Hello, I'm Gillian Bowen, Public Affairs Manager at Chartered Accountants ANZ, or CA ANZ. This is Small Firm, Big Impact.
One of the models that's newer that is in in in the new revamped course is the business model canvas a way of looking at your practice and really deciding which of my client segments that I really want to focus on and then tying that back to your value proposition.
People from all around New Zealand. So they've been waiting to register and come to this and the networking aspect, I mean, it's just it's awesome. Like it's so awesome and I know we're biased.(laughing)
It's the podcast giving you and your clients the up to date information you need to do your jobs each fortnight are share resources, tools and expert advice provided by CA ANZ and a range of people across our profession. So make sure you're following the pod in your favourite pod app. And if you've got an idea for the show email [email protected] Today we have two of our facilitators, teachers involved in the Chartered Accountants ANZ Public Practice Program (PPP). The topic,
the recent revamp of the PPP. What's new? Why do it? Why it matters? Kathryn Tarr and Jason Driscole, welcome to Small Firm, Big Impact.
Fantastic to be here, Gillian.
Thank you for the invitation.
I said that I was going to run through your expertise, but I've decided it's more efficient if you do it. Kathryn, why don't you go first? What's your expertise?
Well, Gillian. Well, I've had that just over 30 years in public practice in Big Four and mid-tier firm, and as of just just late last year, have resigned from those positions. And I'm now out on my own for the first time. So I'm a tax practitioner, so my
trade is tax. But I've also done a lot of facilitation and training for CA ANZ and other professional bodies over over the years I've been involved was trying to work it out for this, something like ten years in the public practice course, presenting various um, yeah, reruns of it. So fantastic to still be here and excited to be talking about it.
Okay, brilliant. Jason, how about you?
So I'm based in New Zealand, so regional New Zealand and a little bit like Kath have been involved in all iterations of - the old PAS program days. The old. What's what we're calling now, the old Capstone program. And we've got the new program and then also the public practice program. Um, for probably about 9 or 10 years in the public practice program and probably close to 20 years across different
workshops and marking and facilitation for Chartered Accountants ANZ. I'm a partner at a business advisory practice in the Manawatu in New Zealand. So live and breathe some of the stresses and struggles and challenges that our members that are going through the public practice program face when they come into it. And so it's great to be able to leverage off and interact with those people because we also pick up some great ideas about our own business as we're going through it too.
Yeah, brilliant. Okay, so I've got the right brains here, I think, to pick apart for this episode. Kathryn let's just take a quick step back for those listening along, if they may not know what the public practice program is, what is the public practice program?
Okay. So the public practice program is. It's made up of two components. It's got a digital learning program and then it's got a two day workshop. So where we get involved as facilitators in that two day workshop. And again, it's it's facilitators like us who have who are public practice, people, understand, as Jason said, the stresses of the world, but it's really designed to ensure the success of our public practices. So it's a bit around protecting the CA ANZ's name and
branding and reputation, which helps us all. But it's ultimately about empowering our practitioners to create those practices which really run efficiently. They they're resilient, they're flexible for change, and they operate also into the future. So the public practice course I guess gives practitioners tools to to think about the
future and how that impacts their practice. It thinks about business models, it looks at networking with others so that they can, you know, practitioners that come to the course will bounce ideas off others and indeed work with others in the same position to come up with some possible solutions.
Okay. Right. Jason. So who normally goes through the program?
I just want to touch on what Kath said. I love that word empowering. I think that's, that's a brilliant word. And, and that, that is why we're here with this, with this program so fundamentally and it's funny, we talk at the start of the session, we're like, oh so why are you here? And you always get the cheeky while I'm here because I have to be here because I
want to get my certificate of public practice. And yet there is that regulatory aspect, like a lot of parts of chartered accountants, ANZ, you know, there's aspects where we have to do certain things to get a certain either qualification, certificate, license, whatever it might be granted, Yeah, totally. But this session,
so much more than that. And so not only is it people who are going out in their own as, sole practitioners, so they're about to embark on that massive challenge and set up their own practice, or maybe they're buying into an existing business that, you know, could be a large multinational firm or might be a smaller firm with with 1 or 2 partners or somewhere in between. And then also we do have the odd occasion. We have senior
leadership people coming through. And we have probably in the last, particularly the last few years seen firms get associates going through the program, mainly because they're getting to the point where maybe they're signing off sets of accounts and they need to to make sure that that they are meeting their requirements under that aspect. So generally speaking, we're talking about partners, aspirational partners, sole practitioners or yeah, senior leadership people and firms.
Kathryn Let's hone in on that then. And Jason mentioned it there. We are talking to SMPs today. So why would why should they be interested in this?
