ThinkPlace - Strategy & policy design

Nine big takeaways from Australia's Aged Care Royal Commission

Daniel Silkstone — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 01:52:40 +0000

Nine big takeaways from Australia's Aged Care Royal Commission

Australia

“The Royal Commission has heard compelling evidence that the system designed to care for older Australians is woefully inadequate. Many people receiving aged care services have their basic human rights denied. Their dignity is not respected and their identity is ignored. It most certainly is not a full life. It is a shocking tale of neglect.”

These are words that might shame us all.

As citizens. As humans who care about their fellow Australians. As relatives and friends of those currently consigned to live or work within the system described above. They might shame us... but what if they instead spurred us to collectively and collaboratively make sure these abuses – and the system that birthed them – never happen again?

Before we can tackle any problem, we must first understand it. The Interim report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is an important document for a critical moment in our history. It makes for sobering reading.

In just the first few of more than 800 pages, words like ‘isolation’, ‘powerless’, ‘failings’, ‘crisis’, ‘shocked’, ‘dismayed’ and ‘painful’ jump from the page, reinforcing for many of us the ever-present fear of growing old.

Make no mistake, this is an incredibly thorough and clear-eyed document. An extensive consultation process spanning written submissions, public hearings and community forums has outlined a litany of problems faced by those living and interacting with aged care.

Those attending community consultations were asked three primary questions:

What are the current problems and challenges in aged care?
What can be done to achieve high quality, safe and person centred aged care in to the future?
How can we build a culture of dignity and respect for older people?

Responses to these questions in different pockets of the country produced recurring themes that dominate the report. Substandard care, lack of dignity and respect, disempowerment, staff issues including staffing levels, training, remuneration, general attitudes and lack of culturally safe care. They also repeatedly surfaced guardianship issues and misuse of enduring power of attorney as well as financial distress due to the cost of care.

Stories shared highlight procedural assessment processes, lack of choice and fears that funding levels are defining human ‘value’. We’ve heard many of these horrific tales recounted in the media since the royal commission began.

Video of 100 Year Life | Lab4Living | ThinkPlace

At ThinkPlace we carry out extensive work in the aged-care sector, both researching problem spaces with users and working with stakeholders to craft better services, interactions and experiences. We recently convened a major symposium for leaders and stakeholders across aged-care to begin the process of reimagining what a future system might look like.

Here are our nine big takeaways from the Royal Commission’s interim report.

1. WE'RE STARTING AT THE WRONG POINT

Drill deep and at the core of even the most complex system is a fundamental idea about what it does and why it is needed. The report, and the submissions that fed into it, reveal just how miscalibrated our ideas about ageing and aged care have become.

As we journey through lives that last increasingly longer it appears that older people are largely viewed as burdens on a system that does not care. The failure to value older people accurately or appropriately has led to enormous failure in delivering important services. The report strongly states “this cruel and harmful system must be changed”.

The Commission’s report outlines issues in our language and perception about older people. “(T)he language of public discourse is not respectful towards older people,” it says. “Rather, it is about burden, encumbrance, obligation and whether taxpayers can afford to pay for the dependence of the older”.

This ‘ageist mindset’ is a constant backdrop that stems from lack of value and respect and leads to poor outcomes for all. It magnifies the intense emotional experiences that people transitioning into aged care go through, together with the guilt and loss felt by family and friends, who must make and implement difficult decisions without adequate humane support.

2. WE'VE FORGOTTEN HOW TO FRAME AGEING POSITIVELY

We have learned, over time, to behave in this way but there are alternatives. In many nations and cultures ageing is seen as the growth of wisdom and intellect. Families look towards their elders as powerful sources of knowledge, tradition and decision making.

Our own Indigenous culture has many beautiful traditions that are founded on respect, care and dignity and hold space for people ageing and dying with a deep connection to people and place.

How do we bring this back into our culture and systems? How might we change the way we view ageing, the way we view pursuing aged care as a profession, and in doing so change how we feel about the prospect of entering aged care ourselves?

What are the ways we can adjust our viewpoints to allow for new ways of caring for our ageing country? The report highlights the need to be “respectful of ageing.” This focus is the start of the answers to these questions.

3. THE SYSTEM IS NOT HUMAN-CENTERED

The Commission has called out issues with the lack of follow-up throughout the system, starting with when people attempt to enter the aged care system through My Aged Care.

In response to the complaints about a confusing and flawed Aged Care system that hosted multiple entry points ‘My Aged Care’ was created. And while it fixed one issue and created a single entry point into aged care, there are now new issues emerging for a non-digitally literate population who find the system difficult to access and incredibly confusing.

