Hartlepool Action Lab: five takeaways from the first four days
Hartlepool Action Lab launched on 16 June with a fast-paced four-day event. Attended by a fantastic group of 30 people, most local to the town, there was an incredible amount of experience, skills and knowledge in the room. All were focused on building community, reducing poverty and making life better for everyone who lives in Hartlepool. True to its name, a bias towards action is a working principle of the Hartlepool Action Lab, which is being supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and three human-centred design facilitators, Paul, Andi and Garen from Community Solutions.
Here are my top five takeaways from the first four days:
1. Collaboration is great, but not always easy
Collaborative working is brilliant when everyone is rowing in the same direction and everything is flowing. However, teamwork can be hard work. Harmonising and ensuring all voices are heard can be a challenge. At Hartlepool Action Lab this was evident in the breaking up and reforming of teams as priorities were shifted and clarified. It was classic Tuckman in action. Anticipated but challenging stuff when teams are forming.
2. Moments can help shape a movement
There were many defining moments in the first four days. Small but significant moments that helped shape our movement. Particularly memorable was the guided bus tour of Hartlepool. As we travelled around town, we shared the miles with smiles and findings of community research as told by local residents. There was no better way to find out what people thought about Hartlepool than to hear it from the people who live there.
3. Working out loud is a wonderful thing
When Hartlepool Action Lab started, Katherine challenged us to challenge ourselves. To be agile and adapt as we went along. That we should take risks and learn from our failures. We are now collaborating without boundaries, working out loud, and it feels like a fab way to work.
4. Design is powerful a tool for change
Human-centred design is a tool for change, a tool for problem solving, enabling us to dream big. A tool to ask: ‘how might we…?’ Design is a tool to explore divergent thinking before converging on specific things that will move us towards real change.
5. Being agile is invigorating
Sometimes it is energising to stop talking and start doing. In an inspiring lecture this week, Julia Unwin, Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, asked — ‘If not now, when?’ This is what the Hartlepool Action Lab is all about.
At the end of the four days each team has a goal and a project plan. The goals of Hartlepool Action Lab are:
We will provide the opportunity to every young person leaving care in Hartlepool, to create through the refurbishment of empty properties, their own sustainable home, by 2020
The supporting stronger neighbourhoods initiative will engage 1,000 Hartlepool residents in 10 neighbourhood areas by involving them in making their communities stronger, by 2020
We will provide community resources to support 1,000 people, to share and develop skills to lift themselves out of poverty, by March 2020.
The three teams meet next on 14 July. We do not know what will come out of Hartlepool Action Lab in the next 100 days but at the end of the first four days everyone is ready for change. Where we go from here is up to us — all of us.
We have 100 days to reach our goals and we need your help. Can you help make Hartlepool a better place for everyone?
100 days. Three projects. One vision.
Find out more and get involved: Hartlepool Action Lab
First posted on Hartlepool Action Lab
