Stephen White

Design thinking Course – Coursera  Jan 2016  Page 1 of 2

Stephen White: Regional volunteering challenges  CHALLENGE  The challenge is to develop a region wide approach to volunteer development within a specific area  of South Australia.   The area contains a number of smaller size towns < 6000 people and several different local  government authorities (LGA) all operate relatively independently. The region is a predominantly  crop farming with the usual challenges of the same people, averaging 60+ years old, volunteering in  multiple organisations because ‘no one else will do it’.  There are common issues across the entire  region but no one has previously suggested a region wide approach to consolidating these issues an  develop an approach to encouraging volunteering diversity in the region.   What does regional volunteer development look like? Good question. This is the challenge we need  to explore. An outsider would suggest things like training, health and safety in the workplace, risk  management, governance and so on. But no one has asked the key stakeholders in the region. Their  understanding may look very different. This would suit a design thinking approach to circumnavigate  traditional thinking and develop new models of operating.    Selection  The tool selected was mind mapping. It was selected because some stakeholders may have had  exposure to it previously, but this could not be guaranteed (both comfort and non-comfort zones).   The key focus would be the question posed ‘What could a regional volunteer development plan look  like?’  We felt the tool would respect the diverse nature of the stakeholders and it was felt this might  achieve a number of things: unlock latent ideas; challenge resistance from some individuals; quieten  down or disempowering a number of individuals who always took over any group discussion because  their ideas were right; empower individuals who were very quiet and rarely said anything yet we felt  they had good ideas; providing a flexible environment where nothing was off the table; encouraging  ideas  and engagement; trying to identify patterns and potential outliers across the region; present a  clear picture of the matters requiring further discussion.     Application   We posted information around the room from previous discussions:  including a sample survey of  the issues faced by volunteer organisations; statistical evidence of volunteer rates and areas of  volunteer involvement; comments made by senior management of impacted local government  authorities and their respective regional strategic plans; the results of answers to previous questions  related to ‘The challenges faced by volunteer organisations’.   As part of the introduction we went through this information and reiterated the question  emphasising nothing should be excluded no matter how crazy it may seem. Dollars would not be a  limiting factor. This would be taken up in a later discussion.  Individuals were provided with sticky notes and given 5 minutes on their own to record as many  possible answers to the question. Then they were given an additional 15 minutes to wander through  the room and write down any more possible answers looking at the materials posted up. Individuals  were encouraged to also record on a different colour sticky note any additional info they felt they  might need. They were then paired up for 5 minutes and repeated the exercise to see if discussions  could generate more ideas. Once completed, they were asked to sit in tables of 4 and told to group

Stephen White

Design thinking Course – Coursera  Jan 2009  Page 2 of 2

all their ideas and write a title or theme for each group.  The notes were grouped from all tables  together with the titles.   This worked well and gave everyone sufficient time to develop lots of ideas – enough to fill an entire  wall! Going through to the ‘So What’ question was tougher and took participants a while to grasp,  possibly because we were not clear enough in our initial explanation and had to lead them through  it. We did get useful information & participants said it was challenging but rewarding. I felt we could  have done it better and that we seemed to lose some momentum. We found answers to this  question challenged underlying assumptions to the theme. Eg training in risk was a clear standout.  Asking ‘So What?’ revealed the underlying issue was risk aversion by LGA’s rather than duty of care –  an important difference – one is protecting the organisation, the other is about protecting others.   Overall I was reasonably happy with the outcomes.     Insight  See earlier comment. Allowing freedom for individuals to think outside the square was important.  Freeing individuals who were quieter meant generating many more ideas and an increase in energy  generated in the group. I appreciated the release of imagination and loved seeing the enthusiasm  grow as people developed ideas. Even the resistant individuals managed to overcome their own  need for power and control and joined in. All ideas were treated with the same regard, no one idea  was more important. It was interesting and exciting to see major themes surface but also see  responses to themes which were unexpected. I must admit some came up I did not expect such as  shared facilities and management; and youth development programs and qualifications.     Approach  After the success above we tried to fit the themes into a framework provided by National  Volunteering standards. This was a disaster!  It killed the enthusiasm and switched on the traditional  thinking approach. Even though we still used the mind mapping tool, it didn’t work. I think the  contrast was too great. Previously individuals were freed up to think and now we were expecting  them to conform to a pre established framework. A round peg in a square hole. It felt uncomfortable  and killed innovation.    I should have tried visualisation on the national standards. Participants could ‘design’ a regional  volunteer development plan through drawing – but in a different session. I think this approach  would definitely challenge folks but would hopefully release more creativity even though the focus  was on the national standards. We could then bring together the insights from this approach with  the other mind mapping and harmonise the two in a separate session. This approach combines the  traditional risk model via the standards but uses creativity to force individuals into approaching  them in a different way. Maybe next time!