The current approach is not human-centred. It does not adequately consider who is accessing, interacting and struggling with the system. It requires stressed and suffering people to tell their story over and over again.

Many people have told us that the complaints system is hard to access, slow to act and often effectively unresponsive to the concerns of the complainant - Interim Report

This weakness is not new. So many government systems highlight this common complaint. Even before entering what is for many an unpleasant, fearful environment there is an administrative nightmare of repetitive paperwork, overlapping agencies and confusing requirements.

For a life event that is both so common and so important, we can and should be able to handle this better as a society. Figuring out how to do this and using contemporary methods of co-design and service design to get there will need to be a future focus.

Issues are also outlined around the need for more people-centred services that are culturally safe, built around trusted relationships and trauma-informed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

4. THE SYSTEM WON'T FIX ITSELF WITHOUT HELP

The report also outlines the lack of effective response from the aged care sector. Issues include a lack of transparency, an ineffectual regulation system and a lack of people-centred approaches designed and delivered.

It’s clear that there is need for external intervention. While changes to regulation and oversight may be necessary in some instances we needn’t see this as being solely about forcing actors within the system into reluctant compliance.

A contemporary, responsive approach to regulation that is fit for purpose and focuses on capacity building through proper education and communication, rather than inadequate punitive measures, is what’s needed. By bringing new approaches and ideas to bear on this sector we can begin to build something that creates mutual benefit for all within it.

5. A BETTER SYSTEM FOR WORKERS AND CARERS MEANS A BETTER SYSTEM FOR OLDER AUSTRALIANS

The same blockers that create poor experiences for aged-care residents and system users have also resulted in increasing workplace pressures for people working within the sector.

The report makes clear that it is becoming harder to attract people with the right skills to work in the system due to poor conditions, lack of adequate education, training and innovation.

The 2016 Workforce Census and Survey supports this, indicating that skill shortages and difficulties filling positions are common, particularly in regional and remote areas.

“According to research conducted for the Aged Care Workforce Strategy Taskforce in 2018, only 53 per cent of aged care worker participants reported favourable enablement levels, well below industry benchmarks. This is largely driven by dissatisfaction with learning and development opportunities.”

As a nation, we have the skills and tools to fix these issues, if we can form the shared intent. It is time for a complete overhaul.

6. BETTER AGED CARE IS A RIGHT, NOT A PRIVILEGE

The report rightly points out that since the Government funds 80 per cent of the sector, Australian taxpayers have a right to expect a better system for their parents, grandparents and themselves to one day enter into with joy, rather than fear. Together we can demand better and we can expect to play a part in helping drive towards a better system.

7. FIXING THE AGED CARE SYSTEM IMPACTS OTHER COMPLEX SYSTEMS

While it certainly focuses upon the dysfunction of the current aged care system the report also concerns itself with how these shortcomings impact on other interconnected systems, such as hospitals, NDIS and palliative care.

Young people with a disability in aged care is one of the main problem areas that the report highlights as a failure of related systems that puts extra pressure on the aged care system.

There are numerous submissions outlining the lack of expertise in palliative care and the distress this causes to everyone involved.

“At the Broome Hearing, the Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Flying Doctors Service, Dr Martin Laverty, stated that: ‘Primary care and aged care are interdependent, they are reliant on each other’,” the report says. The Commission is highlighting the need for closer collaboration and more multidisciplinary teams across sectors to enable better outcomes.

It is clear that although work needs to be done within the sector, serious attention needs to be given to the interconnection to other sectors if real change is to be achieved. That means any solutions need to be co-designed with input from those overlapping systems – as well as with a diverse collection of voices from within the aged-care system itself.

The exciting thing here is that interconnectedness can be a multiplier of wickedness, but also of virtue. Building and adapting the future aged-care system can result in improvements that increase effectiveness, efficiency and basic human decency in interconnected systems and sectors.

8. WE NEED BOTH RAPID RESPONSE AND A SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION

Most of the analysis so far has focused on why we need system level reform and how we might go about beginning it.

But even though the interim report’s intent is not to outline recommendations, there are three key areas that the Commission says require called urgent action.

• to provide more Home Care Packages to reduce the waiting list for higher level care at home

• to respond to the significant over-reliance on chemical restraint in aged care, including through the seventh Community Pharmacy Agreement

• to stop the flow of younger people with disability going into aged care and expedite the process of getting those younger people who are already in aged care out.

These are all extremely important but should not and will not be the full scope of necessary change. In response to the report we can and must address these urgent issues immediately, while also beginning the larger project of sector-wide reform.

