Conversations for Improvement Guide

A guide for engaging people in new ways to improve public services and communities

The Conversations for Improvement (cfi) model in 3 steps:

the scope

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core team

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the model

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staff

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support

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1 - - - - - - - groundwork - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - gain the buy-in required 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 to make real change possible establish book in set up assemble define pause and review

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for improvement

conversations

conversations

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-------------------------3.1 3.2 3.3 categorise analyse identify ----------

analyse the conversations for patterns and themes to identify improvements

filming

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3 analysis

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2 - - - - - - - engagement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - talk to council staff and residents 2.1 2.2 to find out about their jobs and lives practice create conversations

improvements

what is the cfi model?

The cfi model is a way to engage both residents and council staff to make improvements in both service provision and communities.

It can provide: • A new way of identifying service improvements • An active consultation that goes beyond the usual suspects • Better staff morale and collaboration • A person-centred approach to service provision

how do teams adopt the cfi model?

This cfi guide contains a framework of techniques and resources for implementing the cfi model.

Key support is also available from the engagement team, who can provide guidance and help.

who does what in the cfi model?

Group manager Provides top-level support and momentum Team manager (new) Drives implementation, organises and owns set-up Engagement team mentor Supports set up, drives and delivers engagement Team members (new) Contribute and support engagement Team champions Particularly enthusiastic team members who also deliver engagement Team manager (existing) Provides advice, support and testimony

introduction

Team members (existing) Provides advice cfi core team Consists of team manager (new), engagement team mentor and team champions cfi wider team Other team members, existing team manager and members

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1 groundwork gain the buy-in required to make real change possible

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1 groundwork 1.1 establish support 1. Gaining senior support

2. Gaining team support

Establish support from the new team manager and group manager to help make transferring the model to the new team as smooth as possible.

Establish support from the new team members.

• Arrange a meeting with the group manager and team manager to gain their buy-in • Show the sales film and Tour Bank, using the introduction for a description if necessary

• Set up an event to pitch the model to the new team • Present the Sales Film and Tour Bank, using the Introduction in this guide as a description if necessary • Reinforce how the model can make a difference by giving examples from the last implementation • Ensure the engagement team mentor is there to arrange initial tours with staff

Stage: Establish support Duration: 1 - 2 weeks Lead: Team manager (Existing) Support: Engagement mentor Resources: Sales Film, Tour Bank

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1 groundwork 1.2 book in staff

Stage: Book in staff Duration: 30 minutes Lead: Engagement mentor Support: Team manager Resources: Sign up Sheet, Reminder Cards

Setting up the cfi model involves forming the project team and defining the scope for the engagement activity.

Spending a little time here help you make sure that everyone is on the same page, and has similar expectations of what might be achieved.

1.4 assemble core team ------------

To cement their commitment to the arrangement you could give them some Reminder Cards that they fill in to confirm the tour.

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Bring the Sign up Sheet to the pitch and use the opportunity to arrange staff engagement straight away.

1.3 set up the model

The first step is to assemble the core cfi project team who will be actively owning and driving the project forward.

This will probably be the new team manager, the engagement mentor, and any team members who are particularly supportive or enthusiastic.

Stage: Assemble core team Duration: 1 day Lead: Team manager (new) Support: Engagement mentor

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1 groundwork 1.5 define the scope 1. What do we know already?

You don’t have to start from scratch every time. Any existing engagement work, residents surveys, satisfaction questionnaires or similar can provide a useful starting point.

2. What sort of improvements are we looking for?

Assemble the core cfi team and ask them to pool their knowledge. Useful questions to think about include: • Has there been previous engagement activity such as surveys, satisfaction questionnaires etc?

• What are the results? How can you build on these?

• Who have previous engagement efforts been successful in reaching?

• What resources (time, support, money) are available to make any changes?

Stage: Groundwork Duration: 1 -2 weeks Lead: Team manager (new) Support: Engagement mentor, team champions Resources: Persona Cards, Project Map

Answering this provides a structure to refer to when prioritising the ideas and insights that come out in later stages.

At this point keep it quite broad: being too specific risks leading the conversation in obvious directions, and asking the kinds of questions that will provide predictable answers.

You could pick some definitions of improvements from your team’s service objectives.

At this stage the team should list the categories likely to come up in conversations, such as anti-social behaviour, cleanliness, language etc. This will help you to process the engagement conversations and analyse the information.

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1 groundwork 1.5 define the scope 3. Who do we want to speak to?

4. Where can we find these people?

5. How long will we spend on each stage?

Identify particular groups which will be priorities.

Residents: Mapping is a useful exercise to identify key locations in the ward to engage with the target groups: print out a large map and put it up in a public area, then invite the team to map hot spots for engaging with particular groups.

Using the Project Map, fill in the blank milestone boxes with the dates for beginning and completion of each stage. This will provide the project with momentum and a timescale to work around.

Residents: These might be hard to reach groups, those disengaged with council services, or those wielding influence in their communities.

Staff: These might be in departments where you’re looking to make most improvements.

Fill in the blank Persona Cards with your target groups.

Staff: Meet department managers and their staff and introduce them to the project. Then invite them to take part in the engagement phase by booking them into filming slots.

