Wednesday 29 July 2026

Inside the Business: Workflow, People and Risk

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9:30am - 10:00am 

Registration and Morning Tea
 

10:00am - 10:25am 

Welcome & Framing: Strategy, Technology, People

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Sets the arc: every significant change in a service business succeeds or fails on the same three dimensions.

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We'll cover:

• The three-layer model - strategy, technology, people - and why leaders consistently underestimate the third

• Why the current automation moment is the clearest contemporary example of this pattern

• How to use the masterclass: bring a real change you're navigating in your firm, leave with a plan

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10:25am - 12:15pm

Workshop: Map Your Workflow - Spot the Bottlenecks

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Behind every busy team lies a tangle of repeated steps that drain productivity. You can't simplify, delegate or automate what you haven't first made visible.

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We'll cover:

• Practical workflow mapping techniques - fast, hands-on, no consulting jargon

• The four bottleneck types and how to tell them apart: the bottlenecks people automate first are usually not the ones costing them the most

• Where automation and AI create real leverage (correspondence drafting, request triage, document classification, meeting preparation) vs. where they create expensive theatre

• Coaching-not-correcting: how to surface bottlenecks with your team without triggering the "are you saying I'm slow?" reaction

• DIY vs expert: which automations a principal can stand up themselves with off-the-shelf tools, and which need a specialist to scope and build properly

• Hands-on: participants map a workflow from their own firm and walk out with a prioritised list

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12:15pm - 1:00pm

Lunch

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1:00pm - 2:15pm

Seeing Around Corners

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Using insight-driven systems to identify and manage risk before it becomes an issue - a regulatory problem, an insurance shortfall, a client complaint, or an operational failure that should have been forecast.

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We'll cover:

• The risk categories that show up across every service firm: operational (workload, capacity), reputational (client trust), regulatory (legislative drift), dependency (key-person risk, software lock-in)

• Early-warning indicators: what your maintenance, finance and correspondence data is already telling you about problems six months out

• AI and automation risks as a current example - data leakage, hallucinated correspondence, drifting compliance - and how the same risk-thinking applies to any major change

• Scenario activity: pre-mortem on a real change a participant is facing in their firm

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2:15pm - 3:00pm

Day 1 Application Lab & Overnight Prompt

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Structured time to apply Day 1 frameworks to participants' own firms, with peer challenge from other Strata Community Association (SCA) members in the room.

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We'll cover:

• Small-group application: each participant identifies their highest-leverage bottleneck and its associated risks

• Peer challenge: pressure-testing each other's thinking - a rare benefit of an industry-cohort masterclass, where the people across the table understand the work 

• Share-back of strongest insights

• Overnight prompt: "Pick the one change that would make the biggest difference to your firm. Bring it back tomorrow."

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Thursday 30 July 2026

Outside the Business: Compliance, Insight and Clients

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10:00am - 10:15am 

Welcome Back & Overnight Reflection​

 

Quick share of what shifted overnight, framing for Day 2.

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10:15am - 11:15am

Guardrails & Gains

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Compliance is often the biggest line on the worry list. But what if it became a genuine advantage - a structure that lets the firm move faster with confidence rather than slower with fear?

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We'll cover:

• Why most compliance frameworks accidentally punish the wrong behaviour - usually the people doing things properly

• How leading firms use clear policy automation to handle complex regulatory environments without burning out their senior people

• AI governance as a current example: clear AI-use policies that increase experimentation rather than restrict it

• The same pattern applied to financial controls, privacy, and risk management

• "Find the friction" activity: where is compliance creating drag in your firm, and what would removing it actually cost?

• DIY vs expert: compliance changes a principal can make this month, and the ones that need legal or technology partners

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11:15am - 12:30am

Building Predictive Reports for Improvement

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Every firm collects mountains of information across operational systems, accounting platforms, and email. Most of it sits unused. The opportunity is to turn it into insight that guides better decisions.

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We'll cover:

• The difference between reporting (what happened last month) and predictive insight (what's likely to happen next quarter)​

• Why AI tools amplify whatever data quality you already have - including the bad data sitting in your systems right now

• The minimum viable data foundation: what a firm actually needs in place before sophisticated analysis pays off

• Worked examples: capacity forecasting, revenue collection prediction, capital expenditure stress-testing, maintenance trend analysis, client retention signals

• DIY vs expert: dashboards a manager can build in a weekend with the tools they already have, and reporting infrastructure that needs proper engineering

• Hands-on: participants sketch one predictive report they'd actually build

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12:30pm - 1:15pm

Lunch

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1:15pm - 2:30pm 

Deepening Client Connections

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Clients want more information and less noise. Better communication tools, dashboards, and automated updates can make them feel more informed and supported, while freeing managers to focus on the conversations that actually matter.

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We'll cover:

• The communication paradox: clients want more updates and less email

• Where AI-assisted communication genuinely helps (correspondence drafts, meeting summaries, prep documents, document Q&A) - and where it actively damages trust

• The high-touch / high-tech matrix: deciding what each interaction should be, and which manager-time it earns back

• Client dashboards and automated updates that actually get read

• DIY vs expert: communication improvements a firm can roll out next week, and platform-level work that needs proper build

• Activity: redesign one client touchpoint that participants currently handle manually

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2:30pm - 3:00pm 

Coaching the Change: Synthesis & Commitments

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Action planning will be anchored in the coaching-not-correcting frame from Day 1. The strategies for supporting staff growth, balancing workloads and avoiding burnout will be translated into specific commitments, ensuring they become practical actions rather than remaining as theory.

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We'll cover:

• ​Why change initiatives stall: the implementation valley between the busy-season decision and the quiet-season habit

• Frameworks for supporting staff growth, balancing workloads, and avoiding burnout during change - not after

• Paired commitments: each participant names their 2–3 changes and their coaching approach for each

• Accountability structure: how Strata Community Association (SCA) members might keep momentum after the masterclass ends, including peer accountability within the cohort