9. THIS IS A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY. LET'S TAKE IT

While the temptation is strong to hang our heads as this report details the injustices, neglect and abuse of our older people, it also gives us a unique and powerful chance to rise. This report has not held back, and as changemakers, crafters of systemic interventions and stakeholders with various kinds of equity in the existing system neither should we.

Calls for co-design, innovation, transparency, meaningful change, restoration of dignity and love are the beginning of a journey Australians must make together. There is reason for hope in this document and in the thorough and unflinching manner with which the commission has confronted its work.

There are so many opportunities for us to do better but this report also contains markers of where that improvement might stem from. Throughout its catalogue of injustices and failings we also see many instances of unwavering dedication, love, support and advocacy for loved ones.

Now is our chance to put forth as much love as we have seen neglect, as much care as we have seen mistreatment and to work together to design and build a system that does not leave us fearing our inevitable journey towards old age.

It is the start of a road towards kindness.

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Reframing ageing for a people-centred aged-care system

Daniel Silkstone — Wed, 23 Oct 2019 05:37:32 +0000

Reframing ageing for a people-centred aged-care system

Australia

It is an eye-opening statistic that makes clear the extent to which many communities are set for a demographic change that cannot be ignored.

One in three children born in the West today will live to be 100.

And by 2065 this number is projected to rise to one in two.

The number of older people in our communities is increasing each year. For many, this represents a problem that must be solved – the demographic time bomb that we hear about so often in the daily headlines.

What's more, caring for the older people in our midst is already a responsibility that we are, at times, failing to meet as societies. In Australia, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety will soon report back its initial findings. Among them are expected to be shocking examples where older people and their interests have been failed by the system that is supposed to care for and protect them.

It doesn't have to be this way.

By reframing an older population as an opportunity rather than a burden and by bringing the power of human collaboration and creativity to this challenge, we can not only change the way we think about ageing but improve the experience that older people have in the systems we create and maintain to support them.

That’s why ThinkPlace drew together experts, stakeholders and design practitioners from across the aged-care sector recently for a day-long symposium about the 100-year life and the possibilities it opens up.

Video of 100 Year Life | Lab4Living | ThinkPlace

Jointly organised with the University of Canberra's Dr Fanke Peng, the event featured Dr Claire Craig from the UK’s Lab4Living and was co-ordinated by ThinkPlace Healthy Societies Lead Cybelle Ledez and Senior Designer Susan Atkinson.

The day began with a working breakfast for senior leaders across the sector. It then featured an extended workshop for users, carers, workers and other stakeholders across the system, looking at the hundred-year life and the opportunities it presents. The final part of the symposium was a design session in which participants grappled with how to begin forming the collaborations to coalesce around ideas and kickstart the process of making new system interventions.

Insights generated over the course of the three events will drive a special report into aged care in Australia, being prepared by ThinkPlace. They also give some insight into how stakeholders across the sector will have a role to play in responding positively and constructively to the new playing field that emerges as a result of the commission’s inquiries.

At ThinkPlace we know that the best way to achieve meaningful reform is through co-design and human-centred methods - Cybelle Ledez.

“The role for design and designers here begins with their convening power," Cybelle ledez says. "That means identifying the different actors who need to be part of a strategic discussion, gathering them together and using the skills and tools of the ThinkPlace Design System to cut through entrenched differences and arrive at shared intent.

In this one day of activities we saw just how powerful and productive that approach can be.”

This kind of radical collaborations is what’s needed to create change that cuts through. It's also typical of how ThinkPlace tackles complex problems all over the world.

And, perhaps most singificantly, it represents a roadmap for how stakeholders can work together to co-create an aged-care system that values older people, the experiences that they have and the contribution they can continue to make to shared value for all.

In this context, the work of Dr Claire Craig and her team at Lab4Living in the UK is both inspiring and instructive.

Awarded a British Government grant of £4 million in 2019 to apply design-led practices to the 100-year life and the future home, Lab4Living is at the forefront of a global conversation about reframing ageing.

“For some time we’ve been stuck on a three-stage model of what ageing is,” Craig says.

“With the hundred-year life we are looking at a multi-stage conceptualisation.”

This means the traditional model of education, followed by work and then retirement is replaced by a much longer timeline featuring multiple opportunities for education, retraining, career breaks and career changes.

Design methods, particularly around ways of engaging people, can create very different conversations. We can build new understanding from different people’s perspectives and that is massively important - Dr Claire Craig

Four big themes emerged out of the symposium.

1. The need for people-centred design

People are central to the aged-care system. Users, carers and employees within the system want to be a key part of designing a better future. They are clear that they want the design of the future system to be done with them, not to them. Undertaking a design approach that brings people to the centre means you can co-create potential solutions that are meaningful for the end user and iterate with them to ensure it creates value for all involved.

