2016-03-10 Benjamin Taylor - RedQuadrant service design in government v1.0BT

Service design and systems thinking 1

Service design and systems thinking…not a leap in the dark!

©RedQuadrant 2016 Benjamin Taylor 079 3131 7230 [email protected]

Benjamin Taylor

#SDinGov 2016


Purpose – goals

To make the world a better place, we help people to transform the way their services, organisations, and leadership are experienced

We:

• help the public sector transform itself to be a beacon of excellence

• work on ourselves to change consultancy forever

• help people to save money and improve their businessby giving them the skills to work on the business for themselves

Big, hairy, audacious goals:

Consultancy how it should be done

Transform the public sector

• People able to make better choices about the public services that help them to achieve their goals in life

• Public service a cross-industry exemplar –provide the benchmark (our public sector clients are featured as Harvard Business Review case studies for all sectors to learn from)

Transform consulting

• No more complicated than it needs to be

• Network consulting

• Authenticity, value-adding, humanistic, non-manipulative

• Focused on positive experience of services, organisations, and leadership

To change consulting

To change public service

delivery


Purpose – goals

To make the world a better place, we help people to transform the way their services, organisations, and leadership are experienced

We:

• help the public sector transform itself to be a beacon of excellence

• work on ourselves to change consultancy forever

• help people to save money and improve their businessby giving them the skills to work on the business for themselves

Big, hairy, audacious goals:

Consultancy how it should be done

Transform the public sector

• People able to make better choices about the public services that help them to achieve their goals in life

• Public service a cross-industry exemplar –provide the benchmark (our public sector clients are featured as Harvard Business Review case studies for all sectors to learn from)

Transform consulting

• No more complicated than it needs to be

• Network consulting

• Authenticity, value-adding, humanistic, non-manipulative

• Focused on positive experience of services, organisations, and leadership


To help public sector organisations to successfully transform

A partner: navigating change, providing focus and building capability

transformationinterims


A growing local government transformation consultancy

• Hillingdon – four years, £79m savings, entire management trained in service transformation academy, whole council agile/prototyping, Essex – transformation partner expert resources

• Mergers/shared services: Strategic Alliance, CompassPoint, Southwest London regulatory

• Northamptonshire – future council model transformation advice

• Social care transformation Cheshire East, Northants, Leicester, Hounslow...

• Westminster customer programme, Lambeth lean/agile, Triborough corporate services, Islington customer led transformation, Merton, Lewisham

• Children’s services DfE intervention partner e.g. Buckinghamshire and Darlington

• Spin-outs / mutuals: Transforming Rehabilitation, libraries, cultural and community services

Many have fallen by the wayside – we have grown 38% year-on-year


About me

www.linkedin.com/in/antlerboy@antlerboy


SOME TRUTHS


Most things out there are bullshit

• Most systems leadership is bullshit

• Most commissioning is bullshit

• Most transformation is bullshit

Most service design is bullshit

• ‘Clean start’ fallacy – design the future without reference to the past

• ‘Unit cost’ fallacy – unit costs are a good proxy for the whole

• ‘No systems’ fallacy – we can act on one area without being affected by the rest

• ‘The alpha persona is the new 80% first point of contact resolution’. Lipstick on a pig indeed!

…if we don’t understand the past, we’re doomed to repeat it.

But not everything…


Sustainability• long term view•medium term

aftercare

Customer-led prototyping

Enterprise architecture• experiential change• patterns not rules

Human centric • customer and

employee co-design

360 degree view•win-win-win• asset based

Deep analysis• ethnographic• positive deviance

Ways of seeingpersonfamilycommunityservice

Ways of doingasymmetric designpivotsmultiple diamondtoolkits

Ways of sustainingagilitycoherenceculture‘design, delivery, and management’

Think big,act quickly,start small

Service design


So – how can service design succeed?


IT’S LIKE THIS

13

A keystone arch


WHAT CAN I OFFER?


In the end, it’s all about

• Organisational thinking (culture)

• Demand thinking (service delivery)

• Change thinking (leadership capability and change capability)

• System view

• Learning

There are ways to think about these things, but there are no solutions

Purpose – need – demand Organisation

Adaption

Leadership for change


Contents!

