Good Measures Revisions #2

Another 7 days gone! Were they a good 7 days? That’s what we asked ourselves during our ‘Feedback Friday’ session. The quick ‘OK!’ or ‘Pretty Good!’ turned into a deeper discussion about why exactly it’s been good, bad, or just average – other than just our gut feeling. And whether the metrics we made public last week were actually helpful in answering the question. We ended up not just with the latest numbers but also with new measures.

Before…

Now…

0 New behaviours adopted

In the cold hard light of Friday we couldn’t pinpoint specific instances where we intentionally changed our behaviours, or enabled other people to shift theirs. Like treating a partner differently. Or encouraging social workers to ask a different question with their clients. Or helping women to interact differently with their children, Or getting the policy analyst to write a different kind of brief. We see this kind of behaviour change as the crux of moving lives – including our own – forward.

5 Practices revised

We did a lot of revising in our Apeldoorn Starter Project this week. Sarah, Yani, and Thijs from Kennisland developed a Wish Book for women with images of 50+ wants (from buying a car to having more time for self) as a way to prompt conversations about aspirations.

The team also developed a set of cards to walk staff through the thinking behind our approach – pulling out the differences between writing case notes and assessing for risks, and writing ethnographies and generating ideas. This card set replaced a photo book they made the week before with images of the approach. We learned that the photos weren’t self-explanatory enough, and put too much emphasis on the activities and not enough on their rationale.

Not only did we revise how we communicate externally, but how we learn internally. We tried out a new format for our ‘Wednesday Action Learning’ session – bringing specific pieces of writing (like Alain de Botton’s On Love) to the table to deconstruct the argument and debate how to tell a more powerful story. We liked how de Botton coupled big, abstract questions with descriptive, totally recognisable every day situations. Then, on Friday, we tried a new way of telling our methods story. This time zeroing in on the gaps that our approach tries to close – between what people say, do, and want. We want to be sharing why we do what we do, not just how.

2 Paradigms poked

Tom Snow’s comment last week challenged us to find metrics that show more directly whether we’re at all realising our manifesto. With credit to Tom, we’re testing the ‘paradigms poked’ metric.

Last week, we tried poking a Dutch paradigm about the value of work. Our women’s project started with the premise: how do we make it easier for women, who have experienced domestic violence, to get work. But our observations of Ms. Bern, a 34-year old single mom of 2 disabled children, got us questioning whether work is actually the best outcome. If Ms. Bern was wealthier, or had a wealthy husband, staying at home to look after her kids would be perfectly legitimate. Why is the assumption that ‘looking after kids’ isn’t work?

We also think we’re poking the ‘social innovation’ paradigm with our new methods diagram. The current paradigm seems to be pretty set on using a set of design methods (like ethnography) to prototype a solution, and then to scale that solution to the masses. We’re challenging the idea of scale. And with that, the assumption about what creates change. That it’s not a solution, but its the act of personally identifying the need for the solution, that creates the space for change. That means we’re about ‘rigorously’ re-inventing the wheel. We promise to share this diagram we keep alluding to in the coming week ….

0 New stories shared

We’ve been gathering stories – finding out from people what their days are like and noting them down to share back. We started 3 new stories last week but the final (and crucial) step of sharing back the stories hasn’t yet happened. Stay tuned for stories about each of us – me (Dan), Jonas, Yani, and Sarah.

2 People joining-in

Getting more and more people to come on board and give the approach a go is key to building a movement. And that’s what we’d like to be doing. This week we engaged about 40+ people in the Women’s Project – through presentations and lunch sessions – and so far, 2 folks have said they want much deeper engagement. One is a social worker from Rotterdam who wants to explore the gap between what she thinks is good practice, and her actual practice. Another is a woman from the shelter who wants to be part of the process. This week, we hope many more women and staff will join-in. The team will be hosting a Sinterklaas Festival to build stronger relationships, and demystify what we’re about.

Are we wrong? Are we right in our assumptions about the week that was? Please feel free to drop by next week again for the latest numbers and the stories behind them.

And please let us know what you think of the new measures. Do they make sense? Do we measure the right things to stay true to the manifesto?