2. The need to see ageing and older people as an opportunity not a burden

Co-design means making something alongside the people who will use it and who will be affected by it. That means incorporating the voice and interests of older people in the design process. When we do that we start to see the enormous contribution these people can continue to make (to both reframing the system and to the broader community itself). We can posit futures in which aged-care facilities host other parts of the broader community for activities and facilities such as exercise and entertainment. Why can’t aged-care facilities share space with universities? Or child care centres? How can the life experience of older people be a learning asset for younger generations? The possibilities are endless.

3. The need for collaboration within the sector

Within the aged care sector there are multiple actors, with divergent – sometimes even competing – interests and objectives. From government and other regulatory bodies to interest groups, private operators, not-for-profits and healthcare practitioners. Design thinking and design methods are an effective way to bring these people together and break the deadlock of business as usual. By exploring user-centred experiences and then making something together, in the room, new possibilities and collaborations can start to form.

4. The need for cross-sectoral collaboration

Creating a better aged-care system is a challenge that necessarily intersects with other systems. It is related to housing, to product design, to the health system and to social security and financial systems like superannuation. Designing for change means bringing all of these interests (and more) together in ways that are generative and constructive.

Want to talk to us about how our approach can help your organisation? Contact healthysocieties [at] thinkplace.com.au

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Future strategy for a public health NGO

Sashi Surendran — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 02:49:22 +0000

Work

Future strategy for a public health NGO

Service

Strategy & policy designOrganisation Transformation

People

Sector

Healthy Societies

Safe Water and AIDS project is a Kenyan registered NGO with programs and research operating for 11 years in Western Kenya.

SWAP has a sustainable distribution model of health and hygiene products which are sold from door to door by trained community health promoters from 11 Jamii centers in remote and underserved areas. The organisation also has a research department evaluating the health and economic impact of health interventions, technologies and products.

Operating an NGO in western Kenya with more than 100 staff can be challenging, in particular when working in the space of public health and fostering local social enterprises. SWAP has been doing so for more than 10 years but was encountering some difficulties.

THE CHALLENGE

SWAP was finding it increasingly difficult to attract good quality community health representatives, they have had to navigate adverse market conditions, and the organisation has experienced higher than usual fraud and corruption.

ThinkPlace worked with SWAP and Innovations In Healthcare (SEAD) to run a user-centric strategic design process aimed at addressing these challenges.

OUR RESPONSE

First, ThinkPlace brought together the entire organisation to discuss the current competitive landscape and the challenges they are experiencing on the ground.

This was a critical contribution to the overall strategy as it allowed the staff to genuinely contribute to the strategic direction of the organisation, while generating excitement and engagement in their collective future vision.

ThinkPlace then facilitated a more focused two-day session with the senior leadership team. The original objective of this two-day workshop was to refine the strategic plan, but it became clear that in the backdrop of recent events, the leadership team was now fractured.

ThinkPlace facilitated the team to design strategies to improve on this entrenched dynamic so that the organisation could respond to these adverse events from a stronger position.

THE IMPACT

By pivoting on the focus of the workshop, ThinkPlace helped the team become stronger, be better positioned to work through these issues and re-center around the their “why”: the reason they were working with SWAP in the first place.

We also co-designed a comprehensive strategy which outlined how the organisation should respond to the challenges it was facing, and also grow and strengthen in the next three years. The full strategic document can be found here.

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Assessing vital mental health initiatives

Daniel Silkstone — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 02:12:08 +0000

Work

Assessing vital mental health initiatives

Service

Strategy & policy designMeasuring Impact

People

Sector

Healthy Societies

Those who work every day in Australia's defence can be exposed to high-pressure situations and stressful conditions, both at home and abroad.

And if not catered to effectively and compassionately, mental health and wellness issues for Defence personnel can have serious negative copnsequences for both individuals, for Defence organisations and for Australian society as a whole.

Significant steps have been taken in recent years to embed new initiatives and better practices that increase wellbeing for Defence staff. But are they working?

THE CHALLENGE

The Department of Defence had implemented a Continuous Improvement Framework to monitor and evaluate the mental health and wellbeing initiatives being implemented across Defence under the Defence Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2018-2023.

That docuiment set as its goal: "For Defence to be a trusted and respected organisation that helps and supports our people in relation to their mental health and wellbeing and one that responds appropriately when they experience mental health problems or illness."

But due to a number of factors there had been limited engagement by the owners of the various mental health and wellbeing initiatives across Defence resulting in very few requisite M&E plans being completed and the quality being highly variable.

