Business planning re-imagined: An iterative approach for Amnesty UK
This is the story of how Rosie Leatherland is using agile principles to build a whole-organisational approach to business planning, monitoring and delivery.
It’s an approach that puts learning at the heart of decision making and that ensures Amnesty International UK is able to focus on the areas in which it can achieve the most strategic impact in a dynamic and ever-changing context for human rights.
Rosie has generously joined our Summer Story Season webinars twice now, so this bumper case-study brings together her learnings both six months and 18 months into the process.
The whole organisation at Amnesty International UK has transformed their approach to planning, measuring impact and bringing learning into decision-making so that:
- All staff members are involved in regular reflection conversations.
- Money and time is distributed based on impact against strategic outcomes.
- All work is structured so it is clear how it directly contributes to achieving one of the outcomes in their strategy.
- Decision makers are taking ownership and ensuring learning and evidence are at the centre of their decision-making.
One Head of Department described the change as: “This new process is nothing short of a miracle. It genuinely gives us a one stop shop for all reporting needs. Writing and collating mid- and end of year reports used to be a nightmare – it now isn’t.”
The journey towards agile business planning
Rosie Leatherland has been with Amnesty International for seven years, initially starting as a campaigner before moving into her current role as Head of Strategic Planning. When Rosie began this role in 2021, Amnesty International UK had a new CEO and a refreshed leadership team, but their strategy was not being treated as a living document which was actively referenced in the organisation.
People saw planning as a burden… something they had to do alongside this really hard work that they were doing for human rights, or for fundraising, or whatever their focus was. Crucially, there was nothing that linked any of the work we were doing with any part of the strategy, so there was nothing that sat between ‘We want to achieve human rights victories in the world.’ And ‘This is what I do at my desk every day.’ It was very hard to understand the link between individual work and the overarching strategy.”
Rosie Leatherland
HEAD OF STRATEGIC PLANNING
Creating transparency and clarity
One of Rosie’s first tasks was to help colleagues see – and understand – what was happening within the organisation. There were three broad goals in the strategy, as well as a series of identified enablers, like fundraising. Mapping the work being done on the ground to these goals and enablers, would inform decisions about “What we would keep doing, what we would stop doing and what we needed to start doing in order to reach those goals.”
The first step Rosie took was to gather information from all teams about the work they were already doing and how their time and resources were being used, using standardised templates for consistency and completeness. She then led the CEO and other key staff to assess which activities aligned with the strategic goals and which did not.
Next, Rosie set up a simple way to visualise the organisation’s planning, with a Trello for each goal or enabler, such as “Winning human rights victories”.
These Trello boards are visible to everyone in the organisation at all times; as the one source of truth on progression towards strategic goals.
Now that outcomes and the progress toward them is more visible across the organisation, there is better shared understanding and alignment among staff.
Outcomes based planning
Rosie then worked with The Senior Leadership Team to define clear, actionable, measurable outcomes for each of the strategic goals and enablers.
A key aspect of this was really breaking goals down. For example, Rosie shared that “The goal around changing attitudes to human rights was very broad. We could say that any of our work that we do in the external world fits into that. So, instead we needed to think about what sits underneath changing attitudes to human rights that we specifically want to achieve.
The next task was to align the work that was happening across the organisation with specific strategic goals and enablers. Rosie guided leaders to assess their current projects and decide which to continue, stop, or start based on their impact on the defined outcomes. This involved some tough conversations about whether certain activities were the right ones to pursue; shifting efforts from projects with low strategic alignment to those that directly contributed to key outcomes.
All of this is driving towards a shift from team/project-based planning to goal-based planning.
Creating lasting impact
When we spoke to Rosie a second time, 18 months into this process, it was clear how much culture change was a key part of her success. By providing shared language, structured ways of doing things and ongoing support to embed the new ways of working, Rosie and her team have brought Amnesty’s diverse range of colleagues with them on the journey.
At the heart of this culture change is a disciplined focus on impact, learning and reflection. Rosie talked us through the three tools that stack up to drive that work:
1. Visualisation
As mentioned above, each goal and enabler (e.g., people & culture, fundraising etc.) has a Trello board which visualises the work. These boards act as a hub for organisational activity: with a column for each specific outcome under the goal, and each activity contributing to that outcome captured as a card. This makes progress easy to scan, and because the boards are open across the organisation, everyone can see how day-to-day tasks link to outcomes.
Each card has an owner, who is responsible for updating it on a monthly basis with the answer to a regular list of questions, such as “Have you delivered what was in the plan for this work? Did it have the impact that you wanted? Is there anything that’s come up that wasn’t planned that you’ve delivered this month, this quarter? Are you seeing any impact from work from a different quarter this month?
