What is Design by Doing?

ENDPOVERTYEDMONTON

EndPovertyEdmonton is a community initiative working towards prosperity for all through advancing reconciliation, the elimination of racism, livable incomes, affordable housing, accessible and affordable transit, affordable and quality child care, and access to mental health services and addiction supports. Together, we can change the conversation on poverty and ensure every Edmontonian has the opportunity to thrive. www.endpovertyedmonton.ca

CITY OF EDMONTON

The capital ofAlberta, a northern city of art and ideas, research and energy. Edmonton is an energy city. Energy drawn from the ground and from above; from the sun and wind. But the true power of Edmonton is the democratic spark in its people.

EDMONTON BHUTANESE COMMUNITY

There are about 350 Bhutanese newcomers living in Edmonton. Together they form a supportive, strong, and resilient community of people.

STEWARDSHIP GROUP

Representatives from the organizations above, as well as identified leaders from the Bhutanese community, formed a lab stewardship group in the spring of 2018 and together began learning from the Bhutanese communitywhat the Design by Doing Lab should focus on and help the communitywith. Over 8 months this stewardship group learned from each other, strengthened collaboration, built authentic relationships with the Bhutanese community and created a social innovation lab process that Bhutanese community leaders felt would work in their cultural context. The stewardship group strove to co-create a process with the community rather than forthe community.

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STEWARDSHIPTEAM

ROHIT

LUCENIA

SARAH

PAIGE SHIVA

YVONNE

SUSANNAH

BEN

Design by Doing is a social innovation lab series focused on discovering new solutions based on the Game Changers identified in the EndPovertyEdmonton Roadmap. EndPovertyEdmonton, Skills Society Action Lab, Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative, and the City of Edmonton are key partners in this initiative.

Social innovation labs allow people from all walks of life to come together to describe their experiences with an identified issue and brainstorm new ways of solving problems. Each lab follows specific processes geared toward gathering input from all participants in comfortable and nonstandard ways that enhance creativity. There are no limits placed on the types or number of ideas generated, but the goal is to design solutions that can be put into action and have been reviewed by those impacted by the issue. The labs are held both in the ActionLab and in community. Action Lab is a social enterprise ofthe Skills Society that has received international attention for the quality and depth of knowledge in stewarding social innovation labs over the last 10 years. The A ction Lab runs both shorter and longer multi year labs (for an example of a multi year lab check out the Edmonton Shift Lab being undertaken with the Edmonton Community foundation).

Each Design by Doing lab identifies a specific issue or challenge area and assembles community members, service providers, members of different orders of government, and most importantly those with lived experience of the issue being explored. This group of people come together for one or two days to do the guided work of exploring the issue, generating ideas, and reviewing them. The length ofthe lab is dependent upon the needs ofthe community and the issue being explored.

DESIGN BY DOING 1.0

Design by Doing 1.0 was held in early 2017 and focused on (1) poverty and (2) making navigation of service systems for newcomers more accessible. A portfolio of prototypes were developed by community in this diverse gathering. More about what happened in this lab can be found here.

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DESIGN BY DOING 2.0

Design by Doing 2.0 was a longer process, running from the spring of 2018 through to the fall of 2019. The process was co-created by leaders within the Edmonton Bhutanese community, Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative, Action Lab, EndPovertyEdmonton, and City of Edmonton. This iteration of Design by Doing focused on culturally adaptingthe social innovation lab processes and design with the Bhutanese community, to allow people from different cultural backgrounds and with varying levels of English language fluency to fully participate. Two workshop days were developed and designed with the Bhutanese community to address the barriers and needs Bhutanese community members face in seeking and securing gainful employment. A short documentary about the design by doing process is also being developed to help communicate what happens in social innovation labs. could look like.

1. Empathy

Listening to stories, conducting ethnographic research, sense making and systems mapping.

2. Define

Making sense of needs and insights from stories and defining

3. Ideate

Brainstorming, getting ideas from other fields, co-designing with c ommunity and building on ideas

4. Prototype

Choosing ideas that could meet needs and making prototypes of what a service, policy innovation of others.

5. Test

Checking the prototypes with community/ with user groups the prototypes are for.