Defence sought to understand what was contributing to this lack of engagement and to improve engagement to help ensure they would have sufficient information to inform the continuous improvement and eventual evaluation of the initiatives and the strategy as a whole.

ThinkPlace was engaged to help understand the factors affecting engagement and to help design an improved and streamlined approach.

OUR RESPONSE

We commenced by undertaking user research with the owners of the mental health and wellbeing initiatives to understand their experience and the factors that were affecting their ability to effectively engage with and complete the M&E activities.

Based on this research we identified a number of factors affecting engagement including; a lack of prioritisation of M&E activities at all levels; limited time and resources allocated; perceptions that the process was too onerous, comprehensive and complicated; and a low level of evaluation expertise and experience.

Based on the findings, we identified that a more streamlined approach was necessary to help overcome these issues and increase engagement and uptake of M&E activities.

HOW WE DID IT

We determined that a Theory of Change Methodology would help achieve this and help the owners of the initiatives better understand why they were doing what they were doing and how they could practically improve their initiatives to improve mental health and wellbeing outcomes across the defence population.

We then co-designed and co-developed the Theory of Change documentation for two such initiatives to test our approach and iterate as required.

We built clarity around what the activities being undertaken were intended to achieve; identified desired outcomes over the short, medium and long term; and identified indicators and other measures which could be used to show whether the desired outcomes had been met.

In completing the Theory of Change documentation we had developed, we also sought to build a framework that showed the relationship and connections between the different initiatives to help show the collective impact of the initiatives in improving mental health and wellbeing across the defence population over the life of the strategy.

Based on our learnings from these two prototype initiatives, we refined our documentation and approach, further streamlining the process and documentation. We then rolled out the updated approach and documentation across all of the defence's mental health initiatives. We held co-development workshops with relevant stakeholders for each initiative, working through all components of the documentation, while building the capability and understanding of the stakeholders present.

The IMPACT

By developing an updated approach that was informed by the users of the M&E documentation, we were able to design a streamlined approach that addressed the key issues while still providing sufficient detail to inform effective continuous improvement and evaluation.

We were able to help Defence develop and implement a consistent approach to M&E and build a solid foundation, upon which future monitoring and continuous improvement activities could be built and which would provide sufficient information to effectively evaluate the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy at its conclusion in 2023.

Our approach and documentation were very well received across Defence and will contribute meaningfully to ensuring that mental health and wellbeing initiatives aimed at defence personnel are more effective and more helpful.

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A new paradigm for environmental stewardship in NZ

Daniel Silkstone — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 03:23:16 +0000

Work

A new paradigm for environmental stewardship in NZ

Service

Strategy & policy designInclusive Co-design & Engagement

People

Sector

Sustainable Environments

In a nation that has the natural beauty, pristine environments and deep cultural connection to land and place of New Zealand environmental stewardship is a vital role of government.

Increasingly the New Zealand government is realising that sustainability and preservation are not solely about managing the environment, but rather managing people within the environment.

Paradigms are the sources of systems and represent the shared beliefs of society based on a dominant world view. They are extremely difficult to change on a societal level.

We are at a breaking point of our current paradigm in the face of climate change, a point that New Zealand’s Ministry for the Environment (MfE) understood and embraced. New ways of thinking would be needed to drive future government responses in this area.

THE CHALLENGE

The ministry recognised that environmental policy approaches required updating in New Zealand in order to build the future that most New Zealanders hope for.

There was a need to transition from knowledge in pockets to a collective understanding; to step back and see the shift needed in how MfE and governments operate; to start the process of garnering support as a step towards changing behaviour.

This is an essential piece of a systems-level strategy to preserve the natural bounty of one of the most beautiful countries on Earth.

OUR RESPONSE

There is no shortage of global information that exists for policymakers to shift the way they work to support more environmentally friendly practices. The challenge is looking at all of that information and distilling what is relevant and necessary for our unique context from a holistic point of view.

Without a unified perspective from within the Ministry, it was not possible to get the ball rolling on shifting the current paradigm and there was a significant risk of the wheels just spinning.

ThinkPlace was able to facilitate this conversation around emergent and traditional policy approaches from a global, indigenous and systems thinking lens to explore what is possible and how we get there.

HOW WE DID IT

Two workshops were held that consisted of a diverse group within MfE. With reference to more than 30 models, frameworks and approaches to act as the foundation for the workshops, the group diverged and then converged on what these inputs could contribute for new environmental policy thinking in New Zealand.

ThinkPlace created the space to explore ideas and actions to move towards a preferred future. An innovation continuum was used to frame what could be done now, but more importantly what could be done to design the future in a radically new paradigm, understanding the implications and how incorporate key concepts in to the policy.

