1. Excepts from...
CO-DESIGNING
THRIVING SOLUTIONS
A prototype curriculum for social problem solving
e
Based on th
Working Backwards
nd the work
Approach a Redesign
al
of the Radic I
Te am @ TACS
Prepared for...
Global Innovation Academy,
Pathfinder Programme Series, Singapore
10 & 11 November, 2011
CO-DESIGNING THRIVING SOLUTIONS
tacsi.org.au/curriculum

2. Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions
Co-designing
Working with people, practitioners
and policymakers to develop new
kinds of solutions.
Thriving
Actively developing.
Solutions
A set of interactions and experiences
that spread as principles, platforms,
organisational models, & programs.

3. Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions
Introduction
Educational disengagement, crime, drug addiction, unemployment, Developing a curriculum
indigenous inequality. We believe systemic social problems require new Perhaps the only thing that has been more frustrating than our past
kinds of solutions. And new solutions require new ways of working. attempts to prompt change with people, has been our past attempts to
Welcome to excerpts Co-designing Solutions, a curriculum designed prompt change in how policymakers and practitioners work. We’ve run
to equip teams with new ways to co-design solutions. Solutions that heaps of workshops, lectures, and action learning groups that have done
focus on thriving, not just on meeting basic needs. Solutions that are little to shift work behaviour.
fundamentally about prompting change, not maintaining the status quo.
We take from this that prompting change is hard, and demands far more
We’re here because we kept asking: is there a better way? Too many of rigour and resource. We’re putting rigour and resource into prototyping
our past projects have gone nowhere. Projects where we invested a heck this curriculum. Over the coming 12-months, we’ll test four big hunches:
of a lot of ourselves, and used all the methods we were trained in, neither
prompted change for people nor systems. Our first hunch is that skills and tools are insufficient for working
differently. In the past, we’ve used a ‘toolbox’ teaching method, only to
Chris’ design-led projects engaged people through exciting interactions, find people struggle to figure out when, where, how, or why to use the
but failed to impact on the systems around people. Sarah’s policy-led exercises and strategies. Now we think the focus needs to be on adopting
Hunch 1
projects engaged policymakers with compelling arguments and new a mix of behaviours across a range of contexts.
frameworks, but didn’t change people’s behaviour in or outside of
systems. We both found ourselves doing a lot of work, but not shifting Our second hunch is that changing behaviours requires immersive,
people’s lives. experiences. While we’ve long held the view that social interventions need
to do more than transmit information to change behaviours, we haven’t
Working together for the first time in London on a project to improve followed suit in our own teaching. In this curriculum, we aim to provide
Hunch 2
outcomes for young people, we discovered behaviours, skills, and tools developmental experiences through hands-on live project work.
Chris Vanstone & in each other’s way of working that complemented the limitations of our
Sarah Schulman own. Sarah was new to the design behaviour of prototyping. Chris was Our third hunch is that this kind of work can really only be done by
Co-leads, Radical new to tools of logic modelling and frameworks for behaviour change interdisciplinary teams. We suspect that our past teaching has focused
Redesign Team, TACSI and
founders of InWithFor
from the social sciences. on the wrong unit: individuals. Indeed, we believe the strength of
the approach lies in the continuous blend of different disciplines and
Over time, and not without some confusion, we began to codify what Hunch 3 perspectives.
we were learning about how to change behaviour. We named our hybrid
problem-solving process ‘Working Backwards’ because it proceeds in a Our fourth hunch is that the best way to teach a blended approach is to
different order to usual policy development. break concepts down into their component parts - to idenity what exactly
can be designed - alongside learning about whole solutions.
Out of our first year of work in Australia with and for The Australian Centre
for Social Innovation (TACSI) came the solution Family by Family, a new Hunch 4 Like everything we make, this curriculum is a prototype and we value
network of families helping families. It’s a solution that seems to shift your feedback. The curriculum was written from a UK / North American /
behaviour and which is attracting the attention of policymakers. Australian perspective. We’d love to learn what’s applicable beyond those
contexts and what’s not.
We hope to spread the ‘Working Backwards’ approach to co-design more
solutions to systemic social problems. This curriculum aims to equip
teams, in and out of public systems, with the behaviours, skills, and tools
to do that.

4. Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions
Thriving lives
“ Today, the core challenge for most of us living in the West isn’t
how long we live, but how we live - how we age, how we work,
how we connect to others. We don’t just want to get by - to be
The Thriving Outcomes
An ongoing set of
behaviours that keep lives
moving in a good direction.
insured from risk or protected from social circumstance - we want
to be able to thrive. We want to have fulfilling relationships, to find
and use our talents, to feel good and in-control, to have a purpose,
to enjoy how we spend our time, and probably most of all, to know Building
relationships
we matter as people.
Pursuing Using capabilities
aspirations
“ If we truly want more people to thrive, existing welfare systems
and services won’t do. We need different kinds of social solutions
- principles, platforms, organisations, and programs - designed
with us, to develop our capabilities, aspirations, relationships, Feeling Achieving things
and achievements. In practice, we need social solutions that can good
shift our behaviours towards where want to go, not just to where
systems and services want us to go.
This requires social solutions that can broaden our preferences
and motivations, teach us new skills, provide us with feedback,
cultivate support networks, help us feel competent & in-control,
and remove barriers to change.

5. Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions
Solutions that thrive Solutions that thrive...
Increase people’s
aspirations, capabilities,
relationships &
“ Great social solutions aren’t just designed with and for people, but
within economic and political contexts. Shifts in political priorities,
political leadership, and fiscal resources are often windows of
achievements over time.
opportunity for new solutions to take hold. By identifying and
exploiting these windows of opportunity, great solutions not
only enable people to thrive, but are themselves thriving in their
contexts.
Solutions that thrive
Solutions that contribute to thriving lives, generate resources, and leverage
the economic & political ecosystem to spread.
“ The life-time and inter-generational costs associated with
our existing services and systems - with the stagnation and
dependency they inadvertently spawn - are high. Where society
has invested in solutions that develop our capabilities, aspirations,
and relationships, (rather than just manage risk) we’ve seen
impressive financial gains.
For instance, for every dollar invested in high-quality early
childhood education, there is a $16.14 return on investment in Solutions that thrive...
increased wages, more taxes paid, greater contribution to the Leverage the
community, and less use of welfare, health care, and the criminal economical & political
justice system.1 ecosystem to spread.
When you look at people not as clients or customers, but as co- Solutions that thrive...
producers, their capabilities, relationships and aspirations are not Generate resource:
only outcomes, but inputs that can further develop the solution’s Outcomes generated
resource base and reach. by the solution become
inputs.
1 Schweinhart, Lawrence. “How to take the High/Scope Perry preschool to
scale. “High/Scope Educational Research foundation for the National Invitational
Conference of the Early Childhood Research Collaborative, 2007.

6. Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions
Traditional problem solving
“ Traditional policymaking, like widget making, is a vertical process:
decisions at the top flow down the chain of command. People are
the last to be reached.
“ When you want to sell thousands of widgets or process thousands
of welfare payments, you need a way of working that promotes
mass precision, continuity, and conformity. Bureaucracy is fit for
purpose.
When you want to enable people to build aspirations, capabilities,
achievements, and relationships, you need a different approach to
solving problems and a different way of organising the work.
Classic policy development
People engaged last - at
implementation.

7. Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions
Working backwards
“ To get to thriving lives we think you need a problem solving
approach that starts at the bottom with what people want and are
capable of, rather than at the top with what systems and policies
7 GROW
New solutions
want and have available to spend.
“ We call our problem solving approach ‘Working Backwards’ and
we organise our work in interdisciplinary, non-hierarchical teams.
Indeed, we work backwards as a team, first to work with people
to identify what people want and can do before co-designing and
prototyping new kinds of solutions and ways of spreading those
New team
solutions (e.g. principles, platforms, organisations, and programs). 2 LOOK & LISTEN
Each phase of our approach starts with a question. To answer the
question we draw on skills and tools from design, social science,
business and policy development. 6 VALUE
1 GET-READY
1 Get ready
What team fits the problem? Problem
2 Look & listen
New outcomes
What are good outcomes?
Working 3 Create
New systems
backwards What ideas could improve outcomes?
People engaged 3 CREATE
4 Prototype INTERACTIONS
at every stage of
development
What interactions shift outcomes? New scenarios
5 Prototype SYSTEMS
What supports new interactions?
5
6 VALUE PROTOTYPE
What value does the solution create? SYSTEMS
4 PROTOTYPE INTERACTIONS
New interactions
7 Grow
How can we spread the solution?

8. Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions
What can be co-designed?
User level interactions
Prototyping can help us develop user level interactions
(between people-people, people-machines, and
people-objects) that shape behaviours & enable
new aspirations, capabilities, relationships and
achievements over time.
“ We work backwards to co-design and prototype new kinds of
solutions and ways to spread those solutions.
What does that really mean?
When you work in the traditional, industrial era way, you design
rules, regulations, and processes that can be implemented from
top-to-bottom.
Instead, we work with people in their homes, workplaces, and
communities to design something far more basic: interactions.
Interactions are back-and-forth actions between people, and
between people and things. You’re interacting with this document,
and when you turn to your colleague to have a conversation about
what you’ve just read, you’re interacting with your colleague.
Solutions are a series of interactions over time - interactions that
enable people to thrive, and interactions that enable the solution
to thrive. Interactions that enable people to thrive help us develop
our aspirations, capabilities, relationships, and achievements.
Interactions that enable solutions to thrive help to organise the
flow of work, generate and manage resources, grow influence, and
expand reach.
“ We prototype all three kinds of interactions, but first use co-design
techniques to understand what thriving means and therefore what
the interactions could enable. Organisational level interactions
Prototyping organisational level interactions can help
us develop policies and systems that support user
level interactions. e.g HR, governance, and customer
relationship management.
Ecosystem level interactions
Prototyping interactions with other organisations,
potential partners, funders and policymakers can help
determine how a solution will spread.

9. Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions
New work behaviours
“
Analytic
When it comes right down to it, solutions that thrive are a set of
interactions that change people’s behaviour. The problem solving
approaches we use to get to solutions that thrive also require a People Generative
change in behaviour. They change the sequence of work (from the
bottom-up), who we work with (real people), and how we go about
our work (in flexible, interdisciplinary teams).
Indeed, we think great social problem solvers - whether public Storytelling
servants, innovators, designers, business analysts, community Making
organisers or social scientists - think and do different things. They
spend time with people in their context; they identify patterns
& trends; they turn abstract concepts into concrete concepts; Feedback
they make prototypes; they give and seek feedback; and they
craft compelling stories for different audiences. We call these the
people, analytic, generative, making, feedback, and storytelling
behaviours.
Behaviour New work behaviours
The actions or reactions of a person in response to external or internal Analytic behaviour
stimuli. What you think, feel and do in a particular situation. e.g. When Identifying patterns and trends; breaking complex concepts into
component parts; asking why and how questions.
you’re lost you may look at a map, ask someone, or follow signs.
Generative behaviour
Identifying and exploiting opportunities; developing new ideas;
applying concepts from one field to another; thinking visually and
laterally.
Enabling you and your team to develop these behaviours is the aim
of the Co-designing Thriving Solutions curriculum. People behaviour
Talking with; observing; listening; understanding, respecting and
contextualising people.
Making behaviour
Turning abstract ideas into real, tangible products; using your
hands.
Feedback behaviour
Showing work; making improvements; offering constructive
suggestions to others; failing; persistently iterating.
Storytelling behaviour
Developing rational and emotive arguments; using different
mediums; bringing ideas to life for people versus practice versus
policy audiences.

10. Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions Excerpts from Co-designing Thriving Solutions
Prototyping
“ Prototyping is a way of rapidly developing early hunches into
solutions that work for people. Prototyping involves testing
solutions at an early stage with users, in context and using what
you learn about what works (and what doesn’t) to improve your
solution. Any interaction can be prototyped be it at the user, People Storytelling
organisational or eco-system level.
Prototyping can enable you to build solutions that work faster and
cheaper because mistakes are made (and learnt from) earlier and
with less cost.
Analytic Generative
Prototyping involves moving through a loop of new work
behaviours. Good prototyping means having a clear understanding
of the user you are designing for, what outcome you are trying to
achieve with and for that user, and what aspect of your solution
you are prototyping.
1 People question Feedback
Making
Who is this for and what outcomes am I trying to enable with and
for them?
Testing
2 Generative question
What form could the solution take?
3 Making question
How can I best represent the aspect of the solution I am testing?
4 Feedback question
How can I best get feedback from the user of my solution?
The prototyping loop
Prototyping involved moving
5 Analytic question through a cycle of behaviours
multiple times improving
What can I do differently in the next iteration? your nacet solution on each
revolution.
6 Storytelling question
How can I communicate failure and lessons learnt?

