Tim McClellan, Manager Corporate Services, Bogan Shire Council

Bogan Shire Council engaged Mr David Duffy of Success From Within to develop a Strategic Economic Plan for the Shire. As a basis for the plan Council provided Mr Duffy with a copy of its 1995 Development Strategy, together with the results of a Business Retention and Expansion survey and Community Strategic Planning Report, preliminary projects that had been undertaken earlier in the year.

Through a process of consolidating this and other information provided (Management Plan, statistics, etc.), conducting personal interviews with Council's Mayor and key members of staff, sourcing various regional strategies, both of neighbouring Councils and State Government departments, and utilising his wide-ranging government and business contacts to gather other relevant information, Mr Duffy compiled an extensive and thoroughly comprehensive plan for Council to consider.

Following the completion of the plan, Mr Duffy was again engaged to provide a detailed presentation to councillors and senior staff, and later, facilitate a public forum to explain the strategies and identify the potential benefits that such strategies could have for the economic sustainability of Bogan Shire.

Mr Duffy, at all times, displayed complete professionalism. His research and willingness to investigate all possible opportunities resulted in a plan that was beyond Council's initial expectations, and will provide Council with the opportunity to strategically enhance the economic prospects of the Shire for the benefit of future generations of residents.

Tim McClellan
Manager Corporate Services
Bogan Shire Council
Ph 02 6832 1503
August 2004

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Paul Mann, General Manager, Gilgandra Shire Council

'As General Manager of Gilgandra Shire Council, I had been discussing with senior staff the need to review our management structure and style, and to address some issues that were impacting on where we were going. I raised the possibility of working with David and, in due course, David conducted an open workshop with Senior Staff, and then a wider discussion with various management Levels.

As a result David was engaged to assist Council to explore with Management our current postion and, to an extent, where we wanted to be and how we could move to that point. David conducted a number of workshops with senior and middle management at which we identified the issues of concern and, more importantly, developed skills and processes to attack issues.

Unfortunately time constraints and workloads impacted on the initial consultancy, however the skills learned and the direction set have been utilized throughout the organisation and, as an in-house-project, we are currently reviewing all functions and activities, assessing the level and cost of provision and developing new management plans and budget formats.

The consultancy provided us with an opportunity of initially sit back and recognise what need to be done and provided us with the skills to undertake that to some extent in-house. it is intended that we would be engaging David to review our progress in the not too distant future.'

Paul Mann
General Manager
Gilgandra Shire Council
Ph: 2 6847 2709
September 2002

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Bill Williamson, Chairman, Macquarie 2100

'Macquarie 2100 is an important community group in the lower Macquarie Valley of NSW. It has taken on the task of planning and implementing programs to ensure the sustainability of the valley into the next century, covering environmental, economic and social needs.  The plan which has been developed by the group has been reviewed and endorsed by government at all levels, and at the time of it's release was described as the most comprehensive work of it's type.

The implementation of the M2100 plan is a challenging job.  It covers many intangible issues and involves a range of co-operators.  Integrating these diverse factors into action requires skills that many of us have little chance to identify and develop.

Initially we felt we had the plan and it was simply a matter of putting each of the projects into action.  In a short time however we realised that it was not as simple as that, and that we were not getting to the milestones we were setting.  Each little project requires dedicated focus, but the motivation to achieve it can only come from understanding the bigger picture.  Networks of stakeholders need to be developed for each project, and ensuring that everyone is involved and the work is relevant takes more time than we anticipated.  The core committee of the group realised that we needed to revisit our objectives, not of the bigger plan, but of how were going to manage to put it into action.

The beauty of the extended network of people involved with M2100 is that we had some experience of the work that David does in his business Success from Within.  And while we may not have considered it consciously, we knew that he would be prepared to look at the situation objectively and help us understand how we had got to where we were.  So David took on a Now Where How approach.

Firstly we worked at where we had gotten to (as above). Then we covered the ideas of where we wanted to go, and that is where David's insight came through.  When we had examined this question in our own minds we tended to say that we wanted to have a sustainable valley, which met our physical, social and economic needs.  What David identified as part of his process is that we were taking on a very broad agenda, which felt good, but were ignoring the basic needs of the members of the organisation.  They were not being involved in the activities that had brought them to M2100 in the first place.

Thanks to David, we now understand what we have to address to keep people involved in what we do, and we understand the practicalities of structuring the organisation to make that so.  We are implementing that process now.'

Bill Williamson
Chairman
Macquarie 2100
Ph: 2 6889 7003
September 2002

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