Initial group workshop

The initial workshop to start the project was a group meeting held in the boardroom at Real's offices at Jack Dash house in Tower Hamlets near Canary Wharf (Figure 14). The participants were Mike Smith, CEO of Real, two front-line workers and two office based staff who both had experiences of IT systems, one from a marketing and knowledge management perspective and one from a more technical perspective. The objective of the meeting was to gather information and set the scope for our work together.

Mike Smith, CEO of Real, introduced the meeting though it was subsequently led and facilitated by Paula Graham and myself. In his introduction he emphasised the following points:

1. ELGG and Crabgrass are FLOSS packages that provide social networking functionality but without the corporate platform ownership.

Our first meeting took place in rather grand room, below a large mural depicting Jack Dash, a trade union activist from the area. He was shown as a young man addressing a crowd of workers; also as a fiery middle aged and then quieter older man. Given the pedigree and aspirations of Participatory Design, for me it was an enthralling, if weighty, backdrop.

Textbox 1: Self-reflection on the first meeting

Figure 14: Jack Dash Mural at Jack Dash house, pictured during Real Voices event in 2015 (Real DPO Ltd 2015)

• The “driving force” behind the project must be a client data sharing tool for the 9 consortium organisations that can also provide the monitoring required by the commissioner and an overview of all organisations activities for Real as the lead organisation.

• Information gathering and keeping within Real is currently too ad-hoc, with each different worker having their own system and three different electronic databases in use. • Real should take advantage of the opportunity to have “experts” working closely with

the organisation, available without financial costs through the TLI funding (Fossbox) and the relationship with the Doctoral student (myself).

The meeting was subsequently facilitated by Paula Graham from Fossbox. In this initial part of the project, as in later stages, Paula used her expertise in technology advocacy and knowledge and connection to the Voluntary Sector to inject new ideas and create common ground. The aim of this initial stage was to gather as much information as possible about the needs and the workflow of the organisation and how that was set to change with consortium working. The workshop facilitation was underpinned by the foundational position of PD that the people who actually do the work know best how it is done (Robertson & Wagner 2012).

The workshop aims were set out for participants in the agenda shown in textbox 2. These aims were facilitated through a shared task in which the group were asked to use coloured sticky notes to document, or map, the major tasks required in a typical case. The mapping of tasks was complemented by more detailed notes and in depth discussions. Through these we learned about key parts of the workflow, such as an initial referral, or the allocation of a client to a

◦ A large, annotated, chart/flow diagram including

◦ A 'map' of the PROCESSES - what are the main tasks and who does them,

◦ What INFORMATION is gathered and how is it recorded?

◦ CONNECTIONS between the stages

◦ Notes and discussion on the DIFFICULTIES ◦ Notes and discussion on the changing

environment and FUTURE CHALLENGES.

Textbox 2: Agenda for Initial workshop meeting, 13 Feb 2013, setting out aims.

particular case worker. The tasks were initially arranged as a sequence representing a client journey, but later the sticky notes (Figure 20) were regrouped to represent the information that needs to be at hand for day to day work with a client. These activities comprised 'generative tools' (Simonsen et al. 2014; Brandt et al. 2012) which enabled a form of collective qualitative analysis (Simonsen & Friberg 2014) and facilitated an deep discussion about topics that are not usually explored in everyday work (Brandt et al. 2012) . In the spirit of PD that encourages the adaptation of tools and techniques for a particular situation, these facilitation techniques were applied in a streamlined way that that was appropriate for our situation rather than with adherence to specific methods.

Recurring observations were that information systems in the consortium context would need to be more standardised in order to meet the reporting requirements of the new contract and, from a clients point of view, to create consistency across different organisations. It was also clear that the management at Real had a strong need to be able to use the tool to gain an overview of activity across the consortium and within each partner organisation.

The meeting far overran our allotted 2 hours. Adjourning for a quick lunch we re-grouped into a smaller meeting room. Here the discussion continued and ended with a prioritisation stage where the group gave 'points' to the tasks we had mapped. Those with the maximum points would go forward for implementation. This activity was a way of collectively analysing the data (Simonsen & Friberg 2014), and structuring it so it could become usable for the next stage. To close the meeting, the next steps were discussed. As the lead developer/designer, I explained that I would be producing paper prototypes and showed an example paper prototype from a previous workshop to clarify expectations. There was some

The overriding feeling from this initial workshop was one of

excitement and possibility. People seemed to enjoy the chance to discuss their work and work together on

something new. There were varying degrees of excitement about the technology aspect of what it became clear is also a 'work redesign' project. There was no palpable resistance to technology, but there was particular enthusiasm for it from some; two staff members had some computer science background, one more was trained in Librarianship.

Textbox 3: Self-reflection on initial meeting 2 Figure 15: sticky notes from workshop

discussion about involving the other consortium partners in the next stages as working with them was clearly going to be crucial to the roll-out of our project.