Building a Foundation for Responsible AI Adoption

Challenge

As a not-for-profit, government-funded organisation supporting education, training, and employment across Australia, MTC FutureReady developed an ambitious three-year AI Strategy with Year 1 focused on capability building and experimentation. However, the organisation faced the challenge of translating strategic ambition into operational reality. With limited in-house AI expertise and no established governance structures, MTC needed a structured approach to build organisational capability, align stakeholders around AI's potential, and establish systems to move from ideation to implementation. This engagement required bridging the gap between strategic vision and practical execution while building sustainable internal capacity for AI adoption.

Approach

Building AI literacy and governance foundations to enable strategic experimentation

The Strategy Group partnered with MTC FutureReady to operationalise their AI strategy through a phased approach combining education, governance, and structured pilots. The core methodology included:

• AI awareness and education workshops with leadership and management teams

• Collaborative AI vision development to align understanding of capabilities, limitations, and practical use cases in nonprofit and education contexts

• AI governance framework design and implementation to guide use cases from ideation through to pilot and implementation

• Prioritisation framework and register to assess AI use cases against key business criteria and support business case development

The approach established governance structures before experimentation, ensuring responsible and strategic AI adoption. Selected high-value use cases were then piloted through build-test-learn sprints, with small working groups of subject matter experts guiding prototype design, iteration, and decision-making.

Outcomes

Establishing the operational infrastructure for sustainable AI adoption and experimentation

The engagement delivered foundational systems and capabilities that enabled MTC FutureReady to confidently progress their AI strategy:

• Aligned organisational understanding of AI opportunities and limitations across leadership and management

• Endorsed AI governance framework providing clear pathways from idea to implementation

• Operational prioritisation system to assess and advance AI use cases based on strategic business criteria

• First wave of AI pilots launched using structured, agile experimentation methods

• Built internal capability through co-design approaches that developed AI literacy and ownership among staff