Rocky Bay defines its innovative plan for the future with help from Khai Veun Chan

“As Volunteer Coordinator it is always surprising and makes you feel so good that there are generous people out there happy to contribute and help out. Khai Veun was terrific.”

Rocky Bay is a leading provider of disability services in Perth, offering choice and independence to people of all ages living with any disability. As part of its current business plan, Rocky Bay committed to developing a strategy to embed a culture of innovation across the organisation. They were seeking a volunteer to assist them in developing an innovation strategy that will drive staff to continuous improvement in a consistent and motivated manner.

The aim of the project was to define and document Rocky Bay’s innovation strategy so they needed a volunteer skilled in both strategic thinking and innovative business planning. Coming from career as a business consultant, Khai Veun Chan fit the bill perfectly. From the initial meeting with Rocky Bay’s Director Strategy Trevis Lawton, Khai Veun helped refine and scope what Rocky Bay was looking to achieve with this new strategy.

“I chose to volunteer to develop my skills, enhance my career prospects and to do something good for the community.”

For Rocky Bay, Khai Veun’s expertise in the area “allowed Rocky Bay to define what innovation means within our context and how this could be best applied through delivery of an Innovation Strategy.” Khai Veun also spent time developing the strategy with the wider Executive Team, enabling them to “understand and delimit what it wants from an innovation agenda.”

Trevis and his team felt that “Khai Veun was an extremely professional, yet equally approachable person. Her down to earth manner and adaptability allowed us to achieve a lot in a small period of time.”

Similarly, Khai Veun recognised how her professional skills, usually devoted to supporting the Contracting and Procurement team, were able to be applied within a much different context. From Khai Veun’s perspective, her work with Rocky Bay allowed the Executive Team to formulate “a strategy to embed an innovative culture across the organisation.” Khai Veun also reported that working on this project helped to improve her leadership skills and her own job satisfaction.

As a result of the project, “Rocky Bay will be able to begin the drive towards embedding innovation as part of the way we do things across the business and thereby put in place a culture of improvement.” In a time when financial support for disability organisations is in flux, this focus on strategic innovation and improvement will surely benefit Rocky Bay numerous times over.