11. Learning
briefs
Prepared for Global Innovation Academy
[Pathfinder Programme Series, Singapore 2011]

12. Brief 1
What can be designed?
NOT TO BE
OPENED BEFORE
10.11.11

13. Dissect solutions
The Task... For more on prototyping see
Dissect the following solution into its component parts and map a
user-level, organisational-level, and ecosystem-level interaction. This is service design thinking
Edited by Marc Stickdorn and Jakob Schneider
Group 1&4: Green House Nursing Alternative
Group 2: Girl Scouts / Girl Guides The starfish and the spider
Group 3&5: Pratham By Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom
Systems thinking in the public sector
The Details… By John Seddon
Groups of 6 - 45 minutes
See the next pages for your group’s brief Deconstructing analysis techniques
http://tinyurl.com/yknwm2k
The Steps...
1 Analyse
Look through the case study materials provided.
Divide your team into pairs. 1 pair will focus on user-level, 1 on
organisation-level ,and 1 on eco-system level. Using post-it notes,
identify the component parts of the interaction you’ve been given.
2 Make
In pairs, quickly sketch a storyboard detailing the scenes that
make up the given interaction, and the actors and props present.
Where there’s not enough information, creatively infer what actors
/ props might be present.
3 Get Feedback
Share storyboards amongst your small group, and stick your
storyboard to the wall for larger group feedback. Briefs >

14. Brief 1: Dissect solutions
Group 1&4
Green House
Nursing Alternative
The Solution: Your briefs
The Green House Nursing Alternative
http://thegreenhouseproject.org/ Pair 1 / User-level interactions.
http://vimeo.com/5806884 Storyboard elders’ interactions at meal time within the Green
House home (i.e. skech the scenes, actors and props an elder
The systemic problem: encounters before, during, and after meal time)
Too many older people in expensive institutionalised care with http://vimeo.com/5808073
poor quality of life outcomes. Indeed in the United States, half
of the 1.7 million people living in nursing homes suffer from Pair 2 / Organisation-level interactions.
untreated pain (USA Today, 2003). Storyboard the shahbazim role. How are they trained and how
are they organised? (i.e. sketch the scenes, actors and props
The identified opportunity: shahbazim encounter before, during, and after their training).
De-institutionalize long-term care by eliminating large nursing http://vimeo.com/5807912
facilities and creating habilitative, social settings which focus on
life and relationships. Pair 3 / Ecosystem-level interactions.
Storyboard what it takes for an organisation to sign up to the Eden
Alternative Registry (i.e. sketch the scenes, actors and props an
organisation encounters before, during, and after they sign-up).
The Eden Alternative is the set of principles & a philosophy
underpinning Green House Homes. The Eden Alternative Registry
offers a way to spread the ideas behind Green House Homes, not
just the physical buildings.
http://tinyurl.com/c8uehye

15. Brief 1: Dissect solutions
Group 2
Girl Scouts
The Solution: Your briefs
Girl Scouts / Girl Guides
www.girlscouts.org Pair 1 / User-level interactions.
Storyboard how girls earn some of the ‘new’ 21st century badges
The systemic problem: (i.e. sketch the scenes, actors and props a girl might encounter in
Too few girls have the role models, skills, or values to grow up to order to get a badge).
be effective leaders http://tinyurl.com/452gxbh
http://www.girlscouts.org/forgirls/
The identified opportunity:
To create new kind of leaders - leaders who value diversity,
inclusion, collaboration and are committed to improving their Pair 2 / Organisation-level interactions.
neighborhoods, communities, and the world Storyboard the volunteer recruitment process. How might a
community member become a girl scout volunteer? (i.e. sketch
the scenes, actors and props a person might encounter in order to
become a volunteer).
http://vimeo.com/17450655
Pair 3 / Ecosystem-level interactions.
Storyboard the Girls Scouts and Dairy Queen (DQ) partnership.
How does that partnership play out in Dairy Queen restaurants
across the United States? (i.e. sketch the scenes, actors and props
that are a result of the corporate partnership).
http://tinyurl.com/89xo3b9

