In our first week in INSPIRE, we made heavy use of our ambassador, Parker. Even with the knowledgeable and supportive resource that he was, we struggled to understand the problem. As a result, we spent multiple days at the whiteboard, writing down, discussing, erasing, and writing down again everything we thought we understood about who we could help and what solutions already existed. Eventually, we uncovered the gaps in our knowledge and learned how to ask more targeted questions to Parker in order to gain valuable information.
Once we had a cohesive view of the issue ahead of us, our next big challenge was prioritization. Homelessness in Victoria is a sprawling tangle of a problem, and we were ambitious. We spent a couple of days exploring various issues within the housing sector—and soon we were swamped. We realized that to move past this overwhelming feeling, we needed to focus on a small set of specific user groups.
The well-meaning floundering we did in our first week gave us insights into what not to do as we rolled into our second week, and here we began to find our groove. We identified our main problem as the fact that emergency shelters currently use a pen-and-paper management system, which impedes how efficiently they can provide access to the beds people need and how quickly they can transfer individuals into transitional housing. We narrowed our scope to an achievable goal, focusing specifically on providing more efficient management and communication solutions for emergency shelters. After restricting our scope and selecting a specific user group, we experienced a significant spike in productivity.
A great advantage for us was Parker’s suggestion that we choose specific roles. Each of us is in charge of one of the three main prongs of our apparatus—frontend, backend, and marketing/management—which has allowed each of us to swiftly dive into learning the tools and skills we need, without worrying about mastering everything. We split our days between collaborative and individual work and hold daily morning meetings with Parker, where we can present our progress and receive his feedback. Later, the three of us have another, shorter meeting at the end of the day, where we reflect on challenges and what we’ve learned. This has been a great opportunity to ask clarifying questions and ensure we’re all on the same page before we come in the next day.
We’ve approached the project with Enterprise Design Thinking in mind but have found it difficult to understand exactly what each user group will need. We’ve learned that only through interviews can we empathize appropriately with what users will require. For example, during an in-person visit to the front desk staff at an emergency shelter, we discovered that because many staff members are busy and may find new tools intimidating, our solution must have an interface that requires as few clicks as possible to complete a task and is intuitive for people who don’t often use technology.
The diverse range of our respective knowledge bases has been a minor challenge. For instance, we had to rethink how we explained technical terms for team members who were not as fluent in technical jargon. However, since we all come from different programs, this has also provided an opportunity for us to learn from each other and support one another in learning.
Every day is a new surprise. We were surprised that there doesn’t yet exist a better management system between shelters, surprised at how much time goes into interviewing and problem exploration, and surprised that our team has more in common than we thought, allowing us to start working together almost immediately. We’re learning more lessons in our second week and are excited to learn even more in the weeks to come.