THE IMPACT

ThinkPlace worked with the ministry to create resulting a draft “belief system” that can be tested within the working group and more broadly within the organisation.

This belief system will act as the base which MfE can anchor decisions in.

The core of this belief system is that people and the environment are inextricably interlinked, a belief that has always been held in Te Ao Maori, and that through our guardianship of nature, we can contribute to all forms of capital; human, economic, social, cultural and a net positive environmental capital.

This process will require significant transition of people, their mindsets and their values. But creating the model for progressive, systems-thinking policy approaches will pave the way for both people and planet to thrive.

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Innovation framework for an energy sector leader

Daniel Silkstone — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 01:39:12 +0000

Work

Innovation framework for an energy sector leader

Service

Innovation AmplifiedStrategy & policy designOrganisation Transformation

People

The electricity sector is going through accelerated change, driven by a relentless march of renewable energy entering the generation mix.

Consumers are enthusiastically embracing new energy technologies. They have more choice than ever before about where to buy electricity and even how to generate and store it.

Within this context major players in the sector are required to show a highly-developed sense of strategic planning and to display the organisational agility to change their business models and practices in such a way as to meet customers where they want to be met.

TasNetworks was grappling with many of these issues before they retained ThinkPlace to carry out this work.

THE CHALLENGE

To stay relevant in the market, and deliver revenue to its shareholders, TasNetworks needs to innovate. In late 2018, the company engaged ThinkPlace to develop an Innovation Framework. The framework is intended to help TasNetworks “execute ideas to achieve value for TasNetworks and our customers”. 

OUR RESPONSE

The project team used ThinkPlace’s Design System to co-design a pathway for innovation.

Stage 1: Establishing intent to understand TasNetworks aims for the project and setting the scope and deliverables.
Stage 2: Exploring to understand the experience and expectations of Innovation from the perspective of team members, customers and partners to ensure the framework builds value for customers and addresses any cultural blockers. This stage started with a one-day co-design training session for team members, to help them create the right mindset for the design. The course covered the philosophy and fundamental techniques of design thinking such as how to involve consumers from the start, how to prototype and test ideas iteratively.
Stage 3: Planning what the innovation framework might look like for TasNetworks. The team explored a number of frameworks from other organisations, then created the core principles that innovation would need to follow, and mapped the journey from a team member’s perspective. This created the groundwork for a pathway, which was iterated a few times. The team then generated many possible areas for innovation, clustered them and landed on four Innovation Frame. Some of these were close to ‘core activities’ that TasNetworks already does, others were more adjacent to core business. Following this, the team made an assessment of TasNetwork’s innovation maturity, mapped to ThinkPlace’s Innovation Maturity Model
Stage 4: Planning to activate the framework and ensure it stays relevant to the organisation. Apart from receiving endorsement from senior management, a number of communication activities, capability building and other tasks are required to put the framework in action. A test stage was proposed to test and refine the framework.

HOW WE DID IT

The pathway identifies 5 stages to innovate

Identify: The first stage to identify a problem and gain a better understanding of opportunities and challenges
Ideate: The second to Ideate possible solutions to the problem
Incubate: Then to Iterate ideas in a rapid succession of agile sprints, until most hypotheses have been validated and a project with a defined scope emerges
Running a project: To run the project following Tasnetworks’ formal project management practices
Implement: To implement the solution across the network and organisation

Video of ThinkPlace is helping innovate the energy sector

It also provided some focus to innovation efforts through four innovation frames:

Frame 1: Accelerating game-changing business improvements
Frame 2: Creating energy solutions with our customers and communities
Frame 3: Harnessing data to enable better outcomes for customers
Frame 4: Reimagining resources around us for new products and services

THE IMPACT

The framework was presented to the client in May 2019 and received enthusiastic support from executives.

ThinkPlace was subsequently engaged to support TasNetworks to test the Identify stage on a real business problem. The work done in this project will create significant impact for TasNetworks' ability to innovate for a challenging energy future and therefore contribute to the overall shift towartds more sustainable, renewable, secure and reliable energy in Australia's future.

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Rethinking safety in New Zealand workplaces

Daniel Silkstone — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 06:27:06 +0000

Work

Rethinking safety in New Zealand workplaces

Service

Strategy & policy designResearch & insightsOrganisation Transformation

People

Sector

Healthy Societies

The Accredited Employers Programme is the premium injury prevention and management programme for NZ’s highest performing workplaces, responsible for continuously and sustainably improving everyone’s health, safety and wellbeing.

A number of features of the programme were not functioning as intended and this was having a negative impact on health, safety and wellbeing for employees of some of New Zealand’s largest employers.

