Impact Planning for the Australian Cobotics Centre (ACC)
DR THOMAS KEENAN | FEBRUARY 2022
Outside Opinion was approached by the Australian Cobotics Centre (an ARC Industry Transformation Training Centre focusing on collaborative robots in the manufacturing sector) to provide independent advice regarding its strategic planning processes.
Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash
During the initial discussions about the support that OO could provide, it was decided that impact pathway planning should form an essential component of the ACC’s strategic planning process, given the significance placed on delivering impact in ARC-funded activities.
OO Associate Dr Thomas Keenan, an international expert in impact management for research and other mission-orientated organisations, facilitated an online impact planning workshop for the Centre, comprising two, 3-hour sessions across two days. Participants included the Centre’s leadership team, its key researchers, and several representatives of its industry partners, resulting in the delivery of a co-developed impact pathway which represents the strategic intent of the Centre’s partners in relation to contributing to social, economic, and environmental benefits for the manufacturing sector. The significant time commitment of participants to this process demonstrates the desire of the Centre and its stakeholders to ensure that the strategic orientation of the Centre will enable it to contribute to benefits beyond the delivery of excellent research outputs.
During the workshop, participants were taken through a process which began with a facilitated discussion of the ACC’s purpose, scope, sector needs targeted, and key research challenges to be addressed to ensure the level of consensus regarding these issues which is necessary before commencing the formal development of an impact pathway.
The approach to impact pathway planning adopted for this workshop is based on a program logic model, intended to be used as a strategic management tool for supporting the achievement of specific impact goals. The model captures the process of creating impact which begins with deploying inputs, to conduct activities, to produce outputs, which themselves are translated through short to medium term outcomes (i.e., the process of the uptake and adoption of research outputs within the targeted operating environment) into longer term impacts. The workshop covered each of these essential elements of the impact pathway for the ACC, as well as exploring the assumptions the participants were making in relation to this pathway and the delivery of impact; the risks which may affect the ability of the Centre to be impactful (including a consideration of potential ‘Grimpacts’ – i.e., unintended, negative consequences of the Centre’s work); and the counterfactual (i.e., the ‘without ACC’ scenario). Impact pathway development processes encourage reflections on, and documenting of, causal links between specific activities and their intended benefits. This includes defining changes, linking processes, and (ultimately) identifying indicators to monitor progress towards the intended impacts, as well as flagging unintended consequences.
Post the workshop, Dr Keenan collated the information captured into a draft pathway canvas, which was then reviewed by the participants. Participant feedback was then incorporated into the draft. The Centre leadership team plans to use the pathway (a) to inform the development of its strategic plan document, as the pathway captures important content relevant to the strategic plan; (b) to guide the operational planning for the Centre’s various project streams, encouraging the projects to identify how their intended activities, outputs, and outcome paths align to the Centre’s pathway to impact; and (c) as the basis for the review of the Centre’s KPI framework, and the development of an associated effective monitoring and evaluation plan.
The ACC’s impact planning process will greatly assist it to achieve a coherent, impact-focused strategy, ultimately enabling the various project streams within the Centre to focus on impact and how they intend to support the delivery of the Centre’s impact goals. Participation in the workshop process was particularly important for the Centre’s industry stakeholders, in that it not only enabled them to contribute to the Centre’s strategic direction actively and authentically, but also to see that the Centre is focused on delivering real value for the Australian manufacturing sector, while still acknowledging the challenges in delivering impact through cobotics for both the industry itself and its workers.
