A day in the life
My name is Danielle and I am a Manager at dandolo.
Prior to joining dandolo, I worked in a peak body in the community services sector, where I led strategic and innovative projects. I've also spent time in government, in academia, and I've worked as a legislative advisor as well. I joined dandolo because I was keen to contribute to meaningful work across a range of areas, learn new things every day, and work with people who care deeply about what they do.
Coming from a senior leadership role to management in a different industry meant I had a huge amount to learn, and there was a significant transition period. While it's taken time to get my head around a new way of working and supporting teams, I could not ask for a more supportive and encouraging environment to do so! I love being able to meet and speak with fascinating people who are making a difference, work through how changes to legislation, policy, and operating environments might impact people, and dive deeply into areas like justice, child and family welfare, education, early childhood education and care, and primary prevention of violence.
Here's what a typical Wednesday might look like:
9:00am
dandolo has a flexible working policy, which I really appreciate because I have responsibilities to 'internal stakeholders' (kids). However, it's also great to get to head in and spend time in our beautiful space, and I am keen to get that midweek hit of energy! I dutifully put out my coffee cup ahead of our coffee fairies collecting them, and then sit down to send emails and plan out my day.
10:00am
One of the projects I'm working on is an evaluation of a statutory authority. Today I have interviews set up with senior stakeholders to discuss achievements and challenges in delivering on their agenda. It's a fascinating project, and one that has significant ramifications for major reform work underway in Victoria.
11:00am
I enter an unnecessarily competitive discussion about which fruit is better, which sees our entire office briefly but intensely debating the merits of texture versus flavour. For a two-minute period, the rift between us seems insurmountable, but eventually, a clear winner emerges obnoxiously victorious.
11:05am
I sit down to review insights that we have pulled together for a client who is supporting children in post-disaster contexts. We've been evaluating their program so that they can take the learnings forward into future iterations. Like many people at dandolo, I have a special place in my heart for social policy work, and I'm excited to share these insights with our client. The team will be presenting the major findings with minimal involvement from me – they're really across everything and well prepared – so I do a final check to confirm if there's anything additional we can bring out for them.
12:30pm
I brought lunch from home today and eat in the kitchen with others. Our office has a lovely kitchen and eating area.
1:30pm
I am doing an update of my project timelines and resourcing in our project management system. Some project timelines have shifted due to client needs, and we are going to get additional resourcing to support one of them. It's important that our systems stay up to date so we can respond agilely for our clients, but also manage our own resourcing effectively. It's precise work, so I take advantage of our exceptionally large, soft couches by the windows to settle in and make sure everything is accurate.
2:30pm
I'm leaving early today to attend a student-teacher conference for one of my children. I pack up and say my goodbyes and am out the door.
3:15pm
The conference was a great success and I'm at my desk back at home. Today I have coaching with one of our consultants. Like other managers at dandolo, I coach three members of the consulting team and have my own coach as well. The coaching arrangements at dandolo are one of the reasons I wanted to work here in the first place; I love being able to support people's wellbeing and development.
Consulting can be intense and requires us to juggle many things at once, so having someone whose whole focus is your wellbeing and development is a wonderful support system. Today we're doing a debrief after a significant delivery period, but on a different day, we might be talking through practical strategies for time management or conflict resolution, building skills in key areas of development, or just nerding out about policy areas in which someone is building expertise.
4:00pm
I am reviewing interview insights that the team has synthesised for a research report we are drafting. The report is looking at retention and attrition in a key workforce, and our government client really wants to know what drivers are contributing to people staying or going. We have completed an online discussion forum with participants from across the workforce, and I'm comparing what we've found in that forum with the interview notes to see if there are consistent themes coming out. Tomorrow we have time to discuss our insights in detail and consider what this means for our findings overall. This process is one of the best parts of consulting; after looking at all the pieces and testing your ideas out, what key things are we seeing that our client really wants to know about? What can make a genuine difference to their decision-making going forward?
5:00pm
I respond to some more emails and set up my to-do list for the next day. I've also set aside time to review a report that's recently come out from the Productivity Commission so I can be aware of the recommendations to which government and the sector might be responding. I flick a message to another colleague who is also interested, and we exchange ideas for what might lie ahead.