The pandemic resulted in Kirklees Council having to adjust how they run facilitated workshops.
Prior to the pandemic Kirklees Council had started to document all the design sprint sessions that the Digital team within the IT service were carrying out. This was done in facilitated face to face ‘workshops’ where we could map out any process changes and explore the implications and design-in new ways of delivering IT services. Workshops such as these are the key to successful IT implementation and provide a real sense of collaboration, engagement and harness people’s expertise.
However, once the pandemic started and no one was in the office, that ability to collaborate with different services, to look at a problem and come up with a solution in an IT facilitated session was lost. If we were not to lose the essence of collaboration and interaction this meant we had to look at new ways to engage with services to deliver solutions, which now became more about dealing with the pandemic and the effects of it on Kirklees population.
From March/April 2020 we started to run design sprint sessions online using Miro and other online tools like bit.ly. This proved to be a game changer for us. We had a template setup for running these sessions and we were able to quickly get people together on an online call and run a session over a couple of hours or a day at the most and at the end we would have a clear solution path which we'd be able to pass onto the development team to develop for us.
The ability to run these sessions using online collaboration tools meant we could all participate online; everyone was able to collaborate. It also allowed the individuals that may be quieter in a face to face environment, to have their say. Somehow the online environment enhanced their engagement. The ability to design and display pre-formatted templates and having the capability of capturing ideas online using digital post it notes meant that we could harness everyone’s input. Where we needed to work through something that came up during the conversation, it was easy for the facilitator to create and design a template there and then to suit the need. Working effectively in a digital environment meant that we could still work collaboratively and to good effect.
Using MIRO and other online collaboration tools like trello, planner more frequently has become the norm now. This has not resulted in a slowing down of turning out products, if anything, it means we can get things done quicker.
It seems that facilitated workshops have simply moved online!
About the Author
Amjad Ahmed is a Principal Officer - Technical Architect at Kirklees Council.
