How service design transformed Audit Wales’ internal comms
From failing intranet to considered internal communications, using Design+Learn Live
Audit Wales’ fragmented and outdated systems for internal communications were contributing to siloed ways of working in the organisation.
A Design+Learn Live programme allowed a team to upskill in service design while working on a real-life project to redesign and launch a new intranet. The result was more than just a new intranet: the project encouraged a new level of trust and transparency within the organisation, improved and streamlined approaches to internal communications, and better equipped the team to use service design principles in other improvement projects.
The organisation
Audit Wales is the public service watchdog for Wales. They aim to ensure that the people of Wales know whether public money is being managed wisely and that public bodies in Wales understand how to improve outcomes.
The challenge
Internal communications had been an issue in the organisation for as long as anyone could remember. Two separate platforms were being used for internal communications. The team of professional auditors used a collection of Sharepoint mini-sites, and an underused and outdated intranet did little to serve the rest of the organisation. This contributed to siloed ways of working in the organisation, as well as frustration for all.
People felt the existing intranet ‘Hwb’:
Contained lots of unsearchable and unstructured PDFs.
Took a long time to find what they were looking for.
Contained out-of-date information, so couldn’t be trusted.
Wasn’t bilingual or accessible.
The organisation's communications team was receiving up to six emails a day from staff complaining about these issues. They knew they needed a new solution that would better serve the organisation, but how to go about designing something that would truly meet the needs of all staff?
The solution
Audit Wales didn’t want to take the old-fashioned approach of a small team designing a solution that may not fit their exact context and imposing it on the rest of the organisation.
They wanted to improve the accessibility and usability of their intranet using a service design approach, including user research.
However, they didn’t have service design skills in the organisation.
Design+Learn Live was the perfect solution for them to upskill a team in service design while working on a real-life project.
The approach
Design+Learn Live uses just-in-time learning to:
Learn relevant tools and methods in workshops
Immediately apply the learning
Review progress and design more relevant learning
Repeat
Just as the Audit Wales team were working to design a solution that precisely met the needs of their users, the learning process they went through was designed and adapted to be bespoke to their needs.
Seven people learned the key skills they needed in service design through a series of in-depth workshops. In between workshops, the team applied their learning to their project, and progress was monitored remotely via digital collaboration tools. We adapted upcoming workshops on an ongoing basis, depending on the issues emerging in the real-life project.
Throughout this process, the team learned and applied skills in:
User research at Audit Wales
The Audit Wales team working on their real-life project
Stakeholder mapping
Data analytics
Empathy mapping
User research planning, interviews and observation
Synthesis and analysis of the research data by affinity mapping and creating personas
Rapid idea generation
Idea prioritisation methods
Prototyping
The results
Working at pace, the team delivered an intranet that was transitioned seamlessly into use. The service design approach encouraged the team to think beyond the delivery of a tool, and address issues around trust, clarity and findability of information.
In short, they found a new approach to delivering internal communications. As well as revising the types of content that people wanted to see on the intranet, this also meant prioritising a shift towards regular email communications.
The benefits
For Audit Wales as a whole:
Increased engagement with the intranet and easier access to information. For example, the employee engagement survey asks “Do you have the information you need to do your job”. This has increased.
Reduced complaints and suggestions about the intranet – down from up to six a day, to zero.
Increased level of trust, transparency and productivity within the organisation, as reported by senior staff members.
A ripple effect of improvement across the organisation. One of the team has since gone on to achieve Service Design Practitioner Accreditation from the Service Design Network (our training provides an accredited pathway).
“The hub and our internal communications platforms have been a source of angst in Audit Wales for a long time, and the project has addressed those head-on.”
Adrian Crompton, Auditor General
For the team that went through the Design+Learn Live course:
Increased confidence and capability in service design principles, including discovering and describing user needs.
A shift to continuous improvement and a more thoughtful approach to internal communications.
The ability to use their newfound service design