The Support Network
A workshop that ends on Friday changes very little by itself. What changes a business or an organisation is what happens across the twelve, fifteen or eighteen months that follow — the coaching, the clinics, the peer group, the person you can call when it breaks.
Seven ways support continues
Each of these runs on a published cadence with named people attached. None of them is a mailing list.
A named person who knows your context and stays with you through the cycle.
Mentors are matched after the intensive, once we know what a participant is actually building. A match is a working relationship with a defined focus and cadence, not an introduction — and it is reviewed at each adoption checkpoint so a match that is not working can be changed without anyone losing face.
Monthly one-to-one, plus asynchronous contact between sessions
Learn moreSpecific, supervised roles — from a two-hour task to a full cycle.
Volunteering here is scoped work with a named supervisor, not general goodwill. Every role has a written description, a time commitment, a screening step proportionate to the access it carries, and an explicit statement of what is out of scope.
From one-off micro-tasks to sustained roles across a full cycle
Learn moreConvened conversations where the agenda is set by the people in the room.
Forums are scheduled, facilitated and minuted. They exist so that what participants learn does not stay locked inside one cohort — and so that Ubuntu Gale hears what is not working while there is still time to change it.
Quarterly practice forums, plus listening sessions at each cycle boundary
Learn moreShort, practical sessions on one specific thing you are stuck on.
Clinics run between the intensive and the adoption review, when the gap between a working prototype and a system someone relies on becomes obvious. They are hands-on: you leave with the thing built, not with notes about building it.
Fortnightly implementation clinics during the coaching window
Learn moreAsk for help when you need it, not when the calendar allows it.
Real implementation problems do not wait for the next scheduled date. Any participant can request a working session; requests are triaged within two working days and either scheduled, answered directly, or explained if they fall outside what the network can offer.
On request, triaged within two working days
Learn moreSmall groups of people solving the same problem at the same time.
Circles of four to six participants meet without a facilitator present after the first two sessions. The design is deliberate: the goal is a support structure that survives the end of the programme, and a group that only ever meets with staff in the room will not.
Fortnightly for the first six months, then self-organising
Learn moreWhat happens after month 12, 15 or 18.
Completing a cycle ends the formal programme, not the relationship. Alumni keep access to forums and the resource library, are first in line to become mentors, and are the people we ask when we need to know whether something worked two years later.
Ongoing, with an annual practice gathering
Learn moreMonth by month
These are the same phases published in each programme roadmap, seen from the participant’s side rather than the delivery team’s. Dates move; the sequence does not.
UG-SBDF · 12-month cycle
Five days of building, then eight months of clinics and coaching while the work goes into the business, then verification and handover.
Where the business actually is before anything changes — so improvement can be measured rather than asserted.
Business Outcome Canvas, Digital Readiness Diagnostic, Five-Day Action Charter and the working artefacts built across the week.
At least 80% attendance, all critical artefacts, a safe working demonstration and an approved 90-day adoption plan.
The first fortnightly clinic, held when the gap between the workshop build and daily operation first becomes visible.
Four to six businesses at a similar stage, meeting fortnightly.
A named coach working on this business's specific adoption plan.
Fortnightly, focused on whatever is blocking adoption this month.
What is working and what is not, across every business in the cycle.
Is the system in use? If not, why not — and what would have to change.
For businesses where adoption has stalled. Attending is not a failure; it is the point of a 12-month cycle.
Independent check that what was built is still in use and still owned locally.
Evidence assessed against the published ladder before any public claim is made.
Documentation, ownership and support routes transferred. Alumni network access begins.
UG-CTC · 15-month cycle
Co-design before the intensive, a prototype built during it, then nine months of organisational strengthening around whoever has to run it.
The organisation defines the problem before anyone proposes a technology.
Capacity, systems and the realistic amount of change this organisation can absorb.
Two to three representatives per organisation build the Technology Catalyst Decision Pack.
Critical acceptance criteria pass or carry approved treatment. The prototype remains explicitly labelled non-production.
Turning a labelled prototype into something the organisation can safely operate.
Working with the person who will actually run the system, not only the person who attended.
Organisations, delivery partners and technology contributors in one room.
Whether the organisation owns the system, or whether it still depends on us.
Handling of beneficiary information, consent and retention, before the system holds real records at scale.
Cost, maintenance and what happens when the person who runs it leaves.
Independent check on use, ownership and safeguards.
Evidence assessed against the published ladder.
Full documentation, supplier handover checklist and ongoing network access.
UG-DSIP · 18-month cycle
Two delivery cycles with a corrective learning gate between them, built around team challenges and individual portfolios.
Device, connectivity and language needs established before a cohort is planned — not discovered on day one.
Teams of four to six build toward the Team Challenge Delivery Pack.
Version history, source and AI-use disclosure, and no prohibited data or production dependency.
Teams continue meeting between formal sessions.
Practitioners describing what the work actually looks like, and reviewing portfolio quality.
Mentor review of portfolio quality against published criteria.
What is helping, what is not, and what the second cycle should change.
Where each learner is against the evidence ladder, and what would move them up it.
A formal decision point: what the first cycle got wrong, and what changes before the second runs.
The revised design, delivered to the second group.
Portfolios, referrals and employer introductions — with no guarantee of employment attached.
Evidence assessed against the published ladder across both cycles.
Individual portfolio case studies finalised. Alumni network access begins.
Months 18–36
Completing a cycle ends the formal programme, not the relationship. The extended track is optional, and it runs on the principle that the people best placed to help the next cohort are the ones who have already done it.
Months 18–24
Quarterly check-ins and access to clinics while the system beds in beyond the coaching window. The question at this stage is durability, not novelty.
Months 24–30
Alumni who have run a system for two years know things no facilitator can teach. This stage moves them from receiving support to giving it — as mentors, workshop contributors or case-study subjects.
Months 30–36
Longitudinal evidence collection. This is where a claim about lasting outcomes becomes defensible — because there is three-year data behind it rather than an exit-survey response.
What we commit to
If we cannot offer you a defined role with a supervisor, we will say so rather than hold your details indefinitely.
Nobody is placed with a participant before they have been through boundaries, escalation and the code of conduct.
Every role has a supervisor, and a route past that supervisor if the concern is about them.
Sessions are prepared, participants are briefed, and a cancellation reaches you as early as we know about it.
Agreed travel and data costs are reimbursed. Ask before you incur them and the answer will be clear.
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