If we want to create public services fit for the 21st century, we have to give our staff the tools to make it happen.
That’s why we’re trialling an initiative called the Futures Academy, a learning experience that gives staff the time and space to experiment with different ways of working. It will bring together a multi-disciplinary team from different parts of Essex County Council to work on a real service design problems.
The first one starts on Monday, when the team will start a facilitated 1-week design sprint – a short period of intense work to apply user centred design to solve a problem. This first instance brings together 9 people, with different skills, representing the different teams at Essex County Council’s Corporate Development
The team will post a short blog each day of the sprint to share what they’ve been doing and learning from the experience. We will end on the Friday with a show and tell to showcase the work to colleagues and discuss any further opportunities.
Following the design sprint, the team will take what they’ve learnt and run their own project with mentoring support. At the end of the Futures Academy the learning will inform a decision about what happens next.
This Futures Academy will help us understand if this format works, test our assumptions, assess the value of different ways of working and take decisions on how to scale.
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