I think think Gillian for me. And I think for the feedback we get as well is that it gives them a chance to over two days to really focus in on their business. Now, as a leader, principal or a partner in practice, you generally don't have a lot of time. Okay, so this course, if nothing else, gives you two days to really focus on your business, your practice and how it's operating, what can you know, what might need to change, what might need to change into
the future. But it gives you two days to focus on it with the assistance of a whole bunch of other practitioners and partners and principals. Yeah, great. So that sharing of knowledge, Gillian, is absolutely key to some of the takeaways being really strong.
So we've talked about then what it is in general, why people do it. So the other reason why we're talking about this now is that the PPP has had a revamp. Jason What's that involved exactly?
It's funny you should say that. I was thinking about this this morning of all times when I was brushing my teeth. Actually.
I do a lot of my thinking in the shower. I get it right? Totally.
The bathroom is a great individual space where you get to focus on what you're doing for the day. Um. It's not. It's we haven't we haven't taken a digger to the site and completely knocked it all over and cleared the whole section. All we've done is just done up the bathroom, in the kitchen, in the house. So fundamentally, the foundations were there, they were strong. And all we've done is
improved a bit of the flow. And then, for want of a better word, just refreshed the content to get it back up to where it needs to be for current 2023. As Kath noted, this public practice programme has been around for about 19 years or so and it was written, you know, slightly prior to that. So some of the, some of the material and some of the date references we had even just a, you know, real granular level, we're a little bit outdated. But then also
we've adopted some different thinking. We've we've leveraged off some of the great work that some of the public practitioners have either seen in their groups or doing in their own businesses. We've now adopted a little bit more content that's a bit more contemporary and also just, I suppose, adjusted for where we are in life, you know, which
obviously had come along, that's changed the landscape massively. We talk about in the programme about how it's turbocharged some of those changes and so we really just needed to get it back up to date to where, you know, where businesses are are and how they're operating with their with their teams and clients.
Kathryn, do you want to add on that? Yeah, yeah. Go. Go for it.
Sorry. I was just going to. Yeah, exactly. Add to that that, you know, ask ourselves, you know, revamping the PPP and as I say, it didn't involve changing everything but making some really beneficial changes. It's a bit like the practitioners who are going to come to the public practice course, who have worked in a firm for, you know, ten, 15 years. Again, there's always time to sit back and say, well, what do we need to change? Okay. We have people
like that come into the practice or the course. We also have our new principals who are starting off on their own. But this constant piece around revising what you're doing, you know, don't make it static. What can we change to improve? And I think that's what we're done with the public practice recently, and that's what practitioners should be thinking about for their businesses as well.
And Kathryn, what I was going to ask and it's touching on what Jason said in the sense of, you know, making the content relevant. What are some, do you have a couple of specific examples there for those listening along that might want to go, well, what is it that I'm going to learn this time around?
Yeah, okay. So lots!
How long is a piece of string?! Yeah, sorry. Yeah.
I think one of the models that's newer that is in the in in the new revamped course is the business model canvas, which you, you know, some practitioners may already have heard of a way of looking at your practice and really deciding who are my, which of my client segments that I really want to focus on. And then tying that back to your value proposition and saying, well, what can I do? What am I doing now? What can I be doing better in the future to really
meet the needs of those client segments? And then the business model canvas for those that know it then goes into, well, how does that affect your communication channels? How does that affect the resources you need, the assets that you need, the partners that you might partner with in delivering, you know, in running your practice, the cost structure, all of that. So it gives you a a visual model that you can tweak your practices and say, well, if I change this,
what what impact is it over here? And and that is a really valuable model that we've got in there. We also look, Jason, I think it'd be fair to say we look if I described it as a bit more wellbeing and positive mindset and psychological safety and some of those bits around the team, but also for the
practitioners themselves. So how, how are you looking after yourself as you're running your practice and how are you looking after your team members and some of the models and theory and research that we talk about there is far more perhaps modernised than what we had before.
Yeah, just sort of touching, I suppose, the psychological drivers, how you adapt or how you face changed. Are you front footing change? Are you reactionary, Are you doing it under pressure or are you doing it when you absolutely have to? How do you deal with conflict? We've sort of updated the the conflict. Yeah. Managing aspects of the
program as well, which is great. And it's yeah, like Kath said, a bit more contemporary and a bit it's leveraging off more up to date and more modern either models or things that people are probably either seeing or hearing or doing already.
And look for those listening along going, well, where do I get all this? I will be putting links to where it is on our website so you can read all about it in the show notes. This is just a bit of a sprinkling to give you a taste of what's going on so then you can go forth and find the information that you need. And Jason, you've been running this newer version in New Zealand. How's it? Going, What's the feedback been like?
