Cyclical research and development process

The goal of participatory action research, as Kemmis and McTaggert (2005, 277) explain, is to enable the researcher to develop and evolve their own practice, through continuous cycles of planning, acting, and reflecting. It is a research approach that aims to produce knowledge that is directly relevant to those involved in producing the knowledge (Pant 2014, 583). Par- ticipation is the core principle of participatory action research, explains Pant (2014, 584), noting that participants should be engaged in all aspects of the research, from design to dis- semination. This appealed to me in this instance because the research I would be doing should not only help me develop my own practice, as a user-centred designer, but it should help the User-Centred Policy Design team to evolve its own work. I would be embedded with the team during the period of the research and beyond, and I wanted the team to use the re- sults of the research to adapt its own practices during and after the study period — the team would be both subject and owner of the research.

While the participatory action research process is often shown as a linear spiral of activities taking place in sequence, say Kemmis and McTaggert (2005, 278), the reality is less “neat”, they note, as stages can overlap and plans can quickly become obsolete as the researcher learns. The process is likely to be much more fluid and responsive than it appears in diagram- matic form, and the measure of success is whether the researcher has a strong sense that their understanding of their practice, the situations in which they practice, and their practice itself have all evolved as a result of their learnings.

This flexible, learning-and-adapting approach seemed to fit my objectives and expectations for this work, as I wanted the research to be as action-led as possible, benefitting from test- ing methods for embedding user-centred design as early and often as possible, but I was also very new to the organisation, and so I knew that I would need to learn a lot about the context I was working in and re-plan activities regularly as a result. So while the action plan (shown below in Figure 5) appears as two neat cycles of research and design activities, the reality in- volved much more adapting on the fly, taking advantage of opportunities as they arose and adapting my plans as my own learning grew.

As Madden and Walters (2016, 40) explain, action research introduces a new set of methods and tools to an organisation and analyses the effects of this fresh approach on the organisa- tion. Introducing user-centred design to an organisation can be a long process with many stages, they note. This was a critical point for me. I expected the process to be long, and for learnings to accumulate slowly over time. This is why I decided to begin the process with one long cycle of action research, providing sufficient time for me to begin to learn how the or- ganisation functioned before proposing and undertaking activities more oriented towards co- creation, prototyping and testing. The second cycle would then have a quicker cadence, with activities happening more rapidly in succession.

As Coghlan and Gaya (2014, 283) note, action research projects are situation specific, and do not aim to create universal knowledge, but it is still important to extrapolate specific learn- ings to more general contexts. Applying user-centred design to government policymaking is still a relatively new practice, but interest in the approach is growing around the world. So while I wanted to undertake a research approach that would allow me to focus on the partic- ularities of the specific team (UCPD) and group (the Ministry of Justice policy and analysis group) I was aiming to influence, I was also hoping to uncover insights that could be applied more widely to government departments throughout the UK and elsewhere.

I chose Participatory Action Research because it provided an approach that would enable me to develop my own practice, positively influence the mission of the UCPD team and the wider Ministry of Justice, and develop learnings that could be applied to other government depart- ments as well. Additionally, it’s an approach that recognises the role of the researcher and their colleagues as participants in the change they are studying. As a service designer on the UCPD team, there was no avoiding the fact that I would be involved in the change I was going to research, and the participatory action research approach explicitly acknowledges that. As the research study focused on how a team could continue to drive change over the long term, I thought it was important as well to involve that team as much as possible in the research process, conducting activities together with them and regularly reflecting together with them about the impact of those changes. Participatory Action Research allows for that.

As I was just beginning my work at a new institution which I had very little background knowledge of, I chose to do the work over two extended cycles of activity and reflection, with the first focusing more on learning the context of the organisation and its constituent parts, while testing a few ideas, and the second focused more on testing ideas for change. Many different methods can be used as part of a participatory action research project. I chose to use Design Thinking methods within the Participatory Action Research framework, as De- sign Thinking offers techniques to iteratively build knowledge and act on that knowledge, and it has been used to inform and shape responses to complex business processes (Groeger and

Schweitzer 2014, 2). The Design Thinking process is often visualised as two consecutive dia- monds, representing activities that happen within the problem space — the first diamond, of- ten referred to as “Discover” and “Define” — and the solution space — the second diamond, often referred to as “Develop” and “Deliver”. Each phase is represented as a diamond be- cause the activities within it are designed to stimulate divergent thinking (a broad range of concepts within the problem or solution space) and convergent thinking (a focus on particular aspects of the problem or solution space). I therefore chose methods related to the pro- cesses of “Discover and Define” and “Develop and Deliver”, which suited my need to root my- self in the context of the Ministry of Justice and develop a deep understanding and empathy for the policymakers we would be working with, while also practically testing and learning from real-world attempts to embed user-centred design within the policymaking process. The discover and define methods I chose included desk research (literature review); conduct- ing semi-structured interviews; organising informal discussion groups; attending organised events and conferences; embedding myself within teams carrying out the work (autoethnogra- phy); analysing the results of focus groups; conducting a survey; and drafting personas. The develop and deliver activities I chose included co-designing a vision, principles for action, provocative communications materials, a maturity model, a consulting offer, and a value proposition; prototyping, testing, and adapting awareness and training activities; conducting advocacy with senior leaders; and planning to embed a service designer within a policy team for the first time.