Workshops and facilitation
I believe that working together is where much of the real work is - collaboration, collective design and co-design.
I'd love to chat with you about what kinds of problems your team is facing, what topic areas interest you or any learning gaps you've identified, and together we can work out something that meets your needs.
Get in touch if there's a workshop you'd like me to run or some facilitation you need help with. Here are some workshops I've run before:
- Consequence scanning
- Reflections on design justice
- The language of equity, diversity and inclusion
- Shadow-values analysis
- Why do we do user-centred design (UCD)?
- Who are users?
- Understanding user needs
- Hierarchy of user needs mapping
- Power, equity and justice in user-centred design
- Define the problem
- Using a user journey map to find problems and solutions
- Overcoming the barriers to UCD
- Approaches to influencing and convincing stakeholders
- Step-by-step service mapping
Consequence scanning
Consequence scanning is a tool that helps teams and organisations to think about the potential consequences of their product or service on people, communities and the planet. This allows them to have open conversations with stakeholders; to understand what they can influence; and to start mitigating risks and addressing possible harms.
Reflections on design justice
In this activity we learn about the principles of design justice. Then each person will think about a piece of work they are currently part of, and reflect on how these principles might manifest there.
The language of equity, diversity and inclusion
This session will help colleagues understand what power language can have, think about their language use more and be more intentional with the words they chose.
Shadow-values analysis
In this workshop we look at an organisations stated values and interrogate them to understand what the implications and flip-sides of those values could be.
Why do we do user-centred design (UCD)?
We will thing about why UCD matters for government, and also what happens when we don’t do UCD. We’ll look briefly at the history of design in government, what UCD looks like in the UK government today, and what it could or should look like for you.
Who are users?
Users are a fundamental concept in user-centred design. Having a robust and nuanced understanding of who we mean by ‘users’ in different service context is often overlooked.
In this activity and discussion based workshop we’ll look at who are users (and are not), language around different types of users and how different types relate to each other.
Understanding user needs
“User needs” is another core concept in design in government, but it is often misunderstood or misused. This workshop will give participants a thorough understanding of:
- what user needs are (and are not)
- where user needs come from
- different types of user needs
- what makes a “good” user need
- user needs vs wants vs user stories
- hierarchies of user needs
Hierarchy of user needs mapping
This method is best for teams who have a large collection of user needs and are not sure how to organise, prioritise and use them direct their work.
The team will bring the list of needs to the workshop. During the workshop we’ll learn about how user needs relate to each other and map the needs into a hierarchy. We then use the hierarchy to prioritise needs, identify opportunities and generate ideas for solutions at different levels.
Power, equity and justice in user-centred design
This workshop introduces the important ideas of power, equity and justice, and how they relate to digital services in government. We will learn about the design justice principles and thinking about how they might play into our work.
Define the problem
Being able to interrogate and define (or re-define) the problem you’re working on is a core skill in service design, and an important task for teams.
In this activity based workshop we will look at:
- what makes a good problem statement
- how to interrogate a problem statement
- how to re-frame a problem statement
- taking a wholistic and service level view of our work
Using a user journey map to find problems and solutions
Most of us have seen or used journey maps before. In this workshop we will explore one of the most useful insights journey maps can offer - analysing pain and waste in a service to collaboratively find solutions to problems.
Overcoming the barriers to UCD
User-centred design practitioners almost always face barriers to practising UCD in their organisation. This workshop will guide a team of designer or researchers through thinking about these questions in relation to their teams, organisation and practice:
- what are the common barriers to UCD?
- what are the barriers in your context?
- what is causing these barriers?
- how might we start to overcome the barriers?
Approaches to influencing and convincing stakeholders
Working with stakeholders to guide decision making is an important but often under-developed skill in UCD. In this workshop we will think about the different types of stakeholders we work with and different ways of influencing them, and consider specific stakeholders and groups in your context.
Step-by-step service mapping
A fun and highly interactive workshop to guide a large group of people through planning a service map. Each person reflects on a map they have worked on in the past or one that’s coming up for them soon.