Being Yourself at Work
by Mafalda Castro
Care for our care leavers like we would our own children. This is our project’s vision! To fulfil this vision,Being Yourself At Work is one of three project paths, looking at ways in which corporate parents bring their personal ways and characteristics to their professional role. For us, Being Yourself At Work means working differently supported by the organisation, and having a corporate family through love and relationships not blood. This theme is about (i) being professional and caring at work, and (ii) recognising that each young person needs different approaches to meet their needs fully and move forward.
Process overview 1
This first blog post presents a first project overview to help you situate the following process entries. Click on ‘Read More’ to see a bigger image of this process overview.
Mafalda Castro / 2020
Process 1. A theme to deepen our focus
As part of a team of 3 service designers, I have landed on this project after the co-design crew (young people and public servants) conducted a first round of research. Our first session with the Co-Design crew was aimed at…
Mafalda Castro / 28th January 2020
Process 2-4: Plan, prepare and conduct fieldwork
After the first session with the co-design crew, our sub-group met twice to prepare for fieldwork which was conducted between the 11th and14th of February 2020. Our first Plan and Prepare session was an evening session on the 4th of February 2020 where…
Mafalda Castro / 18th February 2020
Process 5-7: Analysis of data from fieldwork
To look at the data generated from our fieldwork and secondary case studies, we have followed six steps: Decide on filters to look at the data, Colour coding, Creating clusters, Naming the clusters, Linking the cluster to key descriptors of our theme, Choose key clusters to take to the ideation phase…
Mafalda Castro / 26th February 2020
Process 8: Findings: start with Language
Our team agreed that Language was a powerful way to start changing mindsets and influence the personalisation of support for each young person. We have also recognised that…
Mafalda Castro / 26th February 2020
Process overview 2
This second project overview has one additional final step to evaluate our final idea. This evaluation will be presented as one of the final entries in this blog. Click on ‘Read More’ to see a bigger image of this process overview.
Mafalda Castro / 03rd November 2020
Process 9-10: From findings to insights
Having defined three key clusters to work with we looked at the personas developed earlier in the project during the first round of fieldwork. We chose Siobhan and Patsy. This choice…
Mafalda Castro / 10th March 2020
Process 11-12: Getting creative
After the creation of the key insight cards and its prioritisation, the Key Insight Card 1 (cluster: Language) was transformed into the following question to spark ideas during a brainstorming: How can we make professional language relational?
Mafalda Castro / 14th March 2020
A pause
The dawn of Covid-19 in the UK led to a national lockdown, and the project was paused. We restarted our work remotely in October 2020.
Mafalda Castro / 30th March 2020
Process 13: Restarting remote co-design
After a pause in the project due to COVID-19 and the first national lockdown the project re-started, and we had to adjust our work plan and work mode to be fully online.
Mafalda Castro / 07th October 2020
Process 14-15: Creating a rich scenario and ideas
At this stage, it was important to create a rich story about our persona’s work (Siobhan) so that we could identify challenges or moments in that story that needed change.
Mafalda Castro / 26th October 2020
Process 16: Our final idea: Heart on Sleeve
A break between sessions allowed time for the group to reflect on the nature of our ideas and this session of collaborative creativity focused on a discussion that resulted in a final idea called: Heart on Sleeve.
Mafalda Castro / 03rd November 2020
Process 17: evaluating our idea
This final stage of our creative process included looking at the potential impact our idea can have in the council by reflecting on each need identified by us in Siobhan’s journey.
Mafalda Castro / 17th November 2020
Practitioner’s reflections (part 1)
Why did I choose to work with this theme? For me authenticity, transparency and trust are key in any relationship. In my work I try to show my true colours even when I am in a position of perceived power such as the role of facilitator or educator…
Mafalda / 27th August 2020
Practitioner’s reflections (part 2)
As designers, it is part of our comfort zone to work with techniques like the Octopus clustering, used in our first session with the co-design crew. We know what comes after in the process, and what outcome to expect from such a technique…
Mafalda / 26th August 2020
Practitioner’s reflections (part 3)
The first plan and prepare session had its challenges. This was a meeting where our group felt the tensions of the unknown process ahead. The group found itself…
Mafalda / 11th September 2020
Practitioner’s reflections (part 4)
To facilitate the group’s work, and improve the group’s productivity during our encounters, I have conducted background work in preparing, analysing, and rewording some draft texts. Although…
Mafalda / 12th September 2020