THE PROBLEM

Instead of being a programme consisting of the best health and safety performers, the AEP was being used as a cost saving programme.

Some of these businesses are just not investing in H & S or trying to prevent injuries and it is causing people serious injuries and sometimes death. (client)

ACC needed a compelling redesign which positions the worker at the centre of the programme and provides ACC with assurance that members are high performers in the health, safety and wellbeing space.

OUR RESPONSE

ThinkPlace had worked with ACC in the discovery phase of the AEP redesign work, which meant we already were aware of some of the existing issues as well as the impact they were having. We leaned heavily on our previous expertise and knowledge so we didn’t ‘start from scratch’. Instead we leveraged the fact we already had a number of experts on the current AEP and the state it was in.

We implemented a sprint approach where we compartmentalised features of the programme and spent two weeks on one area, diving deeper into the problems, the impacts and what a better design would be from a worker, employer, ACC and Government point of view.

Most of the business hadn’t ever worked on something this big and in such a short amount of time, it was a great experience and enlightening. (client)

HOW WE DID IT

Key stakeholders within ACC, including senior leaders, subject matter experts and operations staff actively participated in the co-design process over a 14-week period. The team relied on user typologies (developed from qualitative and quantitative research) to ensure the voice of workers and employers was considered at all times.

The team used current behavioural insight approaches and modern regulatory approaches to ensure the newly proposed Target Operating Model was best practice for this type of programme and future proofed.

To ensure appropriate governance and senior leader buy-in, there were weekly demo sessions to walkthrough the redesigning features and to get their input into the design. This avoided any surprises once the sprint cycle was finished and ensured buy-in throughout the entire project. We were proposing wholesale changes to the operations side of AEP within ACC. These weren’t minor tweaks but transformational discussions so getting senior leaders across this thinking early helped to set the direction and gave the project team permissions they needed.

THE IMPACT

The team developed a cohesive story and rationale for the proposed TOM design. The TOM was used to socialise the case for change with the ACC executive team and the Minister for ACC.

ThinkPlace has since been contracted again by ACC to refine the design further. This work is ongoing and the refined design is due to be completed by October 2019.

Hearing that we won the contract for the next round of design work for AEP made the team feel proud. All the hard work and devotion ThinkPlace had was obviously noticed and valued too. (project manager)

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User-centred research guides policy for the employment system

Daniel Silkstone — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 03:07:23 +0000

Work

User-centred research guides policy for the employment system

Service

Strategy & policy designInclusive Co-design & EngagementResearch & insights

People

Sector

Vibrant Communities

The young jobseeker scours yet another website, emailing her CV to a company that may not even have a vacancy. She visits his local service provider, sits at a computer and, in a single morning, applies for 20 jobs – knowing she will likely not get an interview for any.

After all, she has to meet her monthly requirement of 20 applications or her Newstart allowance will be cut off.

Across town, the HR director sifts through a pile of CVs. None have the specific qualifications he needs. He’s getting pretty tired of being inundated with scattergun approaches that never seem to lead anywhere. The volume of applications seems needlessly crushing.

Sometimes, a system is not working optimally for anybody in it.

That’s why the Department of Employment Skills, Small and Family Business has been working with ThinkPlace to rethink how its jobactive program works and who it works for.

It has been an ambitious piece of policy design but also more than that: a gold standard for how user-centred design and research methods can support, inform and drive policy creation to create better future experiences for both citizens AND government.

THE CHALLENGE

jobactive is an Australian Government program, administered by service providers and built on the concept of mutual obligation. The current contracts to administer it expire in 2022. In anticipation of that, the department wanted to move towards a system that lessened the focus on compliance and box-ticking for job seekers and genuinely engage with them to provide tools, skills and experience that would be more likely to lead to securing a job.

While service providers had a productive business model within the system, job seekers and employers anecdotally reported that it was not working well for them. For employers there was too much noise in the system. Too many applicants applying for roles they were not suited for.

This challenge represented an opportunity to apply the user-centred design expertise that ThinkPlace has accumulated over more than a decade to policy design in a high-impact space.

With this work, user-centred design has set a new benchmark in policy design. We have genuinely put the user at the centre. (project lead Mark Thompson)

OUR RESPONSE

Early on in this project the Department came to an important realisation.

While job seekers and employers were its two most important stakeholders the Department didn’t know nearly enough about them. What did they want? What did they value? What motivated them?

The objective of jobactive was to help jobseekers move off welfare and into paid employment as efficiently as possible. So what were the blockers and barriers that most often prevented people from making this shift?

