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On December 7, we will discuss the theme of impact. During this hybrid event, we not only want to talk about impact and the associated challenges, but also take a step towards offering a perspective for action. How can designers better interpret the impact of design activities? That is the central question and is the "red thread" of the event.
The
Programme
[online]
14:30 Zoom is open
15:00 Introduction
15:10 Presentation by Lisa Wolters
15:35 Presentation by Sophie Buchel en Frank van Steenbergen
16:00 End of plenary part
16:00 Breakout sessions
17:20 Wrap-up
Lisa Wolters
Sophie Buchel
Frank van Steenbergen
Breakout sessions
1. Impact on a systems level: How can several youngsters disrupt a system?
With Sophie Buchel & Frank van Steenbergen - Drift
2. Scootbezorgd Foundation: How to take the next step after your project is finished in order to guarantee the necessary impact?
Meant for senior social designers
With Frouke Engel
3. Vol van Impact - test de tool van Zeewaardig, Noorderwind en Kickstad!
This session is in Dutch
With Renate Hilhorst - Studio Zeewaardig
4. Value validation: How do you measure the effect of autonomy in an educational tool for group 7 and 8 (primary school)?
With Anniek Moll - TU Delft & A/BZ
5. What kind of impact can collaborations in the safety sector have on organisational transformation?
With Thomas van Arkel - TU Delft GOCI
6. Can we deduce the impact of designed encounters? And if yes, how?
With Joost van Wijmen - Stichting ENCOUNTER
7. The budget has run out but the project is not over yet: How do you ensure that the impact will still be realised?
Bring your own project!
With Marleen van Bergeijk - Studio Marleen van Bergeijk
8. What people and roles do you need to gain the impact you aimed for?
With Kornelia Dimitrova - Foundation We Are
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Update
Breakout sessions
1. Impact on a systems level: How can several youngsters disrupt a system?
With Sophie Buchel & Frank van Steenbergen - Drift
During this session the group will talk about the ‘Bouwdepot’ from Drift. De Bouwdepot aims to change a system and design a proper livelihood for young adults. 255 euros per month: That is the amount of social assistance benefit for young adults. The message to eighteen to twenty-one year olds is that they are adults, but are not paid as an adult (because of youth wages) and also do not receive adult support (because the youth standard is on social assistance). Specifically, the group talked about how the project can not just have impact at the project level (in the lives of vulnerable young people?), but also have an impact on the system that is failing them? To give an answer on this question the group used two models.
In the first model the group discusses how they can increase the system-level impact of a pilot, innovation or project, using five key aspects:
Radical: How to connect with the current system? And find a good balance between trust and mistrust.
Iconic: What are symbols for change?
Catalysing: Where is the friction? How can the system be challenged?
Timing: Can ‘good timing’ make a difference?
Learning: What can we learn from this?
Mobilizing: Which other parties do participate?
The second model makes three suggestions for scaling up the impact of existing/successful projects, by:
Scaling up: expanding, growing, finding new collaborations
Broadening: trying the project in new contexts, or connecting with other trying similar things
Deepening: expanding within the current setting, going on for longer, researching
The group discussed three ideas to deepen these suggestions:
How to deepen the question? - Learn from the interventions.
Scaling up the project. - Go to the government for collaboration.
Broadening the question. - Maybe combine more issues with the one from the ‘Bouwdepot’.
2. Scootbezorgd Foundation: How to take the next step after your project is finished in order to guarantee the necessary impact?
With Frouke Engel
During the session the group talked about Scootbezorgd. Scootbezorgd is a social and sustainable delivery service. The deliverers drive around in a special scooter or electric wheelchair. This delivery service is not about speed, but about personal contact, creating a network with colleagues and being active in life.
Some people in the group had the opinion that this concept can not fail to make an impact. This is because it is shaped as a business, startup and foundation. The concept they are building is an alternatief for the current system and therefore already making a positive impact. The group also discussed how Scootbezorgd can achieve impact. In light of this question they pointed out that there is a difference between social impact and how successful the business is.