This system allows everyone at all levels to feed into the reflection and learning for that month or that quarter. These reflections are then rolled up into the next two tools:
2. Monthly retros
Monthly retrospectives (or “retros”) take place at the team level. This creates space for everyone to reflect on how their work is contributing to organisational goals, alongside those they work with on a day-to-day basis. It helps everyone to engage with the impact they’re having, not just those with managerial responsibilities.
Rosie’s team provide guidance and templates such as an online Mural whiteboard template that teams can use, as well as tips for running a hybrid retro. Then team leaders have a lot of flexibility to use this time in the way that is most useful and engaging for their team; for instance, some will use it as the monthly day that everyone comes into the office in person. Team leaders can also get tips and advice on facilitation from Rosie’s team, so that they can make the most of this time together.
The monthly retros provide an opportunity for everyone to celebrate successes, raise issues that are preventing from achieving their goals and seek support for their work. Team leaders then feed what they’re learning from their team’s experiences into their leadership quarterly impact conversations, which we’ll dive into next.
3. Impact and learning discussions
These quarterly reflection sessions for each goal and enabler are affectionately referred to as “quarterlies” at Amnesty International UK. Perhaps the best evidence of how much people appreciate these impact and learning discussions, is that when they are occasionally switched out for something else, people are disappointed! That’s a great sign of a strategy and planning cycle that is really lived and breathed in an organisation.
So, how do they do it? Each session brings together a relatively small group of the key people responsible for delivering on that goal, including the senior member of staff who is accountable for that area of work. Rosie describes the discussions like this “They are collaborative reflection, there’s not finger-pointing. It’s less about reporting and more about group reflection. What’s working well? What’s not? What results are we seeing? And, what actions are we going to take off the back of that? And there’s different people in the room with their eye on different aspects of that…”
And the one about the actions to be taken might be the most important of those questions because, as Rosie says: “This sector is famously good at talking about lessons learned, but then what are we actually going to do about it?!” These reflection sessions are powerful because they not only carve out time to stop and take stock, but they create space to think about how to respond, and accountability for adapting.
Transformative results and ongoing challenges
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Navigating the emotional and professional challenges of questioning the value of existing work has been tough. However, through these efforts, Amnesty International UK have taken some big steps towards their day-to-day work and their strategy being more closely aligned. This includes:
- Involving all staff members in regular reflection sessions about how business planning is going and how it can continue to improve.
- Providing clear ways for all colleagues to reflect on progress so everyone can input, without meeting sizes becoming unwieldy
- Ensuring time and resources are allocated according to where they can have the most impact.
- Structuring teams’ and individuals’ work to show clear links to the organisation’s desired outcomes.
- Visualising the work that is being done and sharing transparently, so everyone can stay up-to-date and feel informed.
- Decision-makers owning the need for learning and evidence to be central to all their strategies and tactics.
By creating an environment where learning, experimentation and adaptation are encouraged, Amnesty UK is now better positioned to achieve its mission through more focused and strategic efforts.
This work is now driving a wider culture shift across Amnesty UK; learning is now seen as an important part of delivering work.
Rather than a cycle of plan-deliver-plan-deliver, teams are now reflecting regularly on impact.
Leaders are facilitating reflection sessions with their teams and, most importantly, we are becoming a Learning Organisation. We now have better visibility than ever about whether we’re succeeding at achieving our goals.
Rosie Leatherland
HEAD OF STRATEGIC PLANNING
Building a process that adapts
Of course, this journey is ongoing. To increase Amnesty’s ability to adapt Rosie has built in multiple points throughout the year when data and team feedback is used to improve the process:
- Iteration is built into the planning cycles through ongoing reviews of how well activities were contributing to defined outcomes.
- Rosie has built integrated monthly reflection conversations into the organisation’s planning process, involving every staff member every month. Teams are encouraged to iterate on their plans based on what they learned from reflection sessions, ensuring that strategies remain relevant and impactful.
- Project leads and leadership also have dedicated time each quarter to reflect on their work, ensuring that decisions were based on current insights rather than fixed plans. So that they are using evidence and feedback to guide decision-making.
- This iterative approach ensures that the organisation can respond swiftly to new information, refine strategies, and continuously improve.
By embedding these practices, Rosie ensures that iteration and reflection are integral parts of how Amnesty International UK plans, monitors, and executes its work, driving continuous improvement and strategic alignment. All this is to ensure that planning is treated as an ongoing, dynamic process rather than a one-time event.
Join the Conversation
We hope Rosie’s insights provide you with inspiration and practical ideas on applying agile principles to your own organisation’s business planning. If you have any questions or would like to know more about how we can help your organisation embed agile ways of working, drop us a line!