• The front end fallacy 19

• The technical problem fallacy 23

• The legible organisation fallacy 30

• The demand management fallacy 43

• Seven ways to save and improve 55

• Our manifesto 58

• Fundamental questions 59


THE FRONT END FALLACY


Sorry – bullshit!


Measure what matters… to the customer

Balance between customer impact and internal signals and targets

Matter to the customer?

Fun

ctio

nal

End

to

en

d

No Yes

Stephen Parry: http://goo.gl/PcOa7r

Its easy to focus on the things which matter less to the customer. Most organisations will create performance indicators which fall into the bottom left quadrant (red text)

But we need to develop indicators which also fall into the other quadrants as they matter more to customers

Performance exceeds service levelNo of callsAverage handling times% incorrectly assigned

Done in` one Customer satisfaction scoreShift to self serve

Volume of transaction Avoidable

contact

Zone of power


Useful thinking

• Ackoff’s car – the overall results can only be understood as of the whole business not the part

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqEeIG8aPPk

http://environment-ecology.com/general-systems-theory/380-systems-thinking-with-dr-russell-ackoff.html

• Alexander’s patterns – you build a house by the whole improving, not (or as well as) an individual room)

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=guKWBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA101&lpg=PA101&dq=can+only+improve+a+room+if+you+improve+the+whole+architect&source=bl&ots=fbiYRKnZ5l&sig=XPDeWmyzYO0yY6hpct0NPO2b9HA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiA-KKN69vJAhVFvBQKHay2A4QQ6AEIHzAA#v=onepage&q=can%20only%20improve%20a%20room%20if%20architect%20starts&f=false

http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Ecological_Building/A_Pattern_Language.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqEeIG8aPPk

http://environment-ecology.com/general-systems-theory/380-systems-thinking-with-dr-russell-ackoff.html

http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Ecological_Building/A_Pattern_Language.pdf


LEARNING – THE TECHNICAL PROBLEM FALLACY


Problems we would like to be able to deal with

• Problems we would like – technical, authority and expertise

• Expert solutions – direct and control – technical learning

BUT there problems we would like to avoid – complex and emergent

• leaders cannot have all the answers

This leads to frustration at ‘hierarchy’ and leaders


Purely technical leadership = frustration

SO

• first attempt – give away power

• BUT chaos, confusion, frustration can ensue

This leads to frustration at ‘hierarchy’ and leaders


BOTH technical and emergent leadership are needed

Complex and emergent problems always come along with technical problems – both critical

THEREFORE

• frame the problem

• set boundaries

• create vision

• enable learning – double and triple loop

This leads to valuing the ‘hierarchy’ and leaders


Adaptive challenge

• Goal is not known• Leader likely to be

contributing• Adaptive and systemic

approach needed• Innovation required• Habits and assumptions

must change

• True leadership needed• Real progress the only

thing that counts• Presence required

Technical problem

• Problem understood• Outcome understood• Authority and command

work• World view not

threatened

• Structural authority more important

• Power games likely• Charisma very helpful

Adaptive over technical challenges

Other indicators

• People would rather avoid the issue

• Recurring problem• It’s uncomfortable

work• Failure to resolve

competing priorities • Moving forward feels

risky• There may be

casualties• People must work

across boundaries• Progress cannot be

linear


Transformational learning


Triple loop learning

Examples of successfully changing identity:

• Worlds largest taxi company owns no taxis (Uber)

• Largest accommodation provider owns no real estate (Airbnb)

• Largest phone messaging company owns no phones (WeChat)

• Worlds most valuable retailer has no inventory (Alibaba)

• Most popular media owner creates no content (Facebook)

• Fastest growing banks have no actual money (SocietyOne)

• Worlds largest movie house owns no cinemas (NetFlix)

Sorry for the naff slide ;-)


THE TRANSPARENT ORGANISATION FALLACY


Blind men describing an elephant by Hokusai


Four worlds

A traditional view:

• The ‘citizen world’ is separated from ‘service world’ by an invisible divide (we even call it the ‘front line’)

• This is further separated from ‘management world’ by another invisible divide – called ‘performance management’

• In the citizen world, we do market research

• In the service world, we do BPR

• In management world, we do business planning, budgeting –and cuts

• In politician world…?

If we are to succeed – we have to link these four worlds!

Citizen world

Service world

Management world

The front line

Performance information

The point of power!