3. Vol van Impact - test de tool van Zeewaardig, Noorderwind en Kickstad!
With Renate Hilhorst - Studio Zeewaardig
During this breakout session the group was testing a communication tool from Zeewaardig, Noorderwind en Kickstad. The main question was: How to communicate impact with clients? To start this discussion the host presented a number of questions. Some questions which were discussed: Who is responsible for measuring impact? What is the purpose of measuring impact? Is measuring impact an added value for a project? Is measuring impact a waste of energie? And, wouldn't it be better to invest this energy in the project itself?
Some interesting suggestions came up during this discussion. An expert in non-verbal communication pointed out that 80% of communication is non-verbal and that this tool does not respond to that. The group also noted that one half of the questions delve deeply into a specific topic within impact, and that in the other half the questions are open. Lastly the group suggested that impact is always changeable throughout the project and if one turns a blind eye to that at the beginning, a lot of important impact will be lost.
Read more about this breakout session in Dutch
4. Value validation: How do you measure the effect of autonomy in an educational tool for group 7 and 8 (primary school)?
With Anniek Moll - TU Delft & A/BZ
In breakout 5 we discussed the topic “ how to measure the effect of autonomy in an educational tool for group 7 & 8 of primary school”. Quite a subject to discuss. What stood out clearly from this conversation is that to have an inclusive conversation on realising such values as autonomy, it is important to include the target group throughout the process. Let’s not decide as designers what we define as realising autonomy, but ask young people themselves what they believe it means and think why they need to become an autonomous person. This is a pitfall that we might fall into many times as designers. With all the best intentions we still give meaning to a particular value and thereby already decide on what ‘defines’ the desired situation. While, if we want to be truly impactful it is necessary to ask the target group how they feel about the subject. In this manner, we can surpass our blind spots. Especially with a topic as autonomy in the context of education, there is a strong inclination to become normative. While realising autonomy maybe demands to take a step back and leaving enough room for interpretation and expression by people themselves.
Interestingly enough, we also found parallels with a programme of the municipality of Rotterdam to raise autonomy among adults that want to participate in the job market. We then asked: how can we define autonomy properly? We realised that it maybe becomes clearer what autonomy means when we think of moments where autonomy is taken from people. In this manner it becomes possible to define what circumstances are vital to achieve a particular autonomy and also illuminates particularities.
Then at last we asked ourselves: is it also something from this era to value autonomy so strongly? Why do we wish that everyone can become an autonomous person? Is this even a realistic perspective for everyone, considering contextual factors that will always interfere with the possibilities that one can have. If we consider why we believe it is important, we can also better define what we need to provide for people to equip themselves. Accordingly, for young people to grow up and make an autonomous decision of who they want to become.
5. What kind of impact can collaborations in the safety sector have on organisational transformation?
With Thomas van Arkel - TU Delft GOCI
During this session we discussed the role that design can play in achieving organisational change. Here, design(ed artefacts) can function as a *trojan horse*. Creative and attractive interventions can entice stakeholders while at the same time show new ways of doing, thereby strengthening their agility and capacity to learn and adapt. This requires connecting to the wider organisation and higher levels of management, which can be achieved by engaging people outside the project team in such a way that start to become ambassadors, or by connecting to milestones in the organisations that are already there to generate momentum (such as annual plans or vision pieces). However, as urgency in an organisation is often derived from the activities for which people are held accountable, engaging them in other activities that do not directly contribute to those goals can be a challenge. And often there is a budget for performing the design activities, but there is no budget for implementing the knowledge/learnings of that process.
We concluded by discussing some strategies for conditions under which organisational change can be made more probable. For instance, it may help to connect layers within the organisations (e.g. top, middle and lower management) and mix them, or to let designers and clients work on the same presentation instead of one presenting to the other. Designers who want to achieve more in terms of organisational transformation may have to shift from ‘selling products’ from a portfolio to showing ‘best practices’ to sell a process. When acquiring new projects (or better: processes) it is important to make explicit the space that is given by the organisation for the desired change.
