Our first project ‘Show + Tell’
As part of our project we’ve committed in project principle #4 that we’d ‘take the organisation with us’. The way we’re doing that is to hold ‘show + tell’ sessions throughout — short 20 minute updates for the core project team to invite stakeholders and the wider team to give an overview of what’s been happening. Little and often.
We had our first one on Tuesday, and whilst I initially worried we wouldn’t have enough to show or tell after only 4 days, we in fact had too much — we’ve had some fascinating insights from our early interviews.
It’s been almost a relief to have our initial problem validated so early on in our project — we know we’re on the right track.
Some early findings
Everyone has their own take, their own experience to offer — and yet after only a few days some consistent themes have already started to emerge.
- Some people not understanding how sick they are
Some people often have a diagnosis (a working label) but don’t have something that helps them to understand what the likely trajectory of that illness is going to be and whereabouts they are on it. If people were more aware they may start looking into it more closely.
- Practical as well as medical information
We visited a someone down in Southend on Sea who was very much in the ‘eye of the storm’ —she was in a period where she was desperately trying to find out if and how she could organise for her ex-husband to come home after he’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer. For her, the lack of coordination and inability to talk to one person who could sort out her issues was a major issue.
- The role of the Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS)
The role of the CNS has come up consistently in interviews as a good source of information, someone that is accessible and are able to answer questions that perhaps aren’t covered in consultations — it’s been striking quite how consistent (and positive) the feedback has been.
- Information ‘delivery’ in appointments
The setting in which information is delivered in an appointment has come up time and again…one person recognised a particular instance where she didn’t have someone with her in her appointment —and felt like whatever was said to her went “in one ear and out the other”. This is definitely something we want to explore further.
There have been many, many more insights that we’ll be sharing — and some we’ve already started to dig a bit deeper into.
Retrospective
As well as the show + tell we spent 20 minutes to go through:
- What hasn’t gone so well this sprint?
- What has been puzzling?
- What has gone well?
It was refreshing to look back on the week and just take some time to assess how it’d gone —we found that we could be better at communicating with some of the project team who aren’t involved day-to-day, and also taking some time to appreciate that it’s hard subject matter we’re talking about…some of the interviews have been tough going.
What’s next
We’ve got 10+ interviews scheduled over the next week, and will be spending an increasing amount of time on ‘desk research’ — looking into how people are trying to solve this problem already.