Demos for everyone

Heyup. I’m Tom, one of the Delivery Managers at Newham Digital. Since I joined the team here last May my focus has been on trying to build a tool to help improve the situation in the Homelessness Prevention service — right now it takes too long to gather information about the people who come into the centre.

The tool is coming together and with our demonstration to the Mayor fast approaching (November 2nd) it was time to show our Homelessness Prevention tool in all of its Beta glory.

So what are we even showing?

The tool (brand name is still a work in progress) consists of a method for providing advice and guidance to residents based on their personal circumstances, a set of forms for gathering information, a workspace to manage case load, and a communication portal to allow remote contact with residents. The goal is to dramatically reduce the 91 minutes they now spend gathering data and providing basic advice in face to face interviews.

We have been playing with these individual parts for a while — we ‘knew’ it works — but the time has come to prove that to everyone else.

First, Simon (our leader) got his run through — beset by battery issues and projector problems we carried on and earned the approval of the boss. It shows promise in areas well outside of Homelessness Prevention, as it can capture information on anything (it’s even pretty quick to customise now, just don’t tell the developers I promised this).

The second demo was the big test though — the head of service. She had yet to see the tool and we know the development of this solution has occasionally been a contentious issue as we take up the Service’s time, it was definitely time to show we weren’t all talk.

Long story short, it went off without a hitch — it was smooth, it looked good, it conformed with all their requirements and the further development was just what they needed. Even the estimated ‘benefits’ went down well. We have go ahead to take it to the Mayor (result!) and even better, we have go ahead to test the tool with more cases and roll it out as a Public Beta in December.

Watch this space, we’re going to change people’s lives.