Service Design Workshops
Sometimes (more and more frequently) I help to run Service Design workshops. The latest flurry of which have revolved around healthcare. Minnie, Greg, Ines and myself recently put together a rapid prototyping workshop for Health 2.0, watch this amazing video to see what it was all about:
[vimeo 125469663 w=500 h=281]
Health 2.0 from Bruntwood on Vimeo.
What is Health 2.0?
Health 2.0 is a meetup group for healthcare professionals, developers, designers, MedTech startups and just about anyone who’s interested in healthcare. The group get together every 6 weeks or so to talk about developments in the healthcare industry and we joined forces to help bring new innovation techniques to bring a certain je ne sais quoi to the healthcare industry.
**What is rapid prototyping? **
It does what it says on the tin - rapid prototyping is going quickly through Service Design ideologies to go from ideation to prototype in. The workshop revolved around the Design Council’s Double Diamond principle or divergent and convergent thinking. We went through a quick process of:
- Discover (discovering the problem you’re trying to solve)
- Define (defining the problem)
- Develop (creating a solution to the problem and iterating)
- Deliver (delivering a prototype of the solution)
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Double Diamond[/caption]
All of this is done within 2 hours (maybe a little bit over two hours). The aim is to breakdown the barriers and assumptions you have and create a tangible solution that could possibly be the foundation for a startup.
It’s important to note, when we say prototype, we don’t mean anything using technology. In fact, in most of the workshops I run, technology is banned. Participants are expected to build their prototypes using paper, cardboard, bubble wrap - pretty much anything they can get their hands on.
What did we solve?
At Health 2.0, and even more recently MedX, we were solving compliance and adherence problems. So, attendees needed to find ways to help NHS service users take their medication on time and with the correct dosage. It was the attendees prerogative to determine the personas of the NHS patients that they were trying to help, which ailments they had, their gender, age and every detail of their life that could affect the way that they take their medicine.
It’s at this point that participants are able to truly define their challenge, understand the emotions that the user their focussing on are experiencing and consequently enables them to create an innovative solution that truly meets the needs of the service user.
Other workshops?
Following the success of the Health 2.0 rapid prototyping workshop, I helped to host a similar event with George for Manchester Social Entrepreneurs. We ran a rapid prototyping session for social entrepreneurs from a school in The Netherlands (NHTV Breda) to help consumers start to consume with a conscious.
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Manchester Social Entrepreneurs Workshop[/caption]
I then had the opportunity to work with Tariq, president of The University of Manchester Medics Society, to run a rapid prototyping session at the MedX conference.