What’s your natural approach when you hear a new idea, a new solution or a new way of doing things? Is your instinct to consider the advantages and benefits, the challenges and risks or do you want to know the facts and figures? Can you easily change your initial approach to analysing a new idea?
At our Challenge Panel, on Friday 7 September, we asked our attendees to do exactly that. We asked them to wear different hats… metaphorical hats… to encourage a variety of feedback. The feedback was on solutions identified at our Children and Families hackathon attended by over 60 representatives including local authorities (see the blog ‘Children and Families Hackathon’ for more details), for our targeted focus on vulnerable children and families in London.
We had a range of attendees at the Challenge Panel, including senior representatives from local authorities, charities and policy organisations, each bringing a wide range of expertise, experience, and insight. There were six different hats that our panel wore, each one representing a different perspective (see image).
This allowed our strategic subject matter experts to provide us with a range of feedback from different perspectives. It was impressive to see the ease with which challenge panel members adopted their hats, even when it wasn’t a natural preference! Of course, we did allow attendees to take their ‘hat’ off and contribute ‘out of the hat’ comments as well.
The London Ventures programme is about approaching problems in London with innovative ideas. Wearing a ‘hat’ that challenged attendees to change their natural approach to analysis expanded on this theme. We discussed a variety of solutions, including ‘Happy Nappies’ and ‘Virtual Circle’. Happy Nappies is about using nappies to provide universal advice to parents and signposting them to appropriate support in the area. Virtual Circle is a data capture tool to allow children to express themselves more effectively and to record the child’s story. You can find out about more of our solutions on our digital ideas platform, HunchBuzz. The feedback on the solutions highlighted some key considerations we need to take as we develop the solutions, a sense of how we make them more viable and an idea of which ones we should be taking forward.
Our next event is a Young People Hackathon on 3 October, where 30 young people and local authority representatives will generate further innovative ideas. Gathering solutions from young people is crucial for us as a programme to ensure we understand the perspective of those who are affected by the challenges.
We are seeking feedback from individuals and organisations to develop our identified solutions and contribute any further ones. You can see each of the proposed solutions on the London Ventures HunchBuzz platform. Please do get involved – create an account in less than a minute and get commenting on HunchBuzz today.