Client
Minda
The largest not-for-profit intellectual disability service provider and employer in SA, providing home and living services, housing, children's services, respite, supported employment, day programs and allied health therapy.
Sector
Non-profit
Location
Adelaide, South Australia
Tools and methods
- Trend Harvester
- Scenario planning
- Scenario matrix generator
- Scenario impact analyser
Introduction
Minda is South Australia's leading provider of intellectual disability services. With a name meaning "a place of shelter in protection" in Kaurna language, Minda has been serving people living with an intellectual disability for over 120 years.
Successive years of financial challenges, sector disruption and changing client needs created a situation where Minda needed to focus on repairing its core operations. As that recovery program neared completion, a new multi-year corporate strategy needed a better understanding of the future client and how Minda could continue to serve them well.
Challenges and objectives
The disability services sector in Australia is undergoing significant disruption due to regulatory reform, demographic changes, and the emergence of advanced assistive technologies. Unpacking these changes through traditional strategic analysis was proving difficult because of how the forces influence each other.
It was also a priority to engage staff outside the executive team, so emerging leaders could develop their strategic analysis skills while informing the strategy.
AI-enabled futures thinking approach
Scenario analysis provided a way to look at the disruptions together. A cross-functional working group of senior managers and emerging leaders gathered and analysed trends, developed scenarios and assessed their impact. Digital and AI-enabled tools produced summaries, classifications and draft content, so the group could work through multiple iterations in the time they had.
Implementation
Over 12 weeks, meeting for one to two hours each week, the group worked through four phases:
- Trend and driving forces research.
- Creating scenarios about life in 2034 for one of Minda's clients.
- Analysing what those stories mean for Minda.
- Development of scenario videos with generative AI.
Results
The working group assessed that the most critical and uncertain driving forces for people living with a disability were the availability of suitable housing and the availability of personal assistive technology. Those forces became the axes of a 2×2 scenario matrix.
