We intended the OIP to experiment with some things: testing the ALISS Engine; seeing whether we could engage varied groups, and most particularly people with LTCs, in creative and collaborative processes to develop ALISS. We also knew, from experience, that explaining what ALISS is, is not always straightforward, so the OIP might be a further opportunity for us all to explore that. Then there were lessons we realised that we were learning along the way.
Overall we conceptualised our intentions for the OIP steps 1 and 2 below:
Time for reflection – some questions – did we do it and what was the outcome? The comments on each question are informed our own observations at the time, subsequent reflections, and survey feedback.
Did we test the Engine model?
During the Innovation Workshop in March, each team was set the task of defining the information it would send to and want to receive from the Engine. These items were amalgamated and considered by the Engine crew, and their verdict was that the structure of the Engine would cope with the information demands made upon it.
During the Workshop series overall it emerged that a major theme was social isolation.
Participants were generally more interested in finding people, for a variety of reasons, than finding activities and organisations. This represents a major enhancement of perspective, and one that we had not anticipated. However, the Engine’s conceptual structure will not be broken by this, as its focus on the concept of ‘resources’ embraces people as resources.
So we have a working model.
Could we help people to be creative?
There was a definite sense from feedback that people felt they had been supported to be creative.
Our own observations were that once people got over the feeling perplexed at being involved with an unfamiliar creative process, they took to it very enthusiastically.
We were helped by the provision of excellent materials and facilitation: for example one group at the first Glasgow workshop found it hard to think beyond improving the way they already worked. Then they were given a ‘ticket to the future’ which triggered a shower of original ideas.
Could we help participants turn ideas into concrete proposals?
This question prompts a number of supplementary ones, to do with ownership; whether participants took to service-design techniques and processes; whether they would be prepared to ‘pass and receive the baton’, working collaboratively across the life-cycle of proposals development; and whether participants were willing to stay involved.
“It worked well. Everyone engaged in the process, and it was very interesting, and it felt like the group accomplished something useful.”
Did people ‘own’ the ideas created rather than just be happy to contribute? – it seems too early to say clearly. Certainly they were happy to contribute, but the unfamiliarity of genuine collaboration rather than consultation remained present for most, and this applies to too broader concepts such as process and project ownership.
However, participants certainly took to service-design techniques and processes, and what these enable such as the opportunity to contribute to an idea originally generated by someone else. Excellent tools, templates, and facilitation helped here. All the materials were effective but light-hearted – ease of understanding contributed to creativity, while good quality helped people to feel re-assured while tackling group work in a novel way.
As to further involvement, 100% of those providing OIP feedback said Yes!
“Really good levels of enthusiasm to deliver better access to Information at local level.”
Could we provide an inclusive process?
It is our impression that we did manage to be open, and that participants appreciated this. In this we were greatly helped by the LTCAS willingness to broker contacts with individual people with long-term conditions through their member organisations’ network. We managed to involve people with quite a wide variety of long-term conditions, across adult age-groups, including people who were not at all well. Again thanks to advice from LTCAS, we were able to design our events to suit people’s limited stamina.
“I think it went very well and everyone had their say but i found it a long day as i tire after my stroke”
We were able to adopt a very open style, which encouraged participants, although we do have plenty still to learn about formal aspects of Accessibility, such as standards for the presentation of materials.
We were surprised be how unfamiliar participants felt with working together, not just across professional disciplines and organisational boundaries, but also as ‘people, not patients(/practitioners)’, but again once over the novelty, nearly all participants appreciated the opportunity.
“I was in group 1 and enjoyed working with everyone. We all had a say even if it wasn’t used.”
But working with this spread of interests will never be simple, and it will be important to allow adequate time for the general development of experience and skills: talking with a ‘creative’ after the final workshop, he remarked on the tendency of patients to carry on talking about the problem while he (as he would) wanted to draw that to a close and focus on creating the solution.
“it worked out grand generally, i did feel at 1 time, that a couple of folk said I should, 4 get it and move on when i mentioned my abuse of language, due 2 my type of traumatic brain injury, and looking on line for the reason WHY it happens, as it does say on different lines that it does happen, but it doesn’t explain why, and basically that’s what i want 2 know, The answer 2 my Y ? I no there issues in life that folk choose or have 2 move on, once they’ve accepted the issue, I’ve recognised, and want answer to my issue, so i can educate and help folk goin thru same as me.”
We felt that being open about not knowing all the answers in advance was an important part of acting inclusively, and it is a rather sobering reflection on consultation practice generally that this was markedly unfamiliar for participants. Notwithstanding our best efforts, we were left with the impression that people still could not quite believe that we had not worked out everything about the project in advance.
Could we ensure we didn’t miss out non-digital material and channels?
This is an area where we could have done more and better.
Notwithstanding our earlier success with the Health Literacy work-stream, we struggled to connect the learning we had done, with the OIP. We also need to develop a clearer model for intermediaries within ALISS information flows and processes – though we do have a potential platform for this with the people-focused ‘PluggedIn’, one of the six information services developed during the OIP workshops. This may have the potential for helping us make a better link with the non-digital delivery channels being developed by NES’ Knowledge Services.
We did trial ‘voice’ within the OIP, adapting an account with the web-enabled telephone survey application BigEars, to the task of enabling people to tell their stories. The technology worked well, could easily meet our needs, and is full of potential, but we could have contextualised it better within our project. Promoting the trial via intermediaries made it yet more difficult for individuals with long-term conditions to make sense of what the tool was intended to achieve.
Were there any surprises and how did we deal with them?
Our biggest surprise was the emphasis people placed on finding people rather than activities/clubs etc. Their first objective was to locate a kindred spirit – perhaps someone who had been through the same experience, and who could act as a guide to opportunities and sources of help. Our technical architecture allows for this, and the information-service proposals developed during the OIP workshops offer a platform for putting the emphasis into practice.
Related to this emphasis on people was the value placed upon exchange. People did not see themselves as mere consumers of things aimed at helping then live well with their conditions, and were keen to work on proposals that are based upon the principle that everyone has something to contribute. The ‘It’s About Time’ proposal is a good example of this.
The remaining surprises were about the process itself rather than the content:
- The Thursday afternoon dip in energy levels, and the miraculous Friday morning recovery, during the Innovation Workshop;
- Unexpected combinations of people working productively together;
- The sheer amount of work involved in creating an informal ‘self-managed’ event like the Innovation Workshop;
- That the work before, during and after an event splits into three more or less equal commitments;
- But after all that, people found it all so enjoyable!
Did we work out what ALISS is and might be?
This question recurred endlessly, because ALISS is quite a hard concept to explain – probably not because it is complicated, but more because it is new, unfamiliar – and because it addresses infrastructure – involves thinking about things people usually take for granted.
The OIP also generated an immense amount of material, which we are still processing, in order both to make careful sense of it, and to make it easily re-usable by participants and others interested in creating solutions with people with long-term conditions.
Participants themselves were less puzzled about all this than we had feared, though they did need time to work it out, to ask questions and discuss our responses.
“…I finally reached – I think! – a good understanding of the where the work is going!”
So, within the parameters of a continuing discovery process, we collectively did work out that:
- The ALISS Engine is a receptacle (a place to put and find things). It also has a search widget and a tool for identifying (tagging) resources, and a way of applying key words to these. But it is not a database, nor a search engine, nor a website. It is the ‘open’ core upon which we can seek to build further collaborative development;
- The ALISS project involves an Engine and some innovation and other Services as well. This mix of technology and social process development worked excellently during the OIP, and we very much hope to be able to continue in this fashion.
We think that these concepts provide us with the basis for plans for what to do next…
