Profile & Background
CPAC is a government funded non-profit, born in 2009 from the Pan-Canadian Cancer Strategy. The mission-based organization is charged with creating improved knowledge, efficacy and efficiency across the entire cancer journey (prevention, detection, care, research, etc.) within a historically independent provincial cancer care landscape.
Challenges
CPAC was started with just one person, and over 5 years and with a CA$250 million budget, grew to just under 100 employees. Its role and ability to drive outcomes is completely dependent on its partners across the Canadian landscape in cancer care.
As a result, its business model is based on an ability to gather and translate knowledge, transfer it directly to key players, as well as enable partners to exchange the information in a way that will improve cancer system efficacy.
While having such a difficult mandate and being under intense pressure to grow and affect change, CPAC recognized it must function effectively as a mature organization. However, its internal business processes were largely undocumented, non-standardized, and immature. As a result, conducting data-based performance reviews was difficult.
Solution
CPAC chose to engage SMI’s consulting services to develop, document, and implement program-based logic models (i.e. process flow charts) and performance measurement systems.
Over the course of 6 months, SMI helped the CPAC team standardize, document and implement its own logic-model based process management system.
Results
With the new logic models and measurements, the CPAC management levels are moving toward transparent, data-based and root-cause focused performance reviews at operational and strategic levels.
Conclusion
Establishment of new organizations often focuses on driving early and visible mission results. For most, this means internal business processes are developed in informal ways and depend on the talents and skills of specific individuals.
However, to mature and ensure long-term sustainability, the individual-based processes must shift to documented, agreed, and transparent processes that can be easily managed, altered, and driven.