[community] Designing services for inter-sectionality

Sat Apr 10 19:28:58 UTC 2021

Hi everyone, thanks again for the contributions to this thread, I've found
all of the suggestions very helpful and inspiring.

It seems to me that when we consider equity and inclusion in organizations,
these are not outcomes but rather they are vectors.  The outcomes of moving
toward greater inclusion need to be more specific, and 'SMART' e.g. serving
communities or customers who are traditionally left out or whose needs have
been ignored/suppressed; representation of under-served or marginalized
groups in design teams, decision-making or ownership/governance bodies, etc.

As Greg's article highlights, these objectives ought also to include
identifying and mitigating risks of emergent properties as they may affect
different people in different ways, especially given differences of power
and capacity to adapt.

All of which to say, being an inclusive organization requires action on
many fronts simultaneously but without a simple measurable outcome (such as
a stock price) to end the race.  It never ends, and nor should it, as
people's needs and expectations change along with the focus and purpose of
the organization.

So might we be able to adapt the concept of a 'maturity model' from digital
development, to capture this requirement for a multi-layered, continuous
improvement approach? Has anyone on this list seen or created or created an
inclusion maturity model for organizations?

Conceptually I think one advantage of a maturity model approach is that it
would integrate the organizational capability dimension with the
mission/value proposition on the same spectrum.

Such a framework or model would obviously need to be adapted to
teh specific conext of the organization, for example taking into account
the needs and preferences of their stakeholders and i'd be interested an
any examples relating to public service delivery e.g. schools, healthcare,
social services, mental health, housing, childcare, etc.

Any thoughts? thank you!

On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 7:45 PM Greg Van Alstyne <
gvanalstyne at faculty.ocadu.ca> wrote:

> Hi John,
> Great question and great project possibilities. Sharing some ideas & I
> hope these are new to you &/or hit the spot.
>
> For better anti-oppression grounding I've been connecting with the Design
> Justice Network, Sasha Costanza-Chock's book and the principles:
> https://designjustice.org/read-the-principles
>
> The Flourishing Business Canvas (FBC) from the Strongly Sustainable
> Business Models Group (SSBMG), draws evidence-based core criteria from The
> Natural Step (TNS). Recent material from The Natural Step goes deeper to
> addressing intersectionality, by means of better articulating System
> Condition #4 "In a Sustainable Society …there are no structural obstacles
> to people’s health, influence, competence, impartiality and meaning."
> https://thenaturalstep.org/approach/the-system-conditions/. sLab at OCAD
> U is fostering development of the FBC and related, original tools and
> methods. The initiative is achieving maturity with a large, globally
> distributed community of practice, peer-reviewed publications, and a
> Flourishing Enterprise Institute is forming. The Flourishing canvas takes
> Osterwalder's BMC and reworks / extends it with people / planet / profits
> criteria. There is also a "Lean for Flourishing" project branch. One
> starting point for canvas PDF, youtube videos, wiki, other online materials
> is
> https://slab.ocadu.ca/group/strongly-sustainable-business-model-group-ssbmg
>
>
> sLab's DesignJam develops toolsets and skillsets through facilitated,
> sponsored events: co-located F2F, online and hybrid. We blend service
> design, systemic design and strategic foresight in support of positive
> systems change through participatory design with communities. A notable
> example we coproduced with Generation Connection is #NorthJam:
> https://designjam.ocadu.ca/events/403/northjam-collective-discussion-northern-ontario
> "How might we diversify our economic foundation, support young people in
> transition, build and foster diversity and revitalize downtown areas in
> Northern Ontario cities?"... DesignJam incubated as part of OCAD U's Campus
> Linked Accelerator (CLA) & we are currently using the COVID hiatus to move
> outside the university and fledge. We seek clients, partners and pathways
> to address UN SDGs in conscious interaction with 'deep shifts' including
> AI, data literacy, localism, IoT. https://designjam.ocadu.ca/
>
> sLab and SFI people are co-founders of the Systemic Design Association.
> While Systemic Design epistemology / methodology is akin to service design,
> understands and does that stuff, SDA people are scholarly practitioners
> using systems & complexity science (including human sciences) to bring
> much-needed theoretical and ethical underpinning to policy frameworks,
> service architectures, delivery channels, with intention toward fairness,
> inclusivity, minimizing & mitigating unintended consequences.
> https://systemic-design.net/sda/
>
> Together with SDA people, sLab's Peter Jones is a co-developer of the
> Systemic Design Toolkit
> Background, OCAD U connection - https://www.systemicdesigntoolkit.org/
> Main site - https://www.systemicdesigntoolkit.org/
> Overview booklet -
> https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/SystemicDesignToolkit-Guide-2019.pdf
>
> I'm interested to learn more about your plans...
> All the best,
> --Greg
>
> Greg Van Alstyne  BA (Hons), MS  (he/his)
> Associate Professor, Faculty of Design
> Director, Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab)
> OCAD University, Toronto
>
>
>
>
> On 2021-04-01, 8:22 AM, "community on behalf of John W (personal)" <
> community-bounces at lists.idrc.ocadu.ca on behalf of pickupwillis at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>     Hello inclusive community,
>
>     My team and I are looking for resources to integrate intersectionality
> into
>     service design.  We work on public service delivery to marginalized
>     individuals, and looking for ways to bring an anti-racism lens into our
>     inclusive design work.
>
>     > Do you recommend any specific tools or methods for designing services
>     using an intersectional lens?  It's not difficult to locate general
>     material but we'd like to build our tool library for use across the
> Ontario
>     Public Service.
>
>     We are especially interested in any work that would enable us to embed
>     equity and intersectionality in business processes - e.g. are you
> aware of
>     any work related to ongoing business processes in service systems,
>     recommended customer feedback techniques , the use of LEAN or other
>     continuous improvement methods, or.
>
>     Also if you are aware of any key indicators or other evaluation
> frameworks
>     for equity in social service delivery, that would be very much
> appreciated.
>
>     --
>
>     *John D. Willis | CE CAIP MDes*
>     Design & Innovation in Public Services
>     Toronto CANADA
>
>     Garbled text? My apologies - speech-to-text technology is still a work
> in
>     progress...
>     ________________________________________
>     Inclusive Design Community (community at lists.idrc.ocadu.ca)
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-- 

*John D. Willis | CE CAIP MDes*
Design & Innovation in Public Services
Toronto CANADA

Garbled text? My apologies - speech-to-text technology is still a work in
progress...