How to run a test and learn experiment using a proven method
Any real innovation has to detach itself from the current way of working, and explore innovative approaches. Here we will highlight how this can work using systems thinking, the liberated method principles, Human Learning Systems and complexity concepts
The manager and a team of front line staff got together to look at understanding the workflow as experienced buy the service users.
Looking at the start of the workflow, after the initial contact from service users, the majority of further contact was by letter. Just to get past the front door to be accepted took months. Each application generated huge efforts of logging, processing and filing across the three IT systems.
Kim Tugwell, Home Select Case Worker, said that spending all day ‘processing application forms’ felt like being ‘on a treadmill never getting anywhere’. The system also generated hostility and almost 10% of applicants appealed against their banding. For the team, the deeper learning then followed quickly after.
Looking at the start of the workflow, after the initial contact from service users, the majority of further contact was by letter. Just to get past the front door to be accepted took months. Each application generated huge efforts of logging, processing and filing across the three IT systems.
Kim Tugwell, Home Select Case Worker, said that spending all day ‘processing application forms’ felt like being ‘on a treadmill never getting anywhere’. The system also generated hostility and almost 10% of applicants appealed against their banding. For the team, the deeper learning then followed quickly after.
Seeing the current system
The team spend some time understand how the current system works - end to end. The key aspect here is that they see it from the persons, or customers perspective. The team:
- Listen to demand coming into the service, via phone, forms, or phone.
- Understand what matters to people.
- Assess the response the organisation gives to the customer.
- Derive what the purpose is of the service.
- Flow the end to end journey of the person, and the back office workflow.
- Measure the outcomes, waste, resources used, and if we have achieved purpose.
- Understand why the service is designed this way.
- Uncover the mental models and thinking, and how they drive the design of the processes and behaviour of staff.
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Audio - thoughts from the team about their service
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​The folly of banding
in this example of the measures for a housing service, the team discover that the method of prioritisation that they called banding. There were three categories; gold, silver and bronze. The first shock and major learning point was that the Gold priority banding did not mean that you would be housed any quicker. It took on average up to 30 months to be housed.
Gold band mean = 675 days, Silver band mean = 750 days, Bronze band mean = 655 days.
Understanding strength based real need
We started off with looking at demands, and understanding what really mattered to citizens.
We then summarised a months demands into one sheet and split them into Value & Failure demands. The failure demands are those that are caused by the way we have designed the service itself. Therefore, we have the potential, when we redesign the service, to eliminate the failure demands.
We then summarised a months demands into one sheet and split them into Value & Failure demands. The failure demands are those that are caused by the way we have designed the service itself. Therefore, we have the potential, when we redesign the service, to eliminate the failure demands.
value and failure demands for a month
the one page view of the service created by the team. This was one part of the system picture
The teat and learn experiment
An important part of the intervention design methodology, is a safe to try environment. The team were given a physical room, so they could be disconnected with the current mindset, procedures, culture and ways of working of the current organisation. I call this 'the bubble' which is an innovation method that is designed to allow for people to truly come up with new ways of working unencumbered by the current systemic conditions. The team are led to work as a design team, across their specialisms, on the end to end service, to focus on learning by taking customer demands directly into the team.
The team were given permission to liberate their working principles to experiment with new ways of working.
The liberated method principles based on working in local government with people who need us:
- Understand what matters for each person, this determines the design.
- We make decisions based on knowledge and evidence, not opinion or standards.
- Only do what is needed to create value, enabling the person to gain control.
- Take ownership through the end to end journey with the person.
- Work as a team, without department barriers.
- We are here to learn, and improve.
Rule 1 - do not break the law.
Rule 2 - do not make their situation worse.
The next discovery emerged gradually. It is a lesson about closely understanding demand.
The team were given permission to liberate their working principles to experiment with new ways of working.
The liberated method principles based on working in local government with people who need us:
- Understand what matters for each person, this determines the design.
- We make decisions based on knowledge and evidence, not opinion or standards.
- Only do what is needed to create value, enabling the person to gain control.
- Take ownership through the end to end journey with the person.
- Work as a team, without department barriers.
- We are here to learn, and improve.
Rule 1 - do not break the law.
Rule 2 - do not make their situation worse.
The next discovery emerged gradually. It is a lesson about closely understanding demand.
So conditioned were the team, that it took a great deal of debate and three phone calls to truly understand what mattered about how a service could best be delivered to the first demand we took in Housing. This role is the task of the facilitator that is leading the team. They guide the team away from their current thinking and behaviours, and incorporate new ones based on the principles.
the new demands that are used to learn
the wall of the experiment room
Purpose and new measures
Primary measures are those that focus the whole organisation. They are the ones that tell us most about what we do and how we do it. Therefore they are the most important.
Systemic service measures are defined as: that which helps us to understand what is going on in the service,
and,
how well are we doing with respect to our purpose (defined by our customers),
...so that we can learn and improve
PURPOSE & WHAT MATTERS
To begin the measurement framework we start with Purpose, and ask ourselves how do we measure achievement of purpose as defined by the customer or citizen. Purpose can then be split into:
- the what we do, and
- the how we do it
How we do it, an example of a measure, might be defined as;
What Matters is obvious when each customer interacts with us.
Every service has a purpose and I have only given one simple example. The main point is that the purpose and what matters to customers is a fundamental starting point. It is core to defining a person-centred service. This focus leads everyone in the organisation in being mindful of the customer in every activity and interaction. It therefore is the core of the re-design and the design of measures.
