Transformation Partners

Four weeks to put your team on the work that matters most.

The Corporate Affairs leadership sprint starts with what your CEO and board need, stops the work that doesn’t serve it, automates what’s left, and sets up how the function works with the leadership team.

Talk about a sprint

What changes

The right work

Your team works on what your CEO and board care about most.

Room to do it

Low-value work stops, with the business’s agreement.

A seat when it counts

You’re in the room when big decisions are made.

It suits a team of five to 15 under pressure to show its value.

  • A Corporate Affairs team, or a focused function such as government relations, communications, community relations or social performance.
  • Mining, energy or utilities, with a demanding stakeholder environment.
  • A leader reporting to the executive, CEO or board who is being asked to show what the function contributes.
  • A leader willing to stop some work, even when that means difficult conversations about what the function no longer does.

The sprint runs in a fixed order.

  1. Before the sprint: agree the scope.

    A first conversation, then a written proposal setting out scope, timing, outputs and your team’s involvement.

  2. Week 1, days 1–2: Align.

    We map how the business creates value and what your CEO and board have prioritised, decide which priorities Corporate Affairs influences, and set a small number of measures your CFO can read.

    From
    The CA Playbook
    Figure
    5

    Write a one-row value-claim contract

    The contract makes the mechanism, evidence, ownership, and counting rule explicit before a dollar enters reporting.

    FieldAnonymised worked answer
    InterventionEngaged affected parties and authorities before design commitment.
    External changeAccess and design concerns identified while the plan could still change.
    Business variableLate redesign and critical-path delay.
    Financial nodeProject-delivery cost and cash timing.
    CounterfactualAverage execution using comparable projects or an approved risk scenario.
    ConsequenceDifference in verified or modelled delay days × Finance-approved cost per day.
    Retention treatmentConfirm allowance, asset, incentive, pass-through, insurance, and contract treatment.
    EvidenceEngagement chronology, decision log, schedule, change control, and approved rates.
    Accountable ownersProject sponsor for causality; Finance and regulatory owner for value treatment.
    AttributionShared; percentage only if agreed and not already embedded.
    Evidence classModelled, conditional.
    Duplicate checkThe same delay cannot also be counted as a separate risk claim.
    An illustrative worked example from The CA Playbook, recreated for publication. The company-specific financial assumptions were not validated.

  3. Week 1, days 3–5: Eliminate.

    Every activity is tested against those priorities. A short survey of the people who receive your team’s work shows what they actually use, and they agree what stops.

  4. Weeks 2 and 3: Automate.

    We map one recurring workflow and improve it, using AI where your data governance allows. Your team builds it with us and runs it from then on.

  5. Week 4: Elevate.

    We set out the operating model: ownership, decision rights and a standing rhythm with the leadership team, so you’re involved while decisions are still being made. We draft business cases for the priority initiatives in commercial terms and prepare the material you take to your executives.

You finish with ten things your team can use.

Outputs
The Corporate Affairs leadership sprint

The right work

  • A map of how the business creates value, showing which CEO and board priorities Corporate Affairs influences.
  • Agreed priorities for the function, with a few measures your CFO can read.

Room to do it

  • A map of where the team’s time goes.
  • Feedback from the people who receive the work.
  • A list of what stops, agreed with them.
  • One workflow automated with AI and in daily use.
  • A playbook your team can maintain it from.

A seat when it counts

  • An operating model with clear ownership, decision rights and a standing rhythm with the leadership team.
  • Business cases for the priority initiatives, framed in commercial terms.
  • A board-ready presentation and one-page summary.

About four to five hours a week from you.

About 18 to 20 hours across the four weeks: a kickoff, decision sessions, workflow workshops and an operating model workshop. Team members each give two to three hours, mostly a survey, a kickoff and training on the new workflow.

We work within your systems and data rules. Where AI can’t be used on certain information, we design around that.

Start with a 30-minute conversation.

We’ll talk about the team, the work that is crowding out priorities and whether a sprint fits. If it does, you’ll receive a proposal with scope, timing and fee. If it doesn’t, I’ll say so.