Our Stories
A Data-Centric Approach

PILOTING NEW IDEAS

WoodGreen staff standing in front of a bright rainbow mural, holding a printed report in her hands.
WoodGreen staff standing in front of a bright rainbow mural, holding a printed report in her hands.
Christina Atkinson, Manager of Monitoring & Evaluation on the PMO team, holding the COVID-19 Report.

Things moved quickly in March 2020. Teams were relocated, IT worked to get staff working from home and our programs were moved to virtual settings when possible. There was a need for supportive work while in lockdown, and WoodGreen’s Project Management Office (PMO) was established.

Early on, the PMO team helped manage how WoodGreen closed and reopened services as guidelines and protocols changed. Sitting across all units at the organization allows for the PMO to help break down silos and help move WoodGreen forward while finding new opportunities to better support our clients.

Over the year, the team developed and drove a data and technology strategy to improve capacity as a whole.

“The development of a PMO is just one example of WoodGreen’s innovation and forward-thinking. This function means we have the resources in place to tackle enterprise-wide initiatives that help the organization optimize, scale and grow, while ensuring that client-facing teams can continue to prioritize service delivery,” said Jaclyn Leigh Hicklin, Director of the PMO. “At the end of the day, our stakeholders experience the benefits of the PMO as our work helps WoodGreen become a more holistic, efficient, and focused organization.”

An early example of this work is the COVID-19 Report highlighting data from the first wave of the pandemic.

“As one of the founding projects of the PMO, the COVID-19 Report helped launch a lot of our organization-wide work to improve our data collection and use. The interviews, data and processes that I unpacked while creating this report pushed our understanding and execution of other projects that fell under our strategic pillar of becoming a more data-centric organization,” said Christina Atkinson, Manager of Monitoring & Evaluation on the PMO team.

The PMO was essential during the pandemic, but the work is also part of a larger strategy to build up WoodGreen’s data acumen beyond the waves of COVID.

In one short year, the team has led the merger of JobStart, developed detailed Operational Plans for the new Strategic Plan that integrated growth initiatives, began implementation of new technology and more.