Things I wish I’d known

Action for Children have been working on digital services for the last 2 years and whilst we have impressive reach numbers from last year, they don’t show the hard lessons learned! So here’s a few things I wish I’d known 2 years ago!

*Just to caveat it, these are our lessons learned — as with everything, they are not one size fits all. We are constantly learning from our experiences and iterating our process, we just thought we’d share in case some elements are of use to our peers. And remember, hindsight is a wonderful thing — you’ll have your own lessons learned, so do keep sharing them!*

You need multiple perspectives

We have all heard that you need to included your service users and beneficiaries in your service design (and if you want to read more about it, take a look at what the brilliant Kate Stulberg talked about at the event).

But in this instance I mean, your colleagues and peers. Too many cooks don’t, in fact, spoil the broth. Even if you’re a lone wolf working on digital services in your organisation find a buddy (internal or external) to talk through your work. They will often have a fresh, unbiased perspective which can help you avoid bias, stop you being overly committed to an idea and also just pull you out of a spiral.

For example, we have limited funding and end up working in isolation on projects (jack of all trades, master of none?) but our Innovation Lead implemented a buddy scheme which pairs up our digital service designers with Innovation Product Managers. Having the catch ups with people who kind of get what you’re doing helps us to stop, reflect and move on.

Lesson learned? You are not an island, you need people around you.

It is what you know AND who you know

You know more and are capable of more than you think. So fake it ’til you make it. Prototypes for testing can be done so easily and cheaply and they don’t need to be perfect. Use experience from your previous jobs or learn from people in your team. The people you sit with all day might enjoy the opportunity to do something different — ask if they have time to offer their expertise! Prior to Digital Services, I worked in Digital Comms so I use my previous experience to help with content design, digital marketing etc when there is no budget to outsource this in the early stages. Again, this doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to allow you to test your prototype.

In terms of who you know, use your network to seek inspiration. Follow people who are doing great things! The whole #FutureBarnardo’s thing is really inspirational (and aspirational!) for me. The Tech for Good meet ups, CAST design hops etc are all great places to meet people and bounce ideas around. Work with people that your peers recommend — would you book a holiday without looking at a review, a plumber without asking a friend or looking on CheckATrade?

Lesson learned? It doesn’t need to be perfect and you need to look across the sector.

Be wary of the difference between attitudes & actual behaviour

We know that it’s important to research and test extensively with users. And we hear this point about making sure that what we design meets their needs. But I cannot stress how important it is to also consider behaviours. And also be wary of attitudes/expectations and actual behaviours. How many times have you heard “diet starts Monday” or “new year, new me”. Yet by Wednesday the diet hasn’t started and by the 6th January those gym memberships have been cancelled.

It’s the same with using services, “I would definitely use this” or “I would probably use this every week”. People generally have an inherent need to please others but also a weakness for having a rose tinted perspective on what they might do in future. Basically, I cannot overstate just how important actual behaviours are alongside needs, wants and intended behaviours.

For example, on the digital parenting support service that we are rolling out, our initial research indicated that parents needed to know and trust the practitioners that they would be speaking to. So we created a ‘meet the practitioner’ page, outlining who the staff were, what qualifications and experience they have. During our pilot, it was generally less than 1% of users actually looking at this page. The trust was implicit (the service being from a children’s charity seemed to be enough) and also an element of parents not actually caring to know the ins and outs — they just want someone who a recognised provider employs to answer their questions.

Lesson learned? Test those hypotheses!

Remember, the ‘no’ people can be your allies

We all have them — ‘blockers’. But how about we stop thinking of them as blockers and start thinking of them as partners or allies? There’s a very good reason why they are the ‘no’ people and in this industry it usually comes down to protecting the organisation or the people we are benefiting. So their blocking is well intentioned — remember this.

BUT if you bring your ‘no’ people in early, at the start of your discovery and bring them on the journey they are more likely to understand the reasons and rationale and will help you find ways to deliver your solution safely. Don’t be afraid to talk to them basically — the later you leave it, the more it might feel to them like this is being put upon them. No one likes being left out do they?!

Lesson learned? Be appropriately inclusive with your stakeholders.

Be realistic about funding

We know that we start small and scale up so your initial costs should be low. But it is important that your source of funding knows that the initial investment will only go so far, e.g. it will only get you to a prototype or an MVP. For example, you might only need £30k to get you to a proof of concept pilot, but we know that in the long term to roll out a successful nationwide service you could be looking at £300k (figures are just examples) so your funder should know that. It’s about managing their expectations.

