Yorkshire’s Brain Tumour Charity
How to measure progress and support growth.
In a nutshell…
We supported the CEO of Yorkshire’s Brain Tumour Charity to identify and implement measures that will help the Board of Trustees monitor progress against their objectives.
Since Marie Peacock joined Yorkshire’s Brain Tumour Charity as their new CEO, and even in the face of a global pandemic, she has been successful in improving and growing the charity. But now into a new year, her vision is firmly fixed on sustaining growth in a post-covid world.
She made many changes since joining the Charity. In 2020, she brought in Optimo for support. We helped refine and formalize a set of Key Performance Indicators (also known as Objectives & Key Results, or OKRs) to monitor and review progress.
After our initial consultation, we then got started with a Benefits Map – often used as a project management tool, but is also effective in business planning to map out business and strategic objectives. By doing this exercise, it helps business leaders validate the direction the company is going in, whilst also identifying the benefits.
“The process that was followed was easy to navigate and come to terms with. It built on the foundations we already had in a way I would never have thought of and meant the outputs produced were perfect for our needs” – Marie
Once we’d completed this, we could cross-reference the benefits we found. They were financial, service quality, and team-related measures. We’d compare them with frameworks around people, planet, profit, and the balanced scorecard. These frameworks are used at similar companies to validate them as best practice and the right measurements for OKRs.
Now Marie has a set of objectives and measurements. She used them to validate Yorkshire’s Brain Tumour Charity’s current activities. She also created measurements to guide talks with the Trustees and track progress against their goals.
“This has helped me personally by identifying ways of reporting to our Board of Trustees at a strategic level. Thus ensuring I am being held accountable but working in a concise and effective way. This will also help me to identify areas where more attention needs to be focused. Therefore enabling me to plan the use of my time to best effect. For the charity, the benefit of the project is to enable us to have excellent oversight and governance to ensure we are achieving objectives and working towards our aims, meeting all our legal responsibilities in an evidenced way.”
Optimo prides itself on having expert knowledge. We use it to support organizations in business discovery services. But, we also pride ourselves on our personal approach. It helps us build stronger relationships and understanding with the companies we work with. This shows in our client feedback.
“Danielle has shown an exceptional understanding of our charity through the work and time she has put into the project. This has made working with her a delight! Danielle made the whole process easy to understand and undertake and I highly recommend her.”