Designing a digital capabilities building pilot for community businesses

Weeknotes#2

This week we are keeping up the fast paced nature of the discovery process. On one hand we are synthesising the rich survey data and on the other contributing to finalising the guidance and preparing for launch of the Powering Up Programme on November 10th. This dual approach is not for the faint hearted; going out to the sector to generate interest and applications whilst still designing the digital pilot offer. But we are confident in the approach, as we are working alongside the impressive and very capable Catalyst network who have a significant track record on providing digital capabilities support alongside an exciting programme structure to engage community businesses within. Powering Up will provide a mix of unrestricted grants, a budget for expert support and personal development, all spread out over a year allowing for participants to pace themselves when strengthening capabilities. A key element to the programme will be a team of Community Business Connectors who will guide and support community business across the journey making the introductions, plans and links, helping to make the most of the opportunity.

Making sense of the survey data

In Weeknote #1 Debby describes the process for creating and sharing the digital needs survey. As part of the discovery process we planned to follow up the quantitative survey with a deeper dive using qualitative interviews, we just needed to decide which areas were best to have a more in depth focus applied. The table below shows the 18 digital needs statements alongside a total ranking score for Capability (knowledge/expertise), Capacity (time, energy, resources) and the priority of the activity to the community business.

Survey ranking scores

We held a zoom workshop to build collective understanding of the findings and to consider which areas we should focus. As each team member joined the session we asked them “What criteria they would use to prioritise areas to dig deeper?”. Luckily we were all in agreement, and proposed the same approach, which was to focus on the areas indicated as a priority but where respondents had low capacity and capability to develop further. To help this we plotted the resort on to a graph the axis correspond to capabilities and capacity whilst the larger size of the circle correspond to greater priority

Using the approach described, we identified the needs statements (grey in table above) 3, 7 14,15,16 and 17 for a greater focus. So looking to explore questions along line of:

• How do community businesses make the case for funders to cover digital costs?
• How do community businesses make space to understand and prioritise digital needs?
• How do community businesses find out about how their community uses digital, and how to develop services in response?

Next week’s discovery sprint activity

Up next week is the task of agreeing on a set of interview questions that will help us to deepen our understanding about these areas and test our assumptions.

We came up with a way of analysing the survey results and are keen to know what others think about how we approach it. Would you choose the same way to break the results down? Are we in the same ballpark in terms of selecting the digital needs areas to consider for more in-depth interviews? Please comment and let us know what you think?