Engaging residents and engaging staff can run either concurrently or consecutively, but both must be finished before analysis begins.

A good idea is to make this information publicly visible, displaying the Project Map populated with the milestones.

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1 groundwork example Gary, the Abbey Ward locality team manager adopting the model, brings together Nicki (engagement team mentor) and three members of his team who were particularly keen at the initial presentation. These will form the core cfi team. They decide to meet regularly to keep momentum going.

They pool the results from a recent satisfaction survey which identifies cleanliness and crime as the top concerns, with some engagement work that had been carried out with young people in the area as part of a youth arts project.

The team then reviews the locality model aims, which are: • Increasing resident satisfaction • Co-designing solutions • Sustainable community activity • Transferability • Cost-effectiveness • Efficiency savings They decide that in the current climate they would like to focus on identifying ideas for cost savings, and improving resident satisfaction. They then fill in the project map with the key dates for the rest of the work.

Reviewing the kinds of people they typically see at residents meetings, they agree that they have already heard from middle-aged women, but not from young mothers and BME communities who appear disengaged from the council.

Together they fill in the persona cards to bring these target groups to life, giving them names and fleshing out their descriptions.

Combining their knowledge of the area with demographic information, they map out hot spots to engage these groups including children’s centres, the mosque, and shopping areas.

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1 groundwork 1.6 pause and review Once the groundwork has been completed, the project team should take the opportunity to pause, review the work so far, and answer these questions: • Can anything change as a result of the engagement - i.e. is the organisational culture, from management to frontline, actively committed to carrying out change? • Do you have roughly 3 months to implement and run the model?

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2 engagement

talk to council staff and residents to find out about their jobs and lives

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2 engagement 2.1 practice filming Anyone using the cameras should spend a little time getting familiar with how to use them. Practice using it in the office, then outside, then review the films. Included are Camera Training Sheets which can be kept with the cameras until everyone is familiar with how they work.

Some tips to remember when filming: • Think about background noise and sound levels – try to shoot the film in a quiet area, and if a sudden loud noise occurs go over what was said again to capture it • Getting the person in the shot is important – practice shooting from the hip so you are able to keep the camera on someone’s face • Remember to carry spare batteries Before filming starts make sure: • The project team has agreed on a shared location to store files from the filmed conversations • The engagement mentor and team champions who are carrying out filming have agree to a file naming format such as: Name/Date/Location filmed

Stage: Engagement Duration: 6-8 weeks Lead: Engagement mentor Support: Team manager (new), team champions, team members (new)

Resources: Camera Training Sheet Example Questions Sticker, Consent Form

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2 engagement 2.2 create conversations for improvement The key difference in creating conversations for improvement is that the engagement team is there to listen, not to give information, answer problems or correct mistakes. By doing this you can gather surprising and valuable information, opinions and thoughts which might be missed otherwise.

Two techniques can help create these kinds of conversations:

Try to always respond by asking another question. This keeps the ball rolling, and produces more information and insight from the respondent. Think of each question like a link in the conversational chain. Once you start answering or giving solutions, you break the chain.

• They allow people to include more information, such as feelings, attitudes and understanding of the subject • Open questions allow people to explain their feelings in their own words whereas closed questions don’t • Open questioning, and exploring people’s concerns, builds relationships by demonstrating respect and empathy • Open questions encourage more than yes or no answers, and can provide rich and surprising results

Use the questions on the Example Questions Sticker as a starting point, and tailor them to what you would like the conversations to explore. Place the sticker on your notebook as a guide during conversations, but don’t worry about going off script!

1. Open questioning

Example of open questions: • How do you feel about living in your area?

• Can you tell me about how you see the council?

• How would you describe the area to someone visiting from elsewhere?

• What do you like/dislike about your area?

Try to ask open rather than closed questions in conversation. The advantages of open questioning are:

Closed questions get simple short yes or no answers, open questions can tease out more information.

Example of closed questions: • Is this area good to live in?

• Do you like what the council does?

• Does the council do a good job?

• Do you like your area?

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2 engagement 2.2 create conversations for improvement 2. Mirroring

3. Resident engagement tips

4. Staff engagement tips

This involves relaying what someone has just said back to them. It shows that you really understand what they are saying, and makes them feel that you empathise with their perspective.

• Ice-breaker – have a think beforehand about how you will approach people, and try out different introductions to see which gets better responses • Plan where you are going: make contingency plans for weather, and secure permission where necessary • Make sure you get out of the office, go to the locations mapped as hotspots (by foot preferably) • Make an appointment for a later date if they can’t do it then and there • If they don’t want to be filmed you can offer to only record sound by pointing the camera at the ground • Don’t expect high conversion rates, so ask lots of people if they will talk to you • Beginning with asking them how they are or making a joke helps building a bond quickly • Remember to get the Consent Form filled in, and inform them how the footage will be used

• Remember they are at work so make it easy to fit around their working day • By gaining managerial support, making it appealing for them, and being flexible, you will have the best chances of success • If you’re having problems, identify a key supporter who has good relationships with the rest of the team and ask them to persuade their colleagues to get involved

Examples of sentences that will mirror: • It seems like what you are saying is…

• So you feel that…

• It sounds like you…

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2 engagement example Nicki heads out to engagement with the BME community and starts at the gurdwara. She introduces herself and the project and asks whether she could speak to people as they leave prayers. One of the people she speaks to, Kuldip, lives around the corner and so she walks with him to his neighborhood as they talk.