Politician world

????


Categorisation of customer insight methods

• Survey – satisfaction, perceptions, preferences – also non-customers

• Segmentation – which customers, which services, which channels (preferences and likely behaviour)

• Focus groups (A) – messaging and perception – what they think of us

• Exit survey – customer perception, resolution, effort

• Ethnographic studies – ‘their world’ – all interactions – ‘us as part of their lives’

• Focus groups (B) – needs and usability – how we can work with them better

• Behaviour change (A) – drivers and prompts – long-term drivers of need

• Behaviour change (B) – drivers and prompts – access channels/service use

• Customer safari – face-to-face contact improvement

• Call listening/observation/’back to the floor’ – customer journey in a segment of the service/demand analysis

• Demand analysis – purpose, failure demand – customer interactions with our systems

• Journey mapping – extended engagement ‘us as part of their needs’

• Customer dissatisfaction – improvement opportunities to meet needs

• Co-design – how to meet customer needs – what we can do together

• Customer effort – overall measure of accessibility

• CPx – overall measure of effectiveness(‘Contacts per x – total contacts with council per user/house etc)

More focused on insight in ‘customer world’

More focused on insight in ‘management world’


You never understand an organisation until you start to try to change it


One core approach

Start with the whole area of

business

Find opportun

ity

PredictAct

Learn


What box are you in? What box is the problem in?

1

1

1

1

1

1

The environment of the organisation(s)

2

3

4

3*

5


What it looks like depends on

your perspective


What box are you in? What box is the problem in?

The environment of the organisation(s)

2

3

4

3*

5


It is easy to get into contradictions if you mix different ways of looking without distinguishing them


Multiple ways of looking at organisations

Purpose Needs Demand Resource Outcomes

Empowerment Prevention Outside-in Resourcebased

Outcomesbased

Approaches

Accountants! Outcomes based accountability etc

Object of focus

Organisations

Satisfaction / subjective

Evaluation

Research / academic

• Complex people system• Organisational purpose approach – focuses on both financial (resourced based) and

outcomes• Historical / iterative – what happened last year, changed a bit…• (And, additionally… social, metaphor, risk, sustainability, culture…

Cybernetics (variety in/out, variety up/down, variety now/future) demand capacity

management

capacityfuture

.

Early intervention foundation?

Statutory / professional

Functional

Functional / professional

Vanguard


Categoryerrors


Category

errors are

bad


THE DEMAND MANAGEMENT FALLACY


What is a service?

• A service co-creates value with and for the customer

• Our mission is to reduce the effort, time, cost, steps, process…

FROM customer need

TO positive outcome


demand

control

needspurpose


Rethinking services

• Dealing with demand = fighting alligators

• Dealing with needs = draining the swamp

• Dealing with purpose = ???

• The deeper we get, the more opportunities open to us


population

purpose(need)

presenting demand

provision

socio-demographic attributes behavioural attributes

the organisation

inputs

The

naï

ve v

iew

of

dem

and

man

agem

ent

cost

model here…

…to predict here…

…to arrange best provision here…

…to reduce costs here.


population

purpose(need)

presenting demand

provision


the organisation

inputs

The

naï

ve v

iew

of

dem

and

man

agem

ent

model here…

…to predict here…

…to arrange best provision here…

cost

…to reduce costs here.


population

purpose(need)

presenting demand

provision


the organisation

An

oth

er n

aïve

ap

pro

ach

cost

Change the world…

…reap the benefits!


NEWSFLASH(Growing) costs are a consequence of the system, not the population


population

purpose(need)

presenting demand

provision


cost outcomes

community interventions

demand interventions

assessment and management interventions

the organisation

mea

sure

me

nt

asse

ssm

ent

imp

rove

me

nt

effectiveness and efficiency

inputs

not an input, an outcome

And multiple additional loops and complexities…


The demand management ‘whole system’

Critical to choose the right interventions across the system

Population Interventions Process ProvisionInterventions Interventions

Model and visualise whole system- Prediction- Best interventions- Evaluation

10% of organisational spend

100% of organisational spend

Total system spend and effort

Behavioural science

Social marketing

Community resilience

- Behaviour change to reduce need

- Meeting needs in the community

Targeted early intervention

Circles of customer need

Positive deviance

- ID demand drivers- Segmentation- Prediction- Benchmarking

Big data / informatics

Universal offer

Barriers to access (+/-ve)

Agile change

Integration

Pooled budgets

Systems leadership

Resourcing decisions

Procurement

Joined up working

Efficiency and effectiveness

Demand analysis


SOME ALTERNATIVES!


