts and templates to enable effective engagement.
Approach
The approach to developing the engagement framework and toolkit was achieved via a co-design process with key people across the University. A ‘diverge and converge’ model was used to develop the Framework and Toolkit.
The first diverge stage involved producing detailed insights into how the Engagement Framework could be developed and what it could include. This was achieved by conducting interviews with key stakeholders across the University as well as the production of a background research document outlining best practice case studies.
The second converge stage involved refining the results of the diverge phase through a co-design process with an internal working group to develop the key elements of the draft Engagement Framework and Toolkit. The draft was further tested with a wider group of key stakeholders across the University who were interviewed at the diverge stage.
Outputs
The project outputs included a background case study document, insights from 15 interviews with key stakeholders across the University, three co-design sessions with University stakeholders and an internal working group. The final product was an Engagement Framework that articulated overarching principles of engagement and provided guidance on how and why to undertake engagement, and a Toolkit to map out the engagement processes for staff across the University. Capire delivered a presentation to key stakeholders on how to use the Framework and Toolkit.