6. Can we deduce the impact of designed encounters? And if yes, how?
With Joost van Wijmen - Stichting ENCOUNTER
One of the central questions during the session was to what extent we should know and measure the impact of our projects, especially when there is a meeting where context, emotions and human values play a part.
The project that has been discussed:
Dorian, together with some others, developed a project in which farmers and city dwellers met, with the aim of ultimately bringing farmers and politics closer together. Those meetings were a great success, they received enthusiastic reactions. But in addition to the enthusiasm, the question arose as to whether the problem was now solved. The farmers felt seen and heard by the city people, but in The Hague they were still not understood. At the moment, Dorian and the rest of the team are in discussions with stakeholders to follow up the project. But they notice that it is difficult to convince these stakeholders of the impact of this project.
How the group reacted to the question:
You can also ask the question the other way around: when has it not made an impact? Think of what you do as a stepping stone. Whether it is ultimately the right stepping stone, you do not know. You only know that afterwards. So you are walking in the dark and have to do a lot of these kinds of projects. Follow them up one after the other and eventually there will be impact.
The project creates a different way of thinking, so in that sense it contributes to the higher goal.
I think it contributes to the goal. Unfortunately, people are trapped in the system. It's not going to be possible to change that.
7. The budget has run out but the project is not over yet: How do you ensure that the impact will still be realised?
With Marleen van Bergeijk - Studio Marleen van Bergeijk
Own projects were included in this session. Even though the projects were very different from each other, what has been discussed is useful for all of them. Below a summary of the two main questions addressed:
Why was the intended impact not achieved?
Think, as a designer, about taking the lead in a design process. What are the consequences?
Discuss the interests in the target groups within the project: for which target group is this impact really important?
When impact can be achieved, as an entrepreneur you have to set up a business/project. Does that suit you as a designer?
Sometimes there is an impact on a personal level, but not in behaviour.
Start collaborations from the start of a project. It is difficult to get designers during a project.
What can be done differently? And what does work?
State that you will drop something or do it differently.
If it doesn't get picked up, you can just leave it. Afterwards you can pick it up as a learning moment.
Keep autonomy. Focus on the impact that is made at that moment.
The small things that change have an impact on the big system.
Not the right skills? or not the right motivation?
8. What people and roles do you need to gain the impact you aimed for?
With Kornelia Dimitrova - Foundation We Are
Five roles were identified during this breakout session.
Watchtower
Can foresee bad weather, has a general overview, looks at different directions and might not get the specific value for the project.
Bridge
Is like an ambassador, connects people, open minded, makes people visible and leads to new roads by introducing new ideas or knowledge.
The switch
Could be internal, forces you to make decisions, can be dangerous if it is only one person and simplifies decision making.
Mirror
It will bring out the answer you did not know you knew, self reflection and it is a role you can have yourself.
The (loud) speaker
Attracts diverse people to the project, amplifies one narrative, will fall and then knows it does not work and makes harder choices.
What have we learned?
The first speaker was Lisa Wolter, impact manager at Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie. Many designers attending this event know the Stimuleringsfonds, maybe applied with a project and spend many hours writing about their ideas and the impact they attend to make. For this event the roles turned around and we had an insight in how this organisation approached impact.
It was interesting to hear that the Stimuleringsfonds also concentrates on the long-term impact. When the project and the funding stops, the communications do not. For months after the project, they reach out and host meetings and send surveys. Furthermore they also focus on qualitative research. Within the projects they support, they organise focus groups and conduct qualitative interviews. This indicates that the Stimuleringsfonds and designers can be allies and work together when interpreting the impact of design activities. We are already looking forward to hearing more about that!
Our second speakers were Sophie Buchel and Frank van Steenbergen, both design researchers by Drift. They explain nicely how to devine impact as a social structure which is inline with Lisa's story; that impact does not have an end-goal. Their project had an interesting learning process assisted with tools which can be used by more designers who want to learn about the impact in their projects.
The design researchers see the evaluation process continuously, almost organically, where they work together towards that one dot on the horizon. Apparently even in this process interventions can conflict with that dot, which at the end is the recipe for radical ideas, solutions for wicked problems and will expand the achieved impact.