NRCan’s Innovation Lab on Science-Based Public Engagement
By Sarah Fraser and Janice Cudlip
For the past four years, NRCan has been experimenting with a game-based learning activity to support successful integration of science and policy: the Science and Policy Team Challenge.
The Team Challenge generates great ideas, and helps employees develop better networks and a deeper understanding of the department’s role and mandate. In addition, they put in surprising amounts of effort (including their own personal time) and they highly value the experience, passing on their enthusiasm to others.
But, how can we do this with fewer people, shorter timelines and in a more compact format? This is what a group of 5 employees from NRCAN came together to test drive in October 2013.
More and more literature in the business and technology world, and now the public service (see Blueprint 2020) is pointing to use of new approaches to tapping dispersed and diverse expertise for solving increasingly complex problems that touch multiple mandates.
The idea of a “challenge lab” or “design lab” moves beyond simple idea generation to prototyping of actions, products or processes. The process involves six steps:
1. Gather your team and define the issue 2. Design the lab 3. Test and refine the design 4. Attract participants 5. Generate prototypes and pick a winner 6. Share the results and process evaluation with participants and decision makers 7. Test the best prototype in the real world
Essential Ingredients for a Design Lab
A designing group who have their “seek approval” reflex in check A clearly defined problem Test audiences Lab participants, both subject matter experts and non-experts Established, but minimal, limits
The design team, made up of Janice Cudlip, Sarah Fraser, Marianne Trépanier, Vanessa Greebe and Alison Bird, wanted to work with a topic that would a) allow us to test our model, b) generate useful solutions to a real problem, and c) draw on our strengths.
We landed on an issue that intrigued us all: despite lots of available information, Canadians are generally not prepared for an Earthquake or other natural disaster. The question for the design lab was: What could NRCan do to get 80% of Canadians 100% ready? With a clearly defined issue that touched us as individuals, members of our communities, and professionals we were confident that we could attract expert colleagues to participate in this experimental event.
Over the course of 8 weeks, each team member contributed between 10 and 16 hours to the design of the lab. Friends and co-workers helped us test our plan and provided essential feedback. Twenty colleagues from across the department participated in the lab, both in the room and from regional centres.
The session started with a shared experience – a ShakeOut earthquake simulation – which helped participants connect with disaster preparedness on a personal level. Teams were asked to generate at least 10 ideas in response to the challenge question and explore how one of these ideas could be prototyped and tested.
The concepts which emerged were thoughtful, relevant and reasonable. The results of the lab were shared with participants and senior managers, and have had an influence on how the department approaches science outreach.
We approached this event as an experiment, and discovered that:
* Design labs are a dynamic way to get people to search for solutions together. The lab brought people together across the department and from different functional communities, generated creative, tangible ideas and offered a format that gave people time to think, and think in new, different ways.
* Pilots and tests are very helpful when thinking through something new: we tested our design twice, and it changed both times, and ended up with something different than what we had imagined at first.
In the current environment, we cannot escape the need to collaborate and share scarce resources – to achieve our goals, we have to learn how to work better together. The collaboration model we tested is designed to deliver highly productive interactions without requiring the establishment of group governance or a long-term commitment to an issue. It also generates ideas that are ready to test, making it easier to translate the output of a working session into activities to be considered for piloting.
Janice Cudlip is the Manager of the S&T Liaison Office at NRCan Sarah Fraser is an Analyst in the Government Operations Sector at TBS
