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CORE CHALLENGE

The community identified the following as the core challenge to be explored in the lab:

How might we create relevant pathways to support the Edmonton Bhutanese community to access more gainful employment opportunities?

As the core challenge was explored with Bhutanese community leaders, three pathways to employment emerged as key areas to explore further:

Atraditionalpathway (i.e. job searching, resume, interview, on the job training);

Self-employment or micro-enterprise pathway (i.e. starting a small business or micro enterprise based on personal skills such as gardening or crafting); and

English language learning pathway (i.e. gaining increased English language fluency as a stepping stone to employment).

WHY FOCUS ON THE BHUTANESE COMMUNITY?

The newcomer population in Edmonton is diverse. While there are settlement and employment supports available for newcomers, they may not be responsive for smaller immigrant and refugee communities who face multiple barriers such as limited English Language skills, limited education, and complex socio-economic challenges. The Bhutanese community is one such community. Despite demonstrating tremendous resilience, cultural wealth, and hopeful optimism that their lives will be better in their new homeland, the 350 members living in Edmonton, find current systems and supports often do not adequately support them in overcoming the multi-faceted barriers to employment they face.

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“Translated Human Centred Design Tool”

OVERVIEW OF DESIGN BY DOING 2.0 ACTIVITIES

PRE-LAB (6 MONTHS)

Scopingthe Challenge & CulturallyAdaptingthe Lab Process

Pre-lab workshops took place over the course of 6 months. During these workshops the stewardship group researched, explored, and worked alongside Bhutanese community leaders to scope the challenge area. After a great deal of discussion and learning, employment was selected as the core challenge area. With the challenge area scoped, it was time to explore how to culturally adapt the lab process. A period of learning took place, during which the stewardship team learned from the Bhutanese community leaders how their community generally approaches problem solving in their cultural context. Allowing this information to guide us, and drawing on human centred design principles, we worked alongside the Bhutanese community leaders to co-create culturally sensitive lab tools and processes. This process, incorporating translation and creative input from the community, allowed us to utilize design methods while making sure theyworked, were appropriate, and relatable within the Bhutanese cultural context. Some key adaptations we made to the process included: teaching/processing through storytelling, translating the empathy map and other lab tools, and drawing brainstormed ideas (rather than speaking orwriting them).

LAB WORKSHOPS

Generating, Refining, and Testing Prototypes Generating Prototypes (2 DayWorkshop)

This 2 dayworkshop, formed the “main event” ofthe Design by Doing 2.0 process. Avariety of stakeholders including members ofthe Bhutanese community, leaders of nonprofits, and service providers came together to explore the scoped challenge of employment, following the 5 stages ofthe human centered design process.

Refining & Upgrading Prototypes (EveningWorkshop)

After the 2 dayworkshop, those who confirmed theywanted to keep refining and working on prototypes to transform them into potential pilots, came together for a prototype refining and upgrading workshop.

Testingthe Prototypeswith C ommunity (EveningWorkshop)

With the prototypes refined, we were ready to share and test them with the community.

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POST-LAB

PrototypeWorking Groups

Implementing some or all ofthe proposed pathways is the point at which a lab transitions from being more exploratory focused to project management focused. Here, working groups are forming to help develop pilots. This is a critical point and also tricky as resources for implementation are often hard to continue after a lab exploration. Stewards at this point are looking for partners and collaborators to help make ideas tangible for the community.

Key 2 dayWorkshop Steps

1. Establish context, the frame and key challenge being explored 2. Empathy Mapping of 3 user personas created by Bhutanese community 3. Creating criteria for choosing ideas 4. Ideating possibilities 5. Converging on ideas to rapidly prototype 6. Rapid Prototyping 7. Rapid feedback and testing 8. Now What, So What?

Who Came to the LabWorkshops?

40+ people attended the lab workshops including: Bhutanese community members with lived experience of employment challenges, front-line service deliverers, service designers, and staff of numerous organizations including the City of Edmonton, the Government ofAlberta, Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative, Cultural Connections Institute, University of Alberta, Catholic Social Services, and Norquest College.

Picture of participnts in 2 day lab workshop

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