5 - Design
During the design phase we start to look at all of the possible solutions to the problems identified in the define stage. As part of our commissioning process we would look at all potential options for service delivery, not just how the services is currently delivered.
Objectives:
- Identify various solutions for meeting your customer needs
- Ensure the user is still at the heart of what you're doing
- Be able to compare and evaluate the different delivery options
What should you do in the design phase:
Look for solutions
From your discovery and define phases you're going to have gathered information which clearly details what the customer need is. Now you need to consider at all the different ways you can meet that need, to then be able to compare these and work out which is the best solution. To identify these solutions you should use tools such as a SWOT analysis, Brainstorming, Crazy 8's, or Top Five, which all enourage you and your team to consider as many different solutions as possible, no matter how 'out there' they may seem. Remember when looking at delivering services you should consider all the different ways including make, buy, share, divest and stop, which are explained in our commissioning toolkit.
Understand what's important to the customer
The user should be at the centre of service design throughout every phase, so whilst you may have defined the user need and come up with lots of solutions in order to evaluate which one is going to give you the best outcome you need to sense check if it's meeting the user need. It may be obvious if your solutions are meeting the user need but if not this can be identifed through focus groups with users to gather feedback on ideas or by roll play/body storming your ideas with your design team.
Evaluate your delivery options
Whilst user need is the most important part of service design this will always have to be balance with the needs of your organisation and as such you will need to compare and evaluate solutions to ensure you find the perfect balance you can use tools such as an options scoring matrix or a paired analysis and include any relevant weighting for user need.
You will also need to realise what the barriers of delivery may be, so mapping your solutions on a decision matrix will highlight what the quick wins are and which are the more difficult solutions and whether these are worth investing time into.
Don't forget to consider whether your solutions can impact on our commitments to biodiversity and climate change. When evaluating options you should ask yourself the four key questions, can my solution help:
the authority to be carbon neutral by 2030
the borough to be carbon neutral by 2030
the borough adapt to climate change
protect and enchance biodiversity
At the end of this stage you should be able to identify which of your options is likely to be best at meeting your customer need.
