Briscoe Group: Developing leaders who bring out the best in others
Building internal facilitation capability, strengthening collaboration and applying Design Thinking to real-world challenges.
- Client
- Briscoe Group
- Format
- Hackathons and internal facilitator training
- Duration
- 2023–2025
- Charity partners
- First Foundation, Cure Kids, Tania Dalton Foundation
Developing leaders by enabling others
How can organisations equip their leaders not only to lead teams, but to help people think differently, collaborate and solve problems together?
Across three years, Briscoe Group partnered with Big Bloom to combine employee development with community impact. In 2023, Briscoe Group nominated employees for Big Bloom’s public hackathon supporting First Foundation. In 2024 and 2025, the partnership continued with tailor-made hackathons supporting Cure Kids and the Tania Dalton Foundation.
Alongside these, Briscoe Group invested in internal facilitation capability, giving employees practical skills they could apply well beyond the hackathon.
Building leadership capability from within
Big Bloom goes beyond traditional training by letting internal facilitators learn through practice. Using the four stages of Empathy, Ideation, Prototyping and Pitches, they learn to guide teams as they explore challenges, generate ideas and develop their own solutions, rather than steering them towards a set answer.
Facilitators strengthen their ability to ask better questions, listen actively, manage time, navigate different perspectives and make space for others to contribute. At Briscoe Group they went on to use the same techniques to define team values, focus areas and ways of working.
“The skills I’ve developed through this experience are highly transferable, extending well beyond the hackathon environment into my broader work and leadership practice.”
“Leadership isn’t always about leading from the front, but about enabling others, knowing when to share an opinion and when not to, and being open to solutions that sit outside the norm.”
Putting learning into practice: Tania Dalton Foundation
On 5 August 2025, 24 Briscoe Group employees worked in four teams on a challenge for the Tania Dalton Foundation, which supports young sportswomen through scholarships, mentoring and personal development.
The brief: find practical ways to inspire and support more young wāhine in Years 9–10 to stay in sport, build confidence and develop a pathway towards becoming future Foundation scholars.
The winning concept, Poipoi Pathway, proposed an engagement toolkit for mentees and mentors, with a reflection framework based on Fun, Friends and Fitness, a rewards system and practical guidance for mentoring relationships. The Foundation planned to explore a combination of all four teams’ ideas.
The impact in 2025
The Tania Dalton Foundation rated its experience 9/10, highlighting the quality of the organisation and facilitation, the energy in the room and the chance to work with a corporate partner.
Skills that extend beyond the hackathon
The value of Big Bloom lies not only in the solutions teams create, but in the capabilities people take back into their work.
Leaders gained practical experience in collaborative problem-solving, active listening, inclusive leadership and Design Thinking, while not-for-profit partners gained fresh perspectives and potential solutions to meaningful challenges.
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