He takes her around his streets, pointing out the holes in the road and she continues to ask him about the problem, rather than explaining what the council is doing to fix it.

She finds he responds well to the mirroring technique, and confides in her that this is the first time he has spoken to anyone from the council about his concerns.

After an hour with him she thanks him for his time and heads back to the office to download the films.

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3 analysis

analyze the conversations for patterns and themes to identify improvements

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3 analysis 3.1 categorise conversations This phase turns all the insight and information you have gathered into actionable ideas for improvements.

Allocate enough time to analyse the films.

A rule of thumb is to one and a half as much time for analysis as is spent in the field.

1. Categorise conversations To carry out analysis you need a naming and categorising process. You will also need to make sure all the data is in the same place. This should be carried out throughout the engagement phase so that when you come to analyse the conversations, they are manageable and the analysis phase is efficient.

You can use the Categorising Index as a starting point in order to record relevant information for each conversation that will make analysis easier.

Stage: Analysis Duration: 6-8 weeks Lead: Engagement mentor Support: Wider cfi team Resources: Categorising Index

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3 analysis 3.2 analyse conversations When reviewing the conversations, look for any patterns in the kinds of issues discussed and any overlapping issues covered by both residents and staff which could provide opportunities for improvements.

When key themes and issues have been identified, return to the relevant films to extract and type up some key quotes that express or sum up the issue. These are useful to have around as prompts and hooks to think about.

“Usually everything I need from the council, I go and ask Mohammed and he fixes it.”

“Nothing connects new movers to the council and services.” staff

resident

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3 analysis 3.3 identify improvements Review and prioritise the themes and issues against the definitions of improvements established in the project set-up. If you will be continuing the model into the development phase, write the key issues or themes up into challenge briefs.

Use illustrative quotes, existing data or statistics to flesh out the challenge, and any supporting evidence from the engagement.

Arrange a workshop with residents and the cfi team, present the challenge briefs, and invite everyone to generate potential ideas for solutions. Now assess the ideas: 1. Immediately actionable internally Bring together relevant staff members from the council and work together to action quick wins and immediate changes.

2. Require further development with support

It is vital that at the end of the improvement work you feedback to residents and let them know what you have done about what they said. ‘you said... we did...’ letters are a good example.

This may mean negotiating additional resources. Identify what is needed from other services or external agencies and work with them to develop these more complex ideas through a process of prototyping, piloting and implementation.

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3 analysis example When Nicki gets back to the office she downloads the film to the shared folder everyone is using to store files for the project.

She renames the file Kuldip 12/08/11, and adds the details of the conversation to the index, categorising the conversation under: council satisfaction; roads; community cohesion; and cleanliness.

Nicki gathers the core cfi team, making sure any team champions who carried out conversations are present, and as a group they go through the index including Kuldip’s and other residents’ and staff’s categories.

As the team discusses the patterns that are emerging, and the issues that seem to be coming to the front, they realise that there is a big overlap between residents such as Kuldip concerned about what the council is doing to fix problems, and staff who feel they don’t have the time or support to carry out continual feedback. Nicki describes how Kuldip said that even if nothing was happening, it would be good to be told rather than waiting for the council to contact him until they had something positive to say about the matter. She goes back to the film and shows the team, and this sparks an observation by a team champion who had

spoken to Jim, a colleague who uses text messages to keep in touch with residents and keep them updated even if there has been no progress on an issue. The team work this up into a text messaging communication strategy based on regular contact and feedback. This had minimal cost but resident satisfaction increased by 5% in the area.

Another category that residents and staff were discussing in the films was fly-tipping.

Residents noticed that many of the dumped items were still in relatively good condition, and staff highlighted the disposal of these items meant high costs for the Council.

Chargehand Terry and Locality Services Manager Gary came up with an idea for a swapping service among residents. This meant designing a new service altogether so Nicki and Gary put together a steering team within the Council who rallied all the support they could get from outside the organisation, to help them develop a new Give/Get Free service. This service is in its piloting stages and it is expected to cut down significantly on the high costs of disposal of bulky waste.

Kuldip 12/08/11 Salisbury Avenue council satisfaction; roads; community cohesion; cleanliness

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Keep it simple: Team priorities written on the white board

1 Flytipping, litter & waste disposal

2 Community activities

3 Grounds Maintenance

- Give/Get Free scheme - New signs - Clean-up day - Landlords/letting agents relationships - Info for new tenants - Town centre schedules - You said... we did...

- Info packs - Training - Co-design sessions - Clean up days - Community trailer

- New schedules - Weed spraying - Wildlife project local school - Fencing repairs

For more info get in touch: Uscreates, Studio 4.2.2 The Leathermarket 11/13 Weston St London SE1 3ER joanna@uscreates.com 020 3142 6686