Beginning in 2017, ThinkPlace worked with the department on a Discovery phase – using an innovative combination of behavioural insights, ethnographic research and design thinking methods we comprehensively mapped the job seeking system from both job seekers’ and employers’ perspectives. The unprecedented insights gathered in this phase were used to inform and drive a prototype for a new policy framework and a new jobactive.

ThinkPlace was then asked to engage with job seekers and employers from across Australia to test, revise and rework that framework.

HOW WE DID IT

Over the course of eighteen months, across discovery, prototyping and co-design phases we engaged with 140 job seekers, 72 employers and 69 provider staff members across urban and regional Australia.

ThinkPlace worked with the Department and Expert Advisory Panel to prototype and concept test policy options with job seekers, employers and providers. Through this process we developed a better understanding of what might work, what doesn’t work and why.

Working closely with the policy teams, we developed a number of scenarios and prototypes around key policy questions to explore, test and validate with users.

We wanted to know how jobseekers felt about the process of looking for work. What motivated them to look for and find work? More importantly, what were the blockers that limited their ability or motivation to find employment? How were people living with disabilities served by the system? What about people in remote and rural communities?

Some of these findings seem intuitively obvious but only in retrospect. The compliance culture of the current system was a significant demotivator. Applying for 20 jobs a month and routinely being turned down for all of them was a worse outcome for everybody than simply applying for ten positions that you are suited for.

It is via processes such as these that policy-making becomes immersive and responsive to the needs of those it is being formulated for. To enable this, we invited the department’s Expert Advisory Panel, policy and digital team members into the field with us to learn first-hand from the system users we were talking to. After each field work sprint we held walkthroughs to share insights, iterate our approach and identify the next round of policy questions to explore.

First hand engagement with users provides moments of deeper empathy and understanding that are hard to replicate and communicate through written reports alone - Project Lead Mark Thompson

To understand how a job plan could be more meaningful and effective for job seekers, we created cards describing goals, motivations and gathered their reactions and priorities, creating an understanding of the importance of agency and choice.

We complemented this iterative design-led research with behavioural insights survey of job seekers to understand the broad applicability of our insights.

THE IMPACT

By supporting the policy development process with user-centred insights from the start, our approach helped to identify hidden benefits that could be amplified in the future policy as well as risks that will need to be mitigated.

By amplifying the human stories and personal implications of policy decisions, ThinkPlace's design artefacts created compelling drivers for strategic decisions, effectively connecting evidence-based policy direction to senior stakeholders, the Expert Advisory Panel and the Minister and her office.

The series of user-centred design projects ensures that the Department has a rigorous and empathetic evidence base that articulates behavioural drivers and user experiences across different cohorts and personas. The artefacts and knowledge sharing created through these projects will form the cornerstone of a new and better employment services program.

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Tuesday, 17 September 2019

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A new focus on service delivery for Australians

Daniel Silkstone — Mon, 24 Jun 2019 03:55:58 +0000

Australia

A new focus on service delivery for Australians

Topics

human services, service design

When Prime Minister Scott Morrison began laying out the priorities for his first full term in office there were some questions raised.

Where was the vaulting ambition? Where the inspirational nation building?

It’s there if you know where to look.

Because within the priorities laid out by the Prime Minister – hiding in plain sight – is an initiative that is ambitious, important and utterly integral to the lives of all Australians and how those lives are touched by government.

Service delivery.

Stay with me. Don’t drift off to sleep. It may not be a grand new piece of infrastructure; a huge piece of social engineering.

But it couldn’t be more important.

In the days following his re-election, in remarks to both the party room and to senior public servants, the PM touched on three priorities:

The economy

The Indo Pacific region – national and regional security

Service delivery

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Sunday, 30 June 2019

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Humanity-centred design can help tackle climate change

Daniel Silkstone — Fri, 10 May 2019 02:36:02 +0000

New Zealand

Humanity-centred design can help tackle climate change

Topics

human-centred design

Humanity-centred design has a big contribution to make to Climate Action—but will leaders and change-makers act to harness the benefit of this approach?

Climate change is a global challenge in need of global solutions but action must also be driven at a local and national level. In New Zealand recently, we have seen a flurry of activity as our national government seeks to focus attention on how we might transition to a low carbon economy and society.

New Zealand’s Parliament has introduced the Zero Carbon Bill – Aotearoa will be one of few countries in the world to legislate a commitment to limiting climate change to an increase of 1.5 degrees. And leaders from across the country, including from ThinkPlace, have come together for a Just Transition Summit.

At that summit, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern issued a rallying cry.

We need to completely remake our economy in the next 30 years, Ardern told those present. And we need to build consensus—we can’t just legislate change because legislation and political initiatives can be unraveled, and this change must be sustained.

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Friday, 10 May 2019

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