The Catalpa Management Team
The Catalpa Management Team (Management Team) is Catalpa’s key decision-making and performance monitoring body. The team oversees the development of Catalpa’s strategic plans, procedures and policies, and is the principal body for driving progress at Catalpa.
This document outlines how the Management Team is structured, the principles it seeks to embody, and the various processes and tools we use to ensure it is effective.
Overview
Purpose
The Management Team is key to setting the direction of Catalpa. It aims to lead, direct, coordinate and manage the operations and performance of Catalpa.
The Management Team does not possess any executive authority. However, as Catalpa’s most senior management body, it plays a critical role in how the organisation makes big decisions, and monitors and manages the execution of its strategy.
Responsibilities
The Management Team embodies Catalpa’s commitment to foster a collaborative, open and responsive management structure. It provides guidance in four major areas:
1. Setting strategic direction
This includes development of the following:
Catalpa’s Strategic Plan and Annual Plans
Catalpa Organisational Plan
Catalpa policies and related changes
2. Managing & monitoring performance
Overseeing Catalpa’s overall performance including the delivery of its strategy and operational plans, measuring key results, development of its capacity and capability.
3. Grow and strengthen Catalpa
Support the development of Catalpa’s capabilities, people and skills, to ensure it continues to maintain its reputation for excellence and its capacity to respond to challenges and opportunities as well as attract, develop and retain the best people.
4. Managing risk and compliance
Ensuring Catalpa’s work is compliant with the law, government and organisational policies, as well as relevant standards and procedures. The Management Team is key in helping Catalpa management risk and helps ensure its internal controls, practices and reporting systems are appropriate and effective.
Who is engaged
The Management Team comprises
Catalpa Directors
Chief Financial Officer
Head of Partnerships & Programs
Head of Health
Head of Governance & Transparency
Head of Education & Gender
Head of Products
Head of Engineering
How it works
Governed by a set of shared principles
We are committed to ensure the Management Team is an open space that facilitates the sharing of ideas, helps nudge Catalpa to be better, and brings in a broader range of perspectives and expertise when making decisions. The Management Team seeks to embody the following principles:
It is open and honest, and it embraces different ideas
We embrace different and divergent opinions. We work to achieve consensus (or as close as we can get to it) through open discussion and integration of ideas.
Equal ownership
Each member of the management team has ownership over the structure and its success.
Flexible and purposeful
The structure is flexible and purposeful to allow us to respond to issues based on their priority and urgency.
It is effective and outcomes focused
It is action oriented and focused on decision making. It is focused on driving progress not simply providing updates.
We are aware of its limitations
We use smaller cross-functional breakout teams to allow for brainstorming and decision making.
Using small mission-driven teams
Whilst the Management Team is our central coordination body, we recognise the limitations of making informed and considered decisions through this mechanism. The Management Team will empower small teams (3-5 people) to drive creative thinking in a number of areas.
The structure of those teams will be determined by the team lead, who will be agreed to at the Management Team meeting. The team structure is adaptive and can bring in a range of Catalpa people.
Making decisions
We want to foster greater autonomy in Catalpa. We believe that empowered teams with a clear purpose are key to allowing Catalpa to grow. However we also acknowledge that all decisions aren’t equal. Some may expose Catalpa to risk, be significantly strategic or just plain challenging. There will be actions which will require approval from Catalpa Directors, and potentially advice for the Advisory Board. Key decisions and actions will be presented to the coordination committee and endorsed. Where consensus isn’t reached through discussion and integration of differing opinions. Catalpa directors will review and sign off on key decisions.
Confidentiality
Key documents that contain sensitive information will be marked Confidential. Sensitive information may be made available to relevant staff on a case-by-case basis.
Performance Review
At least once a year, the Management Team will hold a retrospective to discuss its prior year performance. The Management Team or Catalpa Executives will present its self-assessment to the Advisory Board.
Administration
Meetings and related processes
How often does it meet?
The Management team meets every two weeks on Tuesday 2:30pm AEST. A quorum for a Catalpa Management Team meeting is two-thirds of its members.
Chairing the meeting
The meeting will have a rotating chair and a rotating note taker. With the chair and note taker for the next meeting appointed at the close of each meeting.
Meetings will be facilitated by the chair. The day prior to the meeting, the chair is responsible for preparing and sharing a formal agenda, together with copies of key documents relevant to the meeting.
Minutes and task tracking
The Management Team will keep a succinct record of its meetings, focused on key decisions and action items.
The meeting’s note taker is responsible for the writing of the minutes. Minutes will be saved in Google Drive and shared with the Management Team by sharing the link to the #catalpa-management-team Slack Channel.
Key tasks will be assigned and tracked in Trello. At the beginning and end of each meeting the Management Team will review the Trello board. New tasks generated during the meeting will be added to the Trello board by the Note Taker.
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