We talk about and teach good problem-solving to create the conditions for solving big, social problems. We started InWithFor to work in, with, and for communities to prototype and scale radical responses to issues like educational disengagement and unemployment. We say ‘radical’ because we don’t just make existing services and systems run better; we rethink both the nature of the problem and the response. In our experience, more of the same done better isn’t enough to really change things.

We’re about good ideas that grow

Good work isn’t just about good ideas, but good ideas that grow. We build local teams and prototype solutions because these are the best methods we know of to create the capacity and momentum for change.

We work in, with, and for local communities

These kinds of projects typically last 9-12 months. They are funded by centers for social innovation, foundations and government units who have identified a problem and want to achieve better outcomes while cutting long-term costs. We like to work in, with and for these organizations as staff. Our first step is to build a local team and find a local community with whom to co-design and prototype.

We enable people-practice-policy prototypes

Working with the local team, we run prototypes to redefine the problem, identify outcomes, develop ideas, test out new types of practice and policy, and plan for scale. By the end of the prototype, we will have developed and demonstrated new practice and policy that works, trained a team that’s ready to take the prototype forward, written an investment case, and created films and stories documenting what we’ve learned.

The ’6′ – our approach to prototyping

6-poppi-red
Shared under Creative Commons © InWithFor

We like to start with people

Having built a local team, we work together to define success. We get to know people in their everyday contexts: people facing the problem, people who have faced the problem, their families and friends. Seeing things from people’s perspective helps us move beyond the problem to outcomes: to defining new ways of living and doing.

We work with to co-design solutions

When we spend time in people’s lives we are able to see problems, outcomes,  and opportunities for new solutions. We work with local people, practitioners and policymakers to co-design solutions they’d want to be a part of, always looking to international best practice for ideas and inspiration. Together, we’re able to develop scenarios for new ways of doing that enable new ways of living.

We set out to fail

During prototyping we make solutions real and try out new kinds of practice and policy at a small scale. We create roles; hire people; and develop training, brand and marketing materials, backend technologies, new commissioning frameworks, incentives, and metrics. Our prototypes rarely work well the first time – but failing early, at a small scale, will save time, money and energy later. We take what we learn from our failings to improve our ideas and test them again to improve them again, and again.

We aim for sustainability

Finally, we look at how to scale and embed new practice and policy. We write business plans and investment cases, and explore different vehicles for taking things forward, from social enterprises to new government services.

We see failed transitions as the opportunity

We’ve found that lots of communities struggle to address how people transition between life stages and through life’s challenges. The consequences of failed transitions are all too visible: family breakdown, educational disengagement, unemployment, homelessness, offending, etc. These failures are costly, and hard to overcome.  Public systems and social services often try and contain the risk: first to intervene and later to prevent the need for intervention.

This is where we think the opportunity lies: to not just prevent the problem, but move beyond the problem. The opportunity isn’t just to keep young people engaged in school or offenders from re-engaging with prison. The opportunity is to enable people to re-envision a different life and to build the capabilities and connections to make that life possible. Doing this requires very different kinds of services and systems.

Could we start a project with you?

If you’re thinking of running a prototype, here’s a list of things that we think make projects go really well.  Rarely do all these things exist in a single project, but if you have 2 or 3 of them, we’d say you’re in a good position to get going. We hope our work promoting good problem-solving and building problem-solving capacity helps put more of these factors into place.

What makes a good prototype?
Communities want to solve the problem and are curious about ‘what could be different’
Existing services and systems see the project as ‘critical to have’ rather than a ‘nice to have’
Existing services and systems will allocate staff resource to the project team
Existing services and systems talk in terms of outcomes
Existing services and systems question current provision and targets
Stakeholders are willing to make space to fail and learn from what didn’t work

What we do → We promote interest → We build capacity → We enable change

Main image © Design Council Shared under Creative Commons

People-practice-policy-prototypes
WHY To run prototypes that help solve social problems.
WHO Public systems, social services and communities who want to solve a problem.

Supported by
Organizations who fund social innovation
WHAT 9 to 12 month project
OUTPUTS
  • — User research
  • — International examples
  • — Literature review
  • — Ideas
  • — Scenarios
  • — Training
  • — Job descriptions
  • — Back office systems
  • — Brand & marketing materials
  • — Metrics
  • — Incentives
  • — Commissioning frameworks
  • — Investment case
  • — Film
  • — Stories
OUTCOMES
  • — New models of practice & policy
  • — A team ready to take to scale
  • — Measurable change

LOOPS_SMALL
© Participle

LOOPS

EXAMPLE PROJECT

uk

At Participle we worked with young people, youth workers, teachers and local policymakers to develop a new model for universal youth services. The project was a partnership between two local authorities and a foundation.

We started by redefining the problem through talking and spending time with young people in their homes, at school, & on the street. From this work, we saw that what would help more young people thrive was having good connections with local adults, businesses and organisations.

‘Community connection’ is what we needed to make happen - very different to the existing policy of keeping young people off the streets and out of trouble.

Working together with young people and practitioners, we co-designed the idea for Loops –  a platform that would enable young people and adults to have shared ‘experiences’ in the community.

For 6-weeks, we prototyped Loops with 20 young people, 9 staff and over 100 local businesses & organisations. Testing things out enabled us to improve on our initial ideas so that Loops actually worked to build young people’s social capital and their sense of self. Along the way, we created a case to invest in Loops and a business model that could go to scale. Participle is planning to launch Loops in 2010.

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