The new measures
Why have everything on the wall? The impact of putting it on the wall was really profound and helpful. The team had the measures in the room with them at all times. The measures became theirs because they were the ones developing and changing them. The interpretation and learning from the measures would develop over time, and became part of weekly team discussions and reviews.
When we wanted to have updates with the contractor, the real measures were present in the room. The old meetings with the contractor were fraught with arguments. Now, they were based on real time data, and what was measured was helpful to learn from, rather than blame.
The team developed a sophisticated tracking method to understand what stage each repair was. This became a live spreadsheet, on paper, and then on replicated on Excel. The team preferred the immediacy of the whiteboard, and the amount to information it can contain. That whiteboard could be modified immediately.
Systemic service measures are defined as: that which helps us to understand what is going on in the service,
and,
how well are we doing with respect to our purpose (defined by our customers),
...so that we can learn and improve
PURPOSE & WHAT MATTERS
To begin the measurement framework we start with Purpose, and ask ourselves how do we measure achievement of purpose as defined by the customer or citizen. Purpose can then be split into:
- the what we do, and
- the how we do it
How we do it, an example of a measure, might be defined as;
What Matters is obvious when each customer interacts with us.
Every service has a purpose and I have only given one simple example. The main point is that the purpose and what matters to customers is a fundamental starting point. It is core to defining a person-centred service. This focus leads everyone in the organisation in being mindful of the customer in every activity and interaction. It therefore is the core of the re-design and the design of measures.
The new measures
Why have everything on the wall? The impact of putting it on the wall was really profound and helpful. The team had the measures in the room with them at all times. The measures became theirs because they were the ones developing and changing them. The interpretation and learning from the measures would develop over time, and became part of weekly team discussions and reviews.
When we wanted to have updates with the contractor, the real measures were present in the room. The old meetings with the contractor were fraught with arguments. Now, they were based on real time data, and what was measured was helpful to learn from, rather than blame.
The team developed a sophisticated tracking method to understand what stage each repair was. This became a live spreadsheet, on paper, and then on replicated on Excel. The team preferred the immediacy of the whiteboard, and the amount to information it can contain. That whiteboard could be modified immediately.
the new emergent flow
Solving people’s problems & liberate staff to embrace a flexible mission approach
In a housing example after dealing with several people in the new way of working, the team came to realise - to their total surprise, that the 'outside-in' purpose of the service as it would be defined by people we are working with, had shifted from
'give people a house'
to
‘help me to solve my housing problem’
this purpose was diametrically opposite to what they had before. It was a fundamentally new mission driven purpose which now opened up a whole new paradigm for how the service should be designed and run.
'give people a house'
to
‘help me to solve my housing problem’
this purpose was diametrically opposite to what they had before. It was a fundamentally new mission driven purpose which now opened up a whole new paradigm for how the service should be designed and run.
Home Select Manager said that the job is now much more satisfying as it is about ‘getting out there, building relationships and understanding people’.
What has been the impact?
A completely new process, a new way of working, a new way of engaging with customers, and outcomes that are very different.
Here is an example from housing, before and after
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Old system
6293 waiting list 30% demand ‘satisfied’ 62.7% failure demand 3 IT systems 27 appeals a month advertising £30,000 pa aggression and frustration demoralised staff unknown true cost to the overall social system 22 FTE fire-fighting manager |
New system
309 new list 80% problems resolved 3% failure demand 1 simple IT system 1 appeal in a year 25% cost reduction helping people, encourage independence staff seeking to improve true links with other groups 15 FTE In control and fixing systemic barriers |
Audio - Reflections from the team
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The new service, and what it is like now.
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What have been the key elements of success?
- The manager and the staff viewing their current work from the service users perspective.
- Designing a system that liberates staff to deal with the variety of what was presented.
- Listen and understand each service users real needs and what matters to them - focusing on a strength based mission approach rather than a deficiency service focus.
- Actively transforming the workflow with systemic approach, challenging and removing waste.
- The increase in real outcomes improved people’s lives, and impacts the public sector as a whole.
- Decision-making is delegated to staff, liberating them to apply the appropriate methods.
- The emergence of motivation and enthusiasm of staff.
- Senior decision-makers are directly connected to the team, to learn from them, and to identify and challenge the barriers to making this work.
What has been learned?
- A standard approach to workflow design, leads to poor outcomes, creates waste and increases demand.
- Systemic design thinking principles of user centric services does reduce demand and resources, and increase the value for the customer.
- Real transformation is about altering how we think about delivering services, the courage to fundamentally design the workflow, how well we can remove organisational barriers, and liberating staff to deal with problems.
- Transferring power away from the organisation, to the person in need, creates fundamentally different behaviours. And people begin to take control of aspects of their lives and the strengths around them.
- A mission based approach is a key fundamental to dissolve barriers between services and provide a focus for complex situations.
Our beliefs drive our design
It is important to realise that the core of this work is about the way we think about our service, and how that impact the design. This was also about looking at systemic change. These shifted for this transformation to occur.
Implications for local government
Transformation like this case study is not recommended for every organisation. Each council or housing provider can examine its own services – and their impact on those in need, then decide themselves how far they want to go in re-designing their services. In Yarmouths’ case, they decided to focus on a strengths based approach, to change every part of the service and remove CBL, and focus on an outside-in developed mission.
