Hylaine skilled volunteers conducted a business process assessment with Digi-Bridge to help them achieve their growth goals.
In 2014, Digi-Bridge was founded and started with STEAM Saturdays in 5 schools and 3 middle school robotics teams. Today, they have evolved to a full suite of STEAM programming in coordination with Title 1 and community schools. They are place-based within a school increasing family empowerment, college career readiness, and supporting schools in technology improvement.
Digi-Bridge leadership reached out to Apparo for help to streamline their manual processes around their Digi-Bin program, which includes inventory management and deploying bins to partner schools. They felt that an assessment of their processes would help improve the way they manage this program, freeing up time for staff to focus on the organization’s mission.
Apparo matched them to a volunteer team from Hylaine who assessed their current processes, including those for tracking and kitting inventory, identified gaps and pain points and provided process improvement recommendations in a Business Process Landscape, including areas where technology can be leveraged. They delivered documentation of several Digi-Bridge processes in a Business Process Landscape to help identify where time can be saved and work can be streamlined. This work is a foundational step in their growth and helps in identifying where technology can be leveraged for further improvements.
Project is anticipated to save 300+ hours annually for staff, support doubling of Digi-Bridge presence in Title 1 schools and launching new programming for younger students.
After the project was completed, we checked in with Alyssa Sharpe (Chief Executive Officer) and Meredith Banks (Operations Manager) to learn more about the significance of the project and its anticipated impact.
Alyssa and Meredith explain that they embarked on the project wanting to overcome:
- Lack of documentation of processes, which sometimes led to duplication of efforts, lack of clarity when onboarding someone new, and organizational risk if that person left
- Lack of templates, which meant starting from scratch with new initiatives
- Heavily manual processes, which took a lot of time
Today, after their work with Hylaine has been completed, Digi-Bridge has:
- Improved processes, which minimize duplication of efforts and will drive increased organizational efficiency
- Well documented processes, which will make assigning and explaining responsibilities to new staff members is much easier, especially important in this time of growth
- Project templates to help get new projects off the ground quickly and save time spent in project management meetings/tasks (anticipated to save 300+ hours a year for the staff)
- CRM recommendations that will save significant time because they provide clarity on the features that are most important for organizational growth and long term success
- “Person proof” processes, which reduce the risk associated with any one person leaving the organization
Most important, as a result, Digi-Bridge will be well-positioned to meet their growth goals.
Alyssa explains, “We’ll be able to say yes to more projects because we will be better with operations and logistics. We have a goal of being in 46 Title One schools by 2026, from our current 23. Having these processes clearly written out, understanding roles and responsibilities, will help us move faster towards our goals. We’ve specifically identified a need for more options for K-2nd grade students and are hoping to launch new programs for them.”
In closing Alyssa and Meredith share their appreciation for the work delivered by the Hylaine team.
Alyssa – “I like how the process mapping is visual, digestible and tangible. It’s not just a bulky report. It will be good for onboarding. We’ll be able to keep the processes updated in real time, which is important because there are always new challenges we have to work through. We can add steps and see their impact, which helps with decision making and planning. I loved working on this project because it forced us to think step by step. Now, having this tool as we move forward with new programs is very important. It gives us a strong foundation to move forward with thinking through other processes.”
Meredith – “My favorite part about working with the Apparo volunteers was visually mapping out our current systems and processes, to see where we are having overlaps and what we can make more efficient.”
Hylaine volunteers also shared their appreciation:
Alicia Melton – “Digi-Bridge was the first project that I was a part of for Apparo and I could not have chosen a better team to work with. Their desire to improve their overall performance and dedication to finding a true solution was refreshing. I wish our engagement didn’t have to end but I feel they are ready for anything that comes their way.”
Jon Quillin – “It has been wonderful working with the Digi-Bridge team as they progressed through their solution journey and watching them evolve into questioning processes. I find it wonderful to see Digi-Bridge mature from looking for a fix to a specific problem to looking towards foundational evolution.”