SEVEN WAYS TO SAVE AND IMPROVE


Optimiseprocurement

3 …which uses a process or project to deliver results.

Demand1

Contact

2

Process /project

3

Resources

4

5 Organisational design

Source 6

Policy and commissioning7 RedQuadrant Sustainability and efficiency framework™©RedQuadrant

Effective organisation

1 All activity is triggered by demand or community need…

2 …which hits a contact point or triggers a response

4 This requires the use of organisational & community assets…

5 …which are structured in organisations and partnerships…

6 …and have to be procured or sourced from somewhere

Optimise resources

Reduce wasteCreate flowShape demand

7 …and how we respond to demand or need is determined by policy. Change policy

Seven ways to save and improvev5.5 Updated 14 April 2015


57

1. Shape and manage demand: effect behavioural change, reduce failure demand

2. Create economies of flow: match capacity and contact points to demand

3. Reduce waste: re-engineer processes or develop a whole lean system

4. Optimise the use of resources: buildings, IT, vehicles, other assets, people (scheduling, downtime, contracts and management), income generation

5. Effective organisation: appropriate grouping and sharing of activities and services, organisational structures, role and task clarity

6. Optimise procurement: procure volume, shape the market, reduce or standardise specification or achieve multiplying effects

7. Change policy: stop, ration, reduce eligibility, delay, charge, develop to better meet organisational purpose, demand and underlying need, share services, outsource, mutualise, use the third sector

RedQuadrant sustainability and efficiency framework™ ©RedQuadrant

Seven ways to save and improve


The manifesto*

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working prototypes over comprehensive business cases

Customer centred design over painstaking analysis

Responding to change over following a plan

* with affectionate respect to www.agilemanifesto.org


Fundamental questions

1. What is the system (part of the system) we are investigating?

Understand key issues in delivery today (what’s wrong – what might be causing that)

2. What’s the underlying purpose of the system?

3. What is the actual activity to be delivered to achieve the underlying purpose?

What are the options for delivery of that activity?

What organisation and support services would enable delivery of that activity?

How could that activity best be governed and managed?

4. How do we get there?

5. What have we learned?


the joy

the work


Always happy to talk…

Benjamin Taylor

079 3131 7230

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/antlerboy

www.twitter.com/antlerboy

www.redquadrant.com

www.redquadrant.com/newsletter for regular updates


PS two diamonds are insufficient…

problem solution delivery procurement implementation


SYSTEMS THINKING PROPAGANDA – ANOTHER MANIFESTO


Systems thinking

Systems thinking Reductionist thinking

Holistic: synthesise then analyse over Reductionist: analyse then synthesise

Understand the whole system, tailor for

different levels of delivery (personalise)over

Break into functions, discrete services,

specialist roles and standardise

Valuing outcomes and experience over Costing activity and transactions

Beliefs, principles, environment, culture over Planning and milestones

Creating an adaptive, autonomous,

edge of chaos, learning environmentover

Target setting, bureaucracy, and

perception of order and control

Managing risk and encouraging innovation over Wary of risk and innovation

Partnership delivery models overContractual / adversarial relationship

with providers and often partners

Intrinsic motivation through recognition, pride,

sense of control, visible impact on citizensover Extrinsic motivation through carrot and stick

Belief in staff and citizens with

appreciative models for service designover

Mistrust of staff and desire to control, mistrust

of citizens and desire to do services to them

Valued personal relationship with citizens overTransaction / process based

relationships with citizens

User / outcome centric view over Top down view

Absorbing complexity over Reducing complexity

‘We are uncovering better ways of leading by doing it and helping others do it… that is, while there is value in the items on the right, we have come to value the items on the left more’


ANNEX – LOCAL AUTHORITY ‘BUSINESS MODEL CANVASS’


1) Core purpose and outcomes

2) Core customers 3) Demand drivers

4) Statutory duties 5) Core activities

7) Key partners and interdependencies

6) Key measures and assumptions?

