Check people have the right conditions

People are an important part of most policies or services. They can be highly effective if they have the right conditions. But if they don’t, the system might be unsustainable and this might force people to work around it. You can perform a simple check to see if the people in the system have what they need.

When to do it

Do this as part of your analysis of an existing system (following the activity in the chapter: shape your delivery network) or as part of your design for a new system (following the activity in the chapter: generate ideas to test).

How to do it

You should:

list all the types of role in the system
analyse which of the conditions are in place:
accountability for outcomes
decision-making power
resources (time and money) to spend

Try this activity

This activity will enable you to check if people in the system have the right conditions to be effective.

Time, space and materials

20 minutes
any space with a wall, sticky notes, flip chart paper, and pens for a face-to-face event
or for a remote event use a video conference and online whiteboard that will take the place of the wall and enable participants to add and move online ‘sticky notes’

Preparation

make a large Venn diagram of 3 overlapping circles

People to include

your team
subject matter experts
any number of people
a facilitator to give the instructions

Instructions

The purpose of the activity is to analyse if people in the system have the right conditions to be effective.

List all the types of role in the system. Write one type of role per sticky note. Stick your notes to the wall as you write them. You have 3 minutes.
Label the 3 circles: accountability for outcomes; decision-making power; resources (time and money) to spend.
Everyone should now move the sticky notes into the circles, buy only if the condition is present. Each sticky note should be placed inside 0 or 1 or 2 or 3 circles. Discuss the placement of each sticky note. You have 15 minutes.
You now have a map of who in the system has the right conditions to be effective.

Tips

The conditions should be scaled to an appropriate level. For example, a teacher should be accountable for students in their class (not the whole school) and a headteacher should be accountable for students in their school (not the whole town).

Next steps

If you are designing a new service or policy, then consider how you give everyone all 3 conditions.