Small Business Programme
From disconnected tools to a maintainable digital operating foundation.
This programme helps active early-stage and micro businesses move from scattered chats, owner-held knowledge and disconnected tools to visible, maintainable operating practices. Participants work on one real business problem, build a practical foundation and follow a supported 90-day adoption plan.
Quick facts
Geography is described as a proposed pilot location. No live cohort has been formally approved and published.
The challenge
Small businesses often adopt tools one at a time without redesigning the operating practice behind them. Customer information remains in personal messages, work depends on the owner’s phone, records are inconsistent, subscriptions accumulate and no one is responsible for maintenance.
This programme begins with the business outcome—not a preferred app. It helps each participant design one minimum viable operating foundation that can be demonstrated, maintained and improved.
Intended participants
Entry criteria and exclusions stay on the page rather than behind a toggle, so nobody applies for a programme that cannot help them.
The programme is designed for businesses that:
No formal business registration, advanced digital skill or paid software subscription is required for workshop entry.
Capabilities
Connect a tool or process change to a defined customer, revenue, cost, time or risk outcome.
Use a visible lead-to-service workflow and a consistent communication routine.
Maintain minimum viable customer, sales, document and activity records.
Compare affordability, fit, portability, support and risk before adopting a tool.
Apply access, backup, privacy, scam-response and incident-escalation basics.
Assign ownership, document routines, review measures and improve the practice over 90 days.
The five-day intensive
A day is not complete because it was attended. Each day ends at a gate that has to be passed before the next stage of work begins.
Day outcome: Participants leave with an evidence-based baseline and one priority operating outcome, not a shopping list of apps.
Business Outcome Canvas, Digital Readiness Diagnostic and Five-Day Action Charter.
The outcome, current-state evidence, named owner and bounded scope must be approved before tool configuration begins.
Day outcome: Participants make it easier for the right customer to find, understand and receive a consistent response from the business.
Customer journey and service hand-off map, Presence Card and customer communication playbook.
Public information is accurate, the account is business-controlled, response templates make no false promises and a maintenance owner is named.
Day outcome: Participants replace memory and scattered chats with a visible, minimal record of work and commitments.
Pipeline or register, stage definitions, minimum record specification and one operating control pack.
A second person can retrieve the correct record, state its status and identify the next action.
Day outcome: Participants choose affordable tools and automate only a stable, understood process.
Weekly operating view, tool decision scorecard, tested workflow and operating procedure.
The process works manually, test data is used, exceptions and approvals remain visible, and ongoing cost is within the participant’s ceiling.
Day outcome: Participants leave with safer practices, a maintainable operating routine and a verified 90-day plan.
Security and recovery checklist, data-handling routine, capstone demonstration and 90-day adoption plan.
Completion requires at least 80% attendance, all critical artefacts, a safe working demonstration or verified simulation, and an approved 90-day adoption plan.
Capstone
Each participant completes a working Digital Foundation Pack. It is a practice artefact the business owns, understands and can maintain — not a production system delivered on the business’s behalf.
The full cycle
| Period | Phase | Required result |
|---|---|---|
| Months 1–2 | Validate and approve | Needs evidence, delivery partners, funding, governance and participant-access plan approved. |
| Month 3 | Recruit and baseline | Up to 30 eligible businesses selected across two workshop waves; baseline and support needs completed. |
| Months 4–5 | Deliver two intensives | Two cohorts of up to 15 businesses complete daily evidence gates and capstone assessment. |
| Months 5–8 | Implement and coach | Fortnightly clinics and monthly one-to-one coaching; 30-/60-/90-day evidence recorded. |
| Months 8–10 | Adoption and remediation | Maintainers demonstrate the practices; stalled cases receive bounded remediation or close. |
| Month 11 | Verify outcomes | Adoption, performance, safety and ownership evidence independently reviewed. |
| Month 12 | Learn and exit | Learning brief, partner review, ownership handover and continue/adapt/stop decision. |
The figure of 30 businesses is a proposed two-cohort pilot target, not a claim of businesses already supported.
Assessment and completion
Ubuntu Gale records completion, demonstrated competence and portfolio evidence. It does not describe any programme as an accredited qualification.
Assessment is based on evidence, not attendance alone. Participants must:
Coaching and follow-through
Support does not end when the workshop closes. These milestones structure the implementation cycle.
Ubuntu Gale programmes use fictional, synthetic, anonymised or safely aggregated information during workshop activity. Participants do not expose passwords, recovery codes, production credentials or sensitive personal information. Accessibility, low-bandwidth access, safeguarding, cybersecurity basics, source attribution and responsible AI use are designed into the work rather than left to a final checklist.
Intended measures and evidence
These are the measures the programme assesses. They are not results already achieved.
Participation, completion, demonstrated competence, implementation, adoption and outcome evidence are reported separately. See the public evidence ladder
Limits
Frequently asked
No. The five-day intensive sits inside a 12-month pilot cycle. Recruitment, baseline, fortnightly clinics, one-to-one coaching, 30-/60-/90-day adoption evidence, independent outcome review and handover continue after the workshop.
No formal business registration, advanced digital skill or paid software subscription is required for workshop entry. The business must already be trading or delivering a service.
No. Workshop exercises use fictional or synthetic customer records. Real customer records must not be displayed in shared workshop activity, and participants do not expose passwords, recovery codes or production credentials.
At least two hours per week for the following 90 days, plus attendance at fortnightly clinics and monthly one-to-one coaching sessions.
No. The programme records completion, demonstrated competence and portfolio evidence against a capstone assessment. It is not represented as an accredited qualification.
Next steps
Every route below leads to the same enquiry form, which asks only for what your role needs.
For an owner of an active early-stage or micro business who wants a place in a future cohort.
Continue — Register interestFor funders, hosts and sponsors who can support participant access, venue, devices or delivery.
Continue — Fund or host a business cohortFor enterprise-development bodies and business networks that work with eligible businesses.
Continue — Discuss participant referrals