12) Cost structure 13) Funding streams

8) Major current initiatives

9) Key risks

10) Transformation / invest to save14) Other notes

Service name

Local authority ‘business model canvas’


ANNEX – POSSIBILITIES OF ORGANISATIONS


‘a plan of organization’Daniel McCallumgeneral superintendentNew York and Erie Railroad (‘the Erie’)1855


ANNEX – THE VIABLE SYSTEMS MODEL


VSM origins – the human body

'We will seek the source of effective organisation in the cybernetics of natural processes – the brain itself '

This approach starts from connection with, and interaction with, the environment. Organic, co-evolving, mutual survival.

Beer studied the way that the central and autonomic nervous systems 'manage' the operation of the organs and muscles, and used this understanding as the inspiration for his organisational model.


The five (or six) systems –overview and physiological inspiration


• Three System 1s: maximum autonomy consistent with coherence

• System 2 to prevent and deal with conflicts of interest / overlap / informal and day-to-day resources

• System 3 is for synergy, policy, and resource negotiation

• Systems 2 and 3 are meta-systems – they have an over-view of the entire interacting cluster of operational units, and their job is to make sure the whole thing works as effectively as possible.

• Balanced autonomy and cohesion.

Systems 1,2 and 3: us and now


Systems 3, 4 and 5:now and/versus future and/versus identity

• Information about the operations is held and used by System 3

• Information about the environment and future planning held and used by System 4

• System 5 monitors and balances systems 3 and 4 to maintain the coherence and identity of the organisation

• follows policy guidelines.

• The base brain deals with muscles and organs

• In the brain, information through eyes and ears and registered by the mid brain

• The cortex monitors and organises the brain’s information about what is happening both inside and outside

Mechanistic?

No:

(1) organic – based on a model of human operating systems

(2) deeply perspectivist – the brain makes sense (only) based on models of the internal and outside world


A continuous, whole, continually interacting system

Recursive at every level!

(Did you know your spine has brain cells?)


The viable systems model

1

2

3

4

5

3*


THE VIABLE SYSTEMS MODELHow can we use it?


1. Map the relevant recursions

2. Identify the problem recursion

3. Map the system-in-focus

4. Look for weaknesses (gaps) in the five systems

5. Examine the information flows

6. Make a diagnosis

7. Change everything !

8. Monitor, review, re-think, try again

Using VSM for diagnosis


Requisite variety

• In order to cope with its environment, the Operation needs to match its variety to that of the Environment

• In order to manage the Operation, Management needs to match its variety to that of the Operation

Ashby's law – requisite variety

• Control can be obtained only if the variety of the controller is at least as great as the variety of the situation to be controlled

Is the organisation capable of matching the complexity of the environment?


Beer’s principles of organisation

1) Managerial, operational and environmental varieties, diffusing through an institutional system, tend to equate; they should be designed to do so with minimal damage to people and to cost

2) The four directional channels carrying information between the management unit, the operation, and the environment must each have a higher capacity to transmit a given amount of information relevant to variety selection in a given time than the originating subsystem has to generate it in that time (all channels must have requisite variety)

3) Wherever the information on a channel capable of distinguishing a given variety crosses a boundary, it undergoes transduction; the variety of the transducer must be at least equivalent to the variety of the channel

4) The operation of the first three principles must be cyclically maintained through time without hiatus or lags

In balance? Information flows? Interpretation? Timeliness?


Seven conversational aspects of organisational viability

• S5<>(S4,S3) – identity

• E<>S4 – scanning

• S4<>S3 – adaptation

• S3<>S1 – resource bargain

• S2<>S1 – coordination

• S3*<>S1 – audit

• E<>S1 – stability

Steve Brewis


Four aspects of organisational maturity

• Capacity: are there adequate resources to perform this function?

• Connectivity: does this function have the relationships with other parties that it needs to perform adequately?

• Balance: can both parties resolve their issues and achieve the outcomes they need through their relationship? (conversational)

• Consciousness: does management know that all the other three levels are performing adequately and why this is so?

Steve Brewis

2016-03-10 Benjamin Taylor - RedQuadrant service design in government v1.0BT

Leadership & Management

Transcript of 2016-03-10 Benjamin Taylor - RedQuadrant service design in government v1.0BT