So we've undertaken one workshop virtually, and then also one workshop face to face. So we do have the two different offerings virtual and face to face. The virtual is done over a two and a half day, but sort of two slightly bridged days. So same sort of timing. That's the big question. Obviously, virtual, as we know with the post-COVID era, virtual is great. It's convenient. It suits people in regional and rural aspects of or areas of New Zealand and Australia granted. Yeah.
Yeah. Gives them access.
And you know, you can you can connect from home, work wherever is convenient for you, but the face to face side of it I suppose as one aspect that we do really enjoy and embrace and nurture and value and that's something that we're trying to make sure that the virtual is as effective and as impactful as what
the face to face is. And sure, the face to face session that was run by one of my colleagues up in Auckland last week, he had people from all around New Zealand, so they've been waiting to register and come to this. And the networking aspect, I mean, it's just it's awesome. Like it's so awesome and I know we're biased. This program.
Look, as long as you declare it, I argue no problem.
Well, I don't know.
It's good to be proud of your program.
In New Zealand when I qualified and got my certificate of public practice, I went to a large event at a hotel. All the people that were qualifying at that point in time did it. It was very it was very rules sort of based. We talked about some practical things that you need to know about what you need to do and your practice, how much share capital you needed to have and P.I. insurance. So it was all very, you know, practical and that sort of part how to deal with
some ethical decisions and issues. And sure, there's the elements of that in this current program because we have to because, you know, people.
They're important .
... and we're part of a membership body that we need to adhere to those rules. But it's, it's so much more than that. We like Kath said, we focus the first day very much on the future, building a practice that's going to be hit here both now and into the future. How do we make you and your team resilient? How do we look at what business models are coming through and embracing those? But the second day and look, we've got we've got technical training up the wazoo.
If you want technical training on anything, you can find it at Chartered Accountants ANZ, you can find it at another provider. That's great. But the second day is on those softer skills, the leadership skills, managing people internally. Externally. Yeah. And I don't know whether we get much exposure to that and to have an environment over two days with your peers, with, you know, highly successful people who are all there for a common goal, the stuff that comes out of the
session is just awesome. And like I said earlier, we walk away going, Oh, that's such a great idea. I'm going to do that in my own business afterwards. So yeah, it's just awesome.
Yeah.
There's really a course that goes by, I think you said it at the start, Jason, that we don't get some benefit as facilitators as well. And just thinking about, you know, somebody had an idea that they said, which was just like, Wow. And everyone stops and goes, Oh yeah, so simple. But why haven't we thought about that before?
Well there's a lot of power in collaboration.
Yeah, absolutely.
And Kathryn, here in Australia, I'm not going to to make people feel bad. They don't live in Australia. So let me rephrase that. Kathryn, You've just started to teach the new program in Australia. How's it going?
Yes, we recently ran the first online offering of the public practice course and it was terrific. But I think in talking to practitioners, you know, they were really engaging in the new program. They seemed to enjoy the models as a different way of thinking about it. So as a facilitator, I felt that people were getting involved and interested in the content. And again, it was an online piece, but as Jason said, we do the online pretty well.
So again, there's networking opportunities, lots of use of breakout rooms and those sorts of things. So you're working with 4 or 5 others and we mix those groups up so that the idea is that you're still meet everyone in the in the session, which will be about 25 people over the course of the the five online sessions over the two and a half days. So it was it was terrific. Again, you know, we offer face to
face as well and that'll be terrific. But equally as beneficial for both if if you're a face to face person, come to the face to face. If you're happy to do it online, then online might be your option.
Yeah, that's good that there are option. I think that's that's the key. The key point there, Jason, if you want to get if people are listening along to this and they want to get involved or they know a member who should or a colleague, what's the next step for them? From your side of the ditch, as people like to say. And then I'll get Kathryn to answer the same thing.
Well, from my understanding everything's pretty similar on both sides of the ditches. Um, so members, when they when they log in, can go through the process where they register, they gain access to the material. Like Kath said earlier on,
there is some essentially like pre-work to the workshop. So there's the modules that they go through beforehand and work through and that just really sets the platform up so that then when we are coming together over either the two days face to face or the two and a half days virtually, we are all on the same level. We've all done the pre-work and we can then leverage off that to maximize our time together to really, I suppose, maximize the outcomes and the networking opportunities that exist.
Kathryn, anything you'd like to add?
No, no. Simply follow your links on the CA ANZ site and that'll get you through to registering it etcetera and encourage you to do so.
That is all we have time for. If you want to find out more about the public practice program and learn from Jason and Kathryn, I'll put a link from our website in the show notes. Follow the pod in your favorite pod app or you can check out the show's page on the Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand website. The podcast has an email, so feel free to get
in touch. [email protected] Let's start a conversation. Thank you Kathryn Tarr and Jason Driscole for being my experts on Small Firm, Big Impact.
Thanks. Thanks Gillian.
Thank you so much. Cheers.
Bye bye.