Last week, I spent the day at Hyper ‘prototyping’ a lesson plan – sharing both Service Design and research methods and how these can/are used within organisations and how to overcome barriers. When I say prototyping, getting the short straw coming nearly last after so many fantastic industry experts I asked the crew at Hyper what they wanted to learn.

It’s easy to take design method toolkits, books, videos, tutorials etc but actioning these within large, and complex environments and organisations can be a struggle to say the least. So, I focused not only teaching how I/Snook practice ‘design’ but also how to think about creating environments within organisations to allow design the space to be used. It was refreshing to share this thinking, as we re-brand Snook, it’s less out with the old in with the new, but more an exercise of finally communicating what we’ve always been doing – organisational design and interventions whilst we co-design new products and services.

The crews’ questions were challenging and spot on, a sign that you’ll want to hire these guys.  They know their stuff, have a depth of experience from working directly in Healthcare in Boston to graphic design in the advertising industry so there is a confidence in industries of all kinds. Now, they are learning the magic of collaboration, dealing with conflict, design facilitation and the power of visual – all underpinned by experience design.  Seriously, ones to watch I reckon.

This post is a quick synopsis of promises I made to share reports and slide decks I mentioned.

My presentation: we didn’t go through all of this but the focus is on how to present strategy and recommendations after a design research stage. It is a collection of our work with councils and Governments and my thinking on designers making platforms and space for knowledge exchange to happen.

Dept. Health and Dept. Work and Pensions report with the Point People.

Breaking down learnings/insights and then recommendations. Worth a look for the subject matter on mental health and employment. For the Hyper crew, an example of breaking down design research and seeing how reports can be split into sections via either user groups or topic matters.

Critique of the emergent lab culture in governments and local authorities.

We discussed the benefits of labs around creating space for innovation and also the down falls of lack of mission and focus on process rather than outcomes. This report comes at a time where ‘lab’ culture is growing.  This helpful report on growing social innovation by the Young Foundation supplies a short synopsis of other methodologies to driving social innovation in cities. More links to lab reports here.

Snook’s Learner Journey Report for Scottish Government on breaking down insights and research across the Learner Journey in Scotland.

As an addition, it was great to catch up with Lauren, my co-founder of Snook, as we both drive forward in new directions and after ten months of our heads down on developing our pathways, it was great to share, challenge and compare our current work.  It is quite unbelievable to both sit down together and reflect on where we’ve been and come as two young woman starting out in Scotland. We recounted both the highs and challenges of running a business and shared our ideas for the future on where we both want to go.

It was also nice to be positively heckled during a talk (by Lauren of course!).  Thanks Lauren for having me, I’m always excited for a Hyper visit.