The NHF Housing Futures Programme (HFP) is hosting one of the biggest collaborative exercises ever undertaken by our sector, with housing associations across the UK coming together to help solve some wicked problems.
The HFP started in January 2020 with the first phase ‘Identify the challenge’ where representatives from Housing Associations attended regional roundtables and meetings to identify the systemic challenges facing our sector.
For the second phase, HFP was on the lookout for Insight Leaders to help facilitate workshops all across the UK to gain valuable insights to help direct the future of the programme. Solid insight and real human problems are at the centre of truly impactful innovation.
Myself and Adam saw this as a great opportunity to get involved in this huge collaboration programme to utilise our facilitation skills and learn some new ones. We both applied, and i’m really happy to say we were both accepted!
Day One : ‘Head down to the basement’
On Tuesday 10th March, Adam and I headed down to London for 3 days facilitation training with ?Whatif! Which I’m sure you will agree is an absolutely amazing opportunity.
With my train being cancelled I had to scramble for the next one and after arriving in London later than I expected I headed to the training which was based at Wallacespace in Clerkenwell. Reception told me to head straight to the basement, I was beginning to question what I had let myself in for! Thankfully the space was amazing, really light and bright and all the sugar on constant supply with drinks, sweets and biscuits. After a short introduction from James Green and Bethan Buck about the importance of what it is to be an Insight Leader, we met the ?Whatif! team Harry Lloyd, Hannah Scarf, Kit Braithwaite and Rae Dominique and proceeded to hear about the session we would be delivering across our regions and for the first day we would-be participants. The team were engaging, funny and informative, you couldn’t help but hang on every word they said.
Now we don’t want to give too much away as you may be attending one of our sessions in the West Midlands but here are a few things we learnt about on day one.
PPP. You need to outline the Purpose, Process and Payoff. Start each session with this to align everyone on expectations.
The 5 I’s of Innovation. Identify, Insight, Idea’s, Incubate, Impact.
Energisers. Whilst energisers might just seem like a bit of fun they are so much more than that. There’s clear logic behind the role they fulfil. They disconnect us from distractions, connect us as one and prime us for what’s next.
Mindsets. This is all about unlocking a new approach to problems through fresh ways of thinking and about Expansive and reductive thinking. Expansive thinking is about creatively exploring possibility and options; focusing on what could be. Reductive thinking is about analysis and judgement; focusing on what should be.
Rivers of thinking. Finding fresh perspectives is the catalyst for innovation, and acknowledging we may be stuck in old ways of thinking.
Behaviours. We learnt about forging the way for innovation through behaviours that underpin and inspire the entire process.
Insight. This is all about getting up close and personal with your challenge so that you can unearth true and powerful human problems and ensure you’re not working on incorrect assumptions.
“Data makes your briefcase heavy, insight makes you rich”
Niall FitzGerald, ex-CEO of Unilever
Clue Capture. It’s easy to complete an insight interview, say goodbye to the consumer, sit back and consider a job well done. But without a systematic, structured approach to capturing what you’ve heard, all the richness and depth from the immersion can get lost, confused or misconstrued. Using tools such as a Clue Compass, Funnel of Questions and flashes should allow you to become the best detective getting valuable insights.
As you can see, that’s a whole lot of information to take in, and the feel of the room was tired, confused yet intrigued. Here’s Adams sketch note of the day.
Day two: Proudly Presenting…Your West Midlands Insight Ninjas!
Day two we got to meet our regional team members who we would be delivering our insight sessions with. So as you may already know myself and Adam work with the Innovation and Design Team at Bromford. Next up with have Andy Morrison from Orbit, Tom Cannon from the Black Country Housing Group and Ned Crosher-Markwell from Castle Vale Community Housing! and what a team we are! We look great together, right?
We spent the day practising our new skills as a team, getting to know each other and learning what our strengths and weaknesses were (not that we had many because we’re awesome). But pretty quickly we realised that each person’s individual personalities and strength’s proved to be the perfect combination for us to be one badass team of Insight Ninjas.
Now through all this, we were pushed out of our comfort zone, we had to be brave and we had to get comfortable feeling uncomfortably lost. We were all in the same position, doing something we’ve never done before, but it was a safe space to enjoy this journey, and there’s no doubt we made absolute tits out of ourselves doing some of the energizers but it was genuinely so much fun and really lifted the energy in the room.
In the afternoon, we all picked a part of the presentation that we felt comfortable doing and had to record ourselves speaking on our phones, cringe! It allowed us to see how we might do things differently, or hold ourselves in a certain way, like when I did mine I had no clue what to do with my hands, felt a little bit like Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights. I think we all left that day feeling happier we knew who our teams were, drained from taking in so much information but somewhat confident that we were all geared up and ready for this challenge.
Day 3 : Elvis has left the building
On the last day, we started planning out our session that we are going to deliver at two workshops in the West Midlands and discussing the challenge in hand. We figured out who felt more comfortable in certain subjects, and that Ned needs to do all the energizers because he’s great at doing them and most importantly when lunch was going to be.
With a little bit of an Elvis Energizer, we drew our session to a close. ?Whatif! Were amazing, Bethan and James have been amazingly helpful and overall I feel every person in the room thoroughly enjoyed their three days. The team has come away with a whole heap of new skills and tools (and a box full of goodies) which we can implement not only at our Insights workshops but also in everyday work and we are all SO excited to deliver these to you.
So what’s next
With current COVID-19 challenges, the workshops are temporarily on hold, but you can bet your bottom dollar we will be ready, willing and hyped when we get to deliver these workshops with a wiggle, clap and stamp (inside joke) to help to gather the most important insight like the Ninja’s we are! After these workshops, there is going to be a three day ‘Hackathon’ facilitated by ?Whatif! To delve a little deeper into our challenges and where participants could potentially be picked to take part in the 16-week full-time Greenhouse Programme. Pretty exciting, right?
So hopefully we will see you soon, and don’t forget to keep an eye on NHF Housing Futures for rescheduled dates.
@K_M_Fletcher
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