If they know this from the off, there will be less pressure on you to deliver an all singing, all dancing product or service. And the funder will know that for the concept to progress it requires additional funding. Make sure the funder knows what these costs could be (be bold and experience will help you shape these figures for your organisation as you go) so that you don’t have to be so stop/start with your development.

Lesson learned? Be bold and honest.

Be brave — act like a start up

Being realistic about funding is part of acting like a start-up. You are asking someone to invest in the goal/vision (aka solving your problem statement), not necessarily how you get there as you can’t possibly know this at the start.

Once you have a funder (internal or external) identified, set funding milestones that align with your design and development process. Build trust from the funder by engaging them at every step to show them what you’re doing with their money and why. This helps avoid that painful stop/start I mentioned earlier.

Obviously, it’s not always possible to have a funder with endless, fully lined pockets (and if you do, please send them my way!). So if you know that your funder can only get the service to a certain point, commit realistically. Don’t overpromise.

Lesson learned? Have a funding pipeline one way or another!

Piloting is not the easy bit — or the end

I hate to break it to you, but piloting isn’t easy. Getting to this stage is tough. Your pilot needs to be big enough for you to be confident with your proof of concept results, but feasible to deliver. So it might be tempting to try and restrict it/keep it small — which I agree with! But when planning the pilot, cast your net wide, it is better to have too many interested partners/ways to deliver the pilot than not enough.

With our digital parenting support service, we needed to run it as a closed pilot so that we could manage the capacity/resource on our staff who were delivering the service. So we planned to deliver in two areas. Identifying and implementing the pilot in those two areas took us almost 6 months because we approached localities one by one. What we should have done, is asked 7 or 8 areas and had the same conversations at the same time. So that when the inevitable happened — an area withdrew their interest — we weren’t back at square one.

It’s also important to remember the earlier point of attitudes and intended behaviours versus real life behaviours. Your pilot might end up going in quite a different direction when real life humans start using it — be prepared for significant changes and surprises and be ready to adapt the pilot delivery to meet these!

Lesson learned? Have a plan B, C and D for your pilot delivery!

Don’t be afraid to talk about money

If you’re working with external partners to pilot, don’t be afraid to mention money. You don’t have to ask for money up from day 1, but it is worth putting the possibility of a financial contribution on the table in the initial discussions. You might just need to cover small costs, for example, additional licenses for software and platforms. This is by no means a set in stone rule, but you shouldn’t be looking to make profit from pilot partners, but if you need to cover delivery costs if funding is tight, asking for a financial contribution and explaining why is worth considering.

Plus, this gives you the potential to build the pilot into an early adopter relationship, or similar. If you are delivering your pilot with external pilots it can be hard to offer something for free and then start asking for money. So if it is at least discussed in the initial stages it makes this transition easier.

Lesson learned? Don’t shy away from the topic of money out of fear of rejection.

Consider what you are measuring

As humans, we like to measure and record things. But it’s important to be clear about what you’re measuring, who it’s for and how are you measuring it? Don’t fall into the trap of just tracking users for the sake of it. Your measurements, performance indicators and targets need to mean something tangible and not just be for the sake of it. Think about what else you can report on, not just users; insights, themes, needs, behaviours — these are all hugely important measurements.

Be realistic with your measurements, don’t say that you’ll reach 5,000 users in your first year (for example) if that is genuinely not feasible. If your target audience physically can’t be that many because your organisation doesn’t have that reach, don’t commit to it just because you think a bigger reach number will make your funder or your organisation happy. Quality not necessarily quantity remember.

Referring back to the funding milestones talked about earlier, have measurements for each of these milestones. This is where things like insights and themes can be really important measurements.

Lesson learned? Be clear about what and why you are measuring.

You need to retain work/life balance

I don’t pretend that service design is easy; it can be hard, emotional and exhausting. You need to be resilient. The beauty of what we do is that we are making a real difference to the lives of our beneficiaries. So whilst that’s amazing, it will test you. You will see and hear things that are really tough and you will throw yourself into creating change for these people. So it’s ok to cry (or have a walk) when you need to.

Lean on those around you; I refer back to my earlier point about talking to colleagues and sector peers. They’ll have all been through it. You’ve probably supported them. Think about what you’d say to them and be that nice to yourself. And remember to not work every hour under the sun all the time and to look after yourself!

Lesson learned? You are not a superhero, you need to look after yourself and accept help.