16. Brief 1: Dissect solutions
Group 3&5
Pratham
The solution Your briefs
Pratham
www.pratham.org Pair 1 / User-level interactions.
Storyboard the Read India programme - a mass scale, rapid,
The systemic problem: learning to read campaign. In other words, sketch the scenes,
Nealry 80% of children in India do not complete elementary actors and props a child might encounter if they were part of the
education, and 50% of children actually going to school do not Read India programme.
know the 3 R’s after four years of schooling. Universal access to http://tinyurl.com/789svdx
education has not translated into actual improvements in learning
outcomes. Pair 2 / Organisation-level interactions.
Storyboard the volunteer mobilisation and training process. How
The identified opportunity: might somebody come to volunteer with Pratham? In other words,
To improve achievement in schools - and show how that drives sketch the scenes, actors and props somebody might encounter
improvements in enrollment and retention rates. before and during their time as a volunteer.
To rapidly improve learning outcomes though inexpensive, scalable http://tinyurl.com/7q59s2j
interventions in schools and in communities.
Pair 3 / Ecosystem-level interactions.
Storyboard how the Annual Status of Education (ASER) Centre
goes about implementing the Annual Status of Education Survey
and Report. In other words, sketch the scenes, actors and props
underpinning data collection. ASER is a centre sponsored by
Pratham that collects data in order to influence government policy
& philanthropic practice.
http://tinyurl.com/85kx3n5

17. Brief 2
Prototyping
NOT TO BE
OPENED BEFORE
11.11.11

18. Prototype an “organiser”
The task... For More, see...
Co-design and prototype an “organiser” to hold your partner’s The Craftsman
conference materials (eg this book, their pens, notepad and By Richard Sennet
workbook.) The outcome we’re after is your partner feeling
organised. Designing a handbag
http://productdesign.dundee.ac.uk/productprocess/?p=18
The details…
In pairs - 30 minutes
1 person = user
1 person = maker
The steps…
1 Analyse
How does your partner currently keep track of their conference
materials? What kind of bags, purses, cases, etc. are they currently
making use of? What’s working? What’s not working?
What does it mean to ‘feel organised?’
What would a great container to ‘hold & organise stuff’ look like?
What would a bad container look like?
2 Generate
Drawing on the available materials and other resources, sketch a
concept for some sort of device to hold & organise your partner’s
conference materials - and to complement any other bags or
organisational devices they may already have.
3 Make
Construct a first version of the “organiser”.
4 Get Feedback
As you are making your “organiser”, seek feedback. Keep track of
the number of iterations / alterations you make to the “organiser”.
How does the “organiser” work in the context?
How could the “organiser” be made more usable, useful &
delightful?

19. Brief 3
Prototyping
NOT TO BE
OPENED BEFORE
11.11.11

20. Build connections
The Task...
Co-design & prototype an experience to build connections between
conference participants & to achieve the following outcome
Group 1&4: Aim to enable enjoyment & fun
Group 2&5: Aim to enable supportive relationships
Group 3&6: Aim to enable knowledge sharing
The Details...
Groups of 5-6 / 1.5 hours
The Steps...
1 Generate
Hunches: what behaviours might underpin the outcome your
group was given? What kinds of interactions & experiences could
enable those behaviours?
Ideas: drawing on the available resources, how could you put those
interactions & experience into practice?
2 Make
a) A storyboard describing the experience
b) Two props (i.e. touchpoints) to bring to life the experience
3 Feedback
Test & tweak the props with another group. You might use role
play, or walk through an experience step by step.
4 Analyse
Observe how ‘users’ from the other group react to the storyboard
and props.
How do the scenes play out?
Inspiration >
What seems to work? What doesn’t?
What could be different?

21. Inspiration

22. Inspiration

23. Inspiration

24. Notes

25. Notes

27. The Australian Centre for Social Innovation exists to
identify and support the innovative ideas, methods and
people that will contribute to and accelerate positive social
change.
tacsi.org.au
TACSI’s Radical Redesign team blends design thinking,
policy thinking, social science and business to solve social
problems and demonstrate new ways of working with and
for social services.
tacsi.org.au/design
This curriculum was developed by Chris Vanstone and
Sarah Schulman, based on the Working Backwards
Approach and the work of the Radical Redesign Team.
tacsi.org.au/curriculum
Contact
sarah.schulman@tacsi.org.au
chris.vanstone@tacsi.org.au
© The Australian Centre for Social Innovation
November 2011
Attribution: TACSI & InWithFor