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Collaborating with older people
Why?
Older people are the source of the knowledge and relevant domain expertise needed by professionals in order to design effective services (pragmatic rationale). They should also be actively involved in all phases of the process in order to give them the opportunity to have a say in designing the solutions that will affect their life (political rationale).
We need to change how we work throughout the organization and stop thinking "I know what you need".
Employee
How?
Methods should be selected on the basis of their suitability for addressing the main challenges and questions of interest in the different phases of the decision-making and design processes. It is important to be aware of the potential shortcomings certain methods may have in the collection of data. Timings should also be considered when designing activities: be as flexible as possible, and be aware of the impact of bad weather on the scheduling of activities that require the presence of older people.
Examples of possible means:
- Test bed with a list of interested older people
- Information days for older people, organized by the municipalities, that bring together politicians, employees, private care providers, companies
- Home visits from municipality employees to all citizens over the age of 65
- Demo environments and mobile environments with demo products with dedicated people that collaborate with retired people’s associations
- Working groups composed of employees from the municipality and civil society representatives
- Information material produced in collaboration between the municipality and civil society representatives
- Retired people’s associations actively demanding information from the municipality
- Retired people’s associations’ representatives performing evaluations of care services
- Retired people’s associations’ commenting on new projects/pilots
Examples of possible techniques
Concept sorting
Concept sorting is a disciplined effort to go through the collection of concepts, rationally organize them, and categorize them into groups. The concepts are most often generated during focused ideation sessions.
Passing ethnography
Passing ethnography is conducted over a limited period of time in which the researcher engages with and seeks as much as can reasonably be obtained, and undertaken with the complicity of the people studied.
Open Space Technology
Open Space Technology is an approach for hosting meetings, conferences, corporate-style retreats and community summit events, focused on a specific and important purpose or task – but beginning without any formal agenda, beyond a very general one.
Persona
Persona is a method through which user personalities are defined and documented. Analyzing the types of potential users and organizing them according to sets of shared attributes define the personas. It is helpful to think of a persona as a personality type. A finite number of such personas are created and considered as representing the target users for the project. This range of selected personas frames the opportunity space so that innovation teams can focus on them for building concepts. Concepts are built to address the needs of these personas and to fit with the context.
Photo elicitation
Photo elicitation is a method that uses visual images to elicit comments. The types of images used include photographs, video, paintings, cartoons, graffiti, and advertising.
User journey map
User journey map is a flow map that tracks the user’s steps through an entire experience. This method breaks down the user’s journey into component parts to gain insights into problems that may be present or opportunities for innovations.
Collaborating with other professionals
Why?
Professionals have different professional backgrounds and work practices corresponding to different organizational cultures, structures, and technical contexts. Such a heterogeneity implies different ways of understanding what care for older people is about. Embracing these differences allows for the creation and delivery of offerings (a product or a service) with high value since they are based on a common and holistic understanding of actual problems, needs, and expectations.
The ideal scenario is that we think 10 years in the feature. Then it is really important to think wide in everything we now.
Employee
How?
Representatives of the directly affected organizations should be selected because of their knowledge of the involved domains. Different phases may require the involvement of different participants to generate the necessary knowledge.
Working groups with:
Examples of possible techniques
Concept sorting
Concept sorting is a disciplined effort to go through the collection of concepts, rationally organize them, and categorize them into groups. The concepts are most often generated during focused ideation sessions.
Passing ethnography
Passing ethnography is conducted over a limited period of time in which the researcher engages with and seeks as much as can reasonably be obtained, and undertaken with the complicity of the people studied.
Photo elicitation
Photo elicitation is a method that uses visual images to elicit comments. The types of images used include photographs, video, paintings, cartoons, graffiti, and advertising.
Semi-structured interview
The semi-structured interview is a method based on using an interview guide, which is an informal grouping of topics and questions that the interviewer can ask.
Collaborating with other organizations
Why?
Social issues related to welfare services are multifaceted and require both different expertise and the intervention of different actors. Furthermore, a favorable and supportive environment has to be created, in which multiple organizations and associations collaborate in order to achieve a result they would not be able to achieve alone. Such a widespread collaboration allows a diffused culture of cooperation to emerge.
When you work with innovations, you want to gather as many different angles as possible in order to have a large range of ideas to narrow down to a very good idea.
Employee
How?
It is necessary to move in different directions and with different attitudes. There isn’t a single mode of intervention. Organizations to involve should operate on different levels – top management, middle management, operational team – and with different logics, depending on the territorial coverage and specific goals to be reached.
Examples of possible means:
- Existing associations and companies: SKL– the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions
External link, opens in new window.; - Inera External link, opens in new window. – a company owned by SKL, the municipalities and the county councils for developing joint digital solutions
- Political arenas: Hjälpmedelsnämnden (Assistive technologies board – a political committee)
- Strategy documents: Regional Digital Agenda External link, opens in new window.
- Local alliances between municipalities to submit shared bids
- Common bid including several municipalities.
- Informal contacts between people due to spatial proximity
Examples of possible techniques
Passing ethnography
Passing ethnography is conducted over a limited period of time in which the researcher engages with and seeks as much as can reasonably be obtained, and undertaken with the complicity of the people studied.
Focus group
A focus group is a group discussion usually based upon stimuli (topics, visual aids) provided by the researcher.
Semi-structured interview
The semi-structured interview is a method based on using an interview guide, which is an informal grouping of topics and questions that the interviewer can ask.
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method is a facilitated meeting, communication, and problem-solving process in which participants are led through a series of questions, probing deeper and deeper into the subject. Each participant builds his or her own 3D LEGO® model in response to the facilitator´s questions using specially selected LEGO® elements. These 3D models serve as a basis for group discussion, knowledge sharing, problem solving and decision making.
