Thinking like a human in health technology

The possibilities for the application of technology in delivering child health outcomes is incredible but designing for children is difficult and for technology is often an afterthought. And like they say  ‘ never work with children or animals’.

Bringing together a disparate group of healthcare and technology professionals, we ran a session to consider the human elements of technology for children. Taking a long look at creating the right problems to solve and then expanding the thinking to design new interventions and new ideas in the space.

A two day workshop for 25 people planned around design thinking and delivered in the North of England.

The time investment – 3 days of planning sessions and content creation, 3 days of event set-up and delivery, 2 days of write-up and review.

Jump start a new culture

The pandemic and working from home traded efficiency in meetings and working for a degradation in culture and working practices. Taking on new people, trying to engage with the team and create ‘one culture’ was almost impossible.

Being able to be together again was an opportunity to fill that gap and start something new.

A one-day team culture session for 20 people planned alongside a team development day to agree on what was important for the organisation, pick things to fix and to start that process.

The time investment – 2 days of planning sessions and content, 1 day of delivery and write-up

Sharing results virtually

After completing a review with a wide group of stakeholders, the project was moving towards building a tool to be used nationwide. The completion of the work was to accompany sharing the results and gathering input on the best way to take things forward.

Getting people together virtually to go through the results and to discuss what was important to them and what would be helpful in the real world.

A 3 hour online facilitated session to provide feedback and insight into what was important.

The time investment – ½ day of planning and preparation, ½ day of facilitation.

Submitting a grant application quicker/faster/cheaper

Responding to bids, grants, tenders etc. is a labour intensive process with typically a lot of different parts, people and opinions. Rather than take a prolonged process culminating in a some rushed late night sessions to complete it, the intent was to bring all the parties together in a room and work through the whole process in two 3 day sessions.

Committing to doing the hard work in the preparation and design, the participants could get answers almost immediately rather than waiting days for a response. The co-creation of the output and success factors, the engagement with the eco-system to get the whole effort completed meant an outcome in days rather than weeks.

The time investment – 5 days of planning and prep

Some example projects