Kirsty Brettell Consultancy
Collaborative Transformations
About Me
I have been involved in the non-profit sector, in the UK and overseas, for many years, starting with volunteering as a teenager around 2004! In 2011 I was selected to take part in the Vodafone World of Difference programme, with the organisation that I went on to complete my first consultancy contract with many years later. In early 2015 I spent 10 weeks volunteering in rural Bangladesh and it changed my life- I eventually left my career job as the Assistant Event Manager at a high profile venue in Newcastle, and pursued a career which made my heart sing!
I have since returned to Bangladesh to manage the project I established, worked in numerous locations across India, and visited projects in Kenya through a long term partnership with UK organisation, Team Kenya. Most of these organisations operate at the grassroots level, delivering projects locally, which has not only given me the opportunity to develop a wide range of useful and practical skills, but also to understand the process of development from the bottom up, leading to my championing of a participatory approach. Early on I took up management roles in Monitoring and Evaluation, naturally accompanied by training and development responsibilities. I soon began to understand that my passion lies in the organisational learning aspects which come from the monitoring and evaluation processes, including the dissemination of knowledge, capacity building and developing cultures of learning within organisations.
As a result of this, when I completed my MSc in International Development from the University of Edinburgh in 2018, I focused my final paper on the topic answering “What are the Incentives for learning in the development sector? Lessons from studying the relationship between local delivery partners in India and their funding avenues” (Brettell, 2018). I have chosen ‘Collaborative Transformations’ as I truly believe that working together to develop and implement improvements is incredibly important, increasing efficiency, effectiveness and innovation, to name a few!
Services
Within any partnership, a collaborative approach remains key. Together, we will identify and implement opportunities for effective and efficient transformations. My consultancy work mainly focuses on implementing learning from evaluations or reviews. Additionally, outlined below are a selection of consulting services, which can be developed, adapted and expanded to meet your organisational needs. Get in touch with your enquries to see what we could achieve together!
Organisational Learning
Improving the learning within the development sector is my passion. Effective learning improves communication, trust and stability for organisations. Do you feel that your organisations would benefit from maximising learning opportunities? Developing a culture of learning? Or embedding learning through different levels of the organisation? We could work together on progression towards these and more.
Planning, Monitoring and Evalaution
At the core of any good development project or programme should be a well thought out Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning framework. We can work together to review and improve existing PMEL plans, develop new ones and embed them within the organisations project management, ensuring maximum effectiveness for your organisation. We can then look at how to best implement the learning from any review back into the organisation, ensuring efficient and realistic progression.
Capacity Building
With many years’ experience in identifying, planning and implementing capacity building activities, from formal trainings to mentoring, across many demographics, we can work together to strengthen your organisations effectiveness, improving staffs confidence and competencies, developing effective organisational cultures and enhancing the effectiveness of operational systems, tools and processes.
Knowledge Sharing
What does your organisation do with the rich information it has generated and learnt from? In such a highly competitive sector, sharing information has become crucial to organisations and the wider development world, for efficiency and effectiveness. We can work together to develop partnerships, networks and opportunities to exchange ideas and insights, strengthening the effectiveness of development work at all levels and within your organisation.
Project Management
Are you considering new projects or want to improve the management of your current ones? Are there elements of the project management cycle which you would like to review or develop new processes or tools for? From planning to reflecting I can work with you to develop the best methods, tools and systems specific to your organisation, build the specific skills for staff members, whilst embedding a culture of learning throughout the project management process.
Change Management
Have you conducted a review or evaluation and are looking for the best way to learn and implement changes? Would you like to track better the impact that your organisation is having? Would you like to make changes to the core processes, systems or tools that your organisation uses? We can look at the benefits of these changes and more to your organisation and identify the most realistic and relevant actions to take towards them.
Testimonials
Bradley French
Development Manager at Team Kenya
I have known Kirsty for several years through her voluntary and paid work at international development organisations COCO and Team Kenya. Kirsty is a passionate and proactive advocate for international development and has a wide range of skills. Kirsty's knowledge and understanding of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning processes is particularly impressive!
Get in touch!
I really enjoy creating connections, participating in discussions and contemplating ideas, so whether you are an organisations or an individual, with a particular challenge you’re trying to deal with, a thought for the sector which you would like to discuss, or simply have a recommendation for knowledge sharing - get in touch and let's see what transformations we can collaborate on!
Phone UK: +44 7725 627225
Phone India: +91 98173 57385
