Context
The city agency responsible for administering the bulk of the city’s social service programs asked my team to help them develop a vision and operational model for a Social Service Innovation Center, where agency clients will have consistent opportunities to co-design innovative products and services to improve the way the agency serves its clients.
Grand vision
Prior to COVID-19, the initial goal of the SSIC project was to create a physical space where the agency could gather client feedback and testout new products and service models.
My role
COVID Pivot
When COVID-19 happened, priorities shifted from a place based center to a remote work, and budget dried up. I proposed to our agency partners that we use this as an opportunity to reimagine a leaner vision of the Social Service Innovation Center that starts not with a physical space or a dedicated staff, but with an understanding of the conditions in which innovation (the ability to engage clients and respond to their needs) can flourish across the agency, and what it will take to get there.
Small wins leading to big change
I am currently leading a series of client facing pilot projects to help various teams across the agency enhance their services to meet client needs in the face of COVID-19. Each project brings agency clients and front-line staff into co-design processes when and wherever possible to inform the work and build trust. With each successful project, we are building the case for how HCD and innovation can happen at the agency, learning more about what works (and doesn’t work), and applying those learnings to how we run the next pilot.
Support for public housing landlords. Design research for a new digital portal for landlords whose tenants receive public assistance
Improved remote access for public assistance. User testing and design for how residents who receive public assistance can manage their case information digitally using the agency’s flagship digital product
We’ll be managing an external design vendor that we’ve contracted to complete three more pilot projects, which we will identify and scope with our agency partners.
Designing ourselves
At the conclusion of each pilot project, I facilitate debriefs with the projects teams to reflect on their experiences working in new ways, particularly what it was like to bring clients and front-line staff into the project early and often. These reflections help us iterate on our process, plan for the next pilot, and build up our understanding of the policies, roles, culture, and tools that are currently enabling or standing in the way of human-centered design and innovation.
An example of a recent model to better integrate users into existing workflows.
Establishing a vision for the next mayoral administration
We will be turning our pilot projects and operational learnings into a set of storytelling assets and an Innovation Maturity Model for our agency partner to share with the incoming Mayoral administration to make the case for funding and political support to continue to expand HCD and innovation practices with staff lines, tools, and policy supports.
Early outcomes
The work to date has already led the agency to add requirements for HCD and continuous improvement processes to its new 5-year contract with the technology vendor who will manage their flagship digital service.