Co-design Your P(a)lace Workshop
Service Design Regeneration Symposium
Organizer and participant of a week-long (20 - 25th August 2018) Service Design Sprint Workshop held at the Palace in Siemianowice Śląskie, Poland. It is a project, that aims at the inclusion of international community of students in the revitalization process of the palace-park complex in Siemianowice Slaskie - one of the most valuable witnesses of the history of the development of Silesia.
Client
+ Stajnia
+ Inspiration Point
Brief
The private organization bought the 4000 sq. meter palace complex, which was kept barren since last 30 years. The local government and European Union provided a grant to revitalize the palace with a special condition of using the two wings of the palace space for promoting entrepreneurship in the creative sector. The workshop was composed of Service Designers from London College of Communication, MBA graduates from Copenhagen Business School and entrepreneurs from the local Silesian community. 5 teams having 5 members each.
The challenge:
How might we design co-working space at the C wing of the Pałace Inspiracji as a sustainable service connecting creative business with local community engagement?
My Role
My role was to facilitate a team composed of two other service designers, an MBA graduate and an entrepreneur from the local region to go through an intense 5 days of the workshop, finding an innovative solution. Every day of the workshop comprised of lectures from different speakers and experts from London, Copenhagen, and Poland. And thereafter use the information in developing a sustainable solution. I believe that my major contribution was to find the insight that shaped the solution.
Methodology
A series of workshops were held in London and Copenhagen before the main event to plan the methodology to be applied. The methodology to be applied is inspired by Google Sprint, Agile and Service Design tools developed by the client company. A schedule and tools list is shared below.
Process
Monday
Anna Bielak-Dworska, the lady who lead the project introduces the vision of her company. The senior management along with the President and the Marshall of the local government share their views and vision of the palace.
The teams are revealed through a gamified way. We sit together, share our views and expectations from the next 5 days. The team shares their skills and what each of them would like to learn and do.
We go through the brief in detail to understand the problem statement in depth. At the right corner is the picture of the stakeholders in the ecosystem related to the project. We also work on a tool that helps us to define the situation and the problem.
Tuesday
The team is introduced to potential users of the palace space. We brainstorm the questions and decide on what is the area that we want to focus.
The people we interviewed could speak English and made our job easy to improvise. The guests were local artisans, entrepreneurs, social activists and most importantly, admirers of the palace.
The team organized all the information from the desktop research and interviews to bring out trends. SWOT analysis tool helped to clasify trends.
Wednesday
A lot of questions are raised on the thinking and the process we are taking forward. A stage, where it is important to define the insights so that the solution is aptly targeting the problem identified. We debate, question each other, go crazy but slowly and steadily can see some light through the camera lens.
At the end of this day, we have to present to all the other participants and guests of our findings till date.
We make personas, define the basic journey map and connect the dots in the concepts identified.
Now, we are ideating the solution based on the trends and the insights we figured out from the Service Design tools.
Our concept, a co-working space will be organised in a Membership System where the users will take advantages from the network and space by paying points and gain points by adding value to the ecosystem.
Thursday
We are able to put the thoughts on the paper by narrating the story of our user. The points system is explained at the left and how the user goes about it at the right. We were getting to a point of understanding the culture of the place, how people think, what they perceive of the palace and what does work-life balance mean to them.
We made paper prototypes of the solution that we had. A calendar system that could help the manager of the co-working system to manage all the members of the co-working space.
This day was filled with intense discussions with the team, taking inspiration from the talks being held every day in the morning session and some fun activities with the team members to lighten up. The four intense days had taken a toll on every one and it was time to collect all thoughts and bring a solution on the table.
Friday
The last day was spent on completing a Business Model Canvas and a Service Blueprint.
It is on Friday morning that I had my eureka moment in the project when I thought of focusing on the Musicians who would like to JAM in the co-working space and would like to work as professionals in other hours.
Outcome
Co-Wing Working Palace is a co-working and a jam space altogether for artists cum working professionals in the C-wing of the Palace. Space will be agile in its operations and flexible in organizing the sitting areas. Additionally, space will encourage community development and skills exchange among the members.
It is a place where working professionals from diverse backgrounds can be a member of the community. But, each member should be related to the field of creative arts, specifically music, in one way or the other. Space will provide jam sections, meeting rooms and individual sitting areas to fulfill both aspects of professional work and music sessions. The members, once selected will be a part of points based system, called wings. A member will earn 'wings' when he/ she serves the community and can spend the 'wings' to get services for him/her self from the community.
Saturday
Key Learnings
The biggest learning was to facilitate a service design workshop with people who have no idea about Service Design because a lot of processes and tools deal with uncertainty and all participants have to be patient to get the result.
Equally challenging it is to organize with people who know Service Design because a lot of time is spent on what tools to use next going forward.
Although the organizers paid attention to every minute detail, I believe that the team should be introduced beforehand. This could help understand the expectations of each team member and a lot of time could be saved during the process.
Rest and detachment from the proceedings are necessary to bring the best insight for the result. The thought is there but just needs to come out at the right moment.