We are makers, visualisers and learners.
We focus on the often 'invisible' infrastructures that create scaffolding to support transforming systems.
HOW WE WORK
Context is always the starting point for shaping how we design work with our partners. We start with where you are – not a set suite of frameworks and methods.
We often find ourselves in roles involving:
Critical friending
Being a trusted partner who asks provocative questions and offers different lenses. A neutral-party perspective to support navigating emergence and complexity.
Deliberative gathering, convening and weaving
Reshaping relational dynamics, bringing together ‘strange-and-familiar-bedfellows’ to unpack issues in new ways, drawing out diverse perspectives.
See how this comes to life in some of our recent work
Adaptive Learning Co-Design
Shifting the emphasis of evaluation towards a focus on iteration. Designing cycles for rapid learning and adaptation, reimagining accountabilities and more.
Testing, Experimenting + Learning
For portfolio approaches: applying Challenge-led design frameworks to develop emergent learning-oriented Portfolios to support directional shifts.
Story translating and building
Working with communities, organisations and initiatives, creating and reframing stories to unearth useful patterns that inspire action towards positive change.
Scaffolding and growing new infrastructures
Working in spaces where uncertainty means it’s hard to identify what is needed, so we start to explore and learn together and then grow the infrastructures as we learn forward, step by step.
We are radically curious.
We believe systems transformation starts with envisioning new possibilities.
We are capability-builders, convenors and critical friends. Our work is diverse. But through ‘the work’ – wherever, whenever and however we do it - our constant intention is to push the boundaries of innovation to get us closer to greener and more just futures.
OUR CO-DIRECTORS
Ingrid is a social innovator, a maker, a big picture thinker. She draws experience from fields as diverse as finance, social work and design into a focus on systems innovation. Ingrid has a passion for innovating the ‘boring’ – underlying civic and institutional capabilities and infrastructures to enable society to co-create positive futures. Her research and work have contributed to the design of policy and processes across many fields including procurement and impact investment.
Dr Ingrid Burkett
Dr Joanne McNeill
Since 2000 Joanne has worked with institutional actors to design and implement change programs for real-world impact. Her expertise is working at the boundaries between actors, capability building and enabling ecosystems to support social innovation and alternative economic organising. Much of her recent focus is on action research across diverse impact economy settings. Joanne is a Founding Director of the Community Economies Institute and a Churchill Fellow (2008).
Cathy Boorman
Cathy is passionate about the wellbeing of people and places and has designed, implemented, researched and led the evaluation of place-based initiatives locally and internationally. With extensive experience in community, State and Local Government , Cathy draws on her diverse experiences to deliver transformational learning and applied research with students, community and academic partners.
OUR EXTENDED TEAM
Gael is an experienced leader and social innovator whose career is rooted in community and economic development, social justice, and human rights. She has worked across central and local government and grassroots spaces to enable positive social change including as a panel member reviewing the future for local governance and government in New Zealand and as Director of Community and Social Innovation at TSI, an Auckland Council initiative focused on place based social and economic change.
Gael Surgenor
Associate
Craig Cunningham
Project Co-ordinator & Design Lead (SMBI Living Lab)
Craig is an experienced practitioner who tackles complex challenges alongside others, focusing on what matters and taking practical steps that test, learn, and guide what comes next. He believes change comes from curiosity, rigorous practice, and adaptation — not perfect plans — and that capability is built by delivering results, not just talking. He values clarity, trust, and the collective grit it takes to keep moving when the way forward isn’t yet clear.
Kylie Colville
Learning & Adaption Lead (SMBI Living Lab)
Kylie is a problem solving activist. Passionate about justice in the social sphere she started her career in education before moving into community based development and social work. Personally and professionally Kylie advocates for change that will enable flourishing for all people, in all places.
Our team members have collaborated over many years, and in 2024 we established The Good Shift as a stand-alone purpose-built entity to consolidate our approach. The Good Shift® is a ‘spin out’ of Griffith Centre for Systems Innovation which was formerly known as The Yunus Centre Griffith. GCSI was incubated by Griffith Business School from 2019-2024, experimenting with a different kind of business model within a university setting, and demonstrating how a university can play an Anchor Institution role around fostering innovation and new approaches to tackling complex issues. We’re proud of our achievements and appreciate the opportunity Griffith University offered, providing space and institutional support to test innovative approaches and develop a body of work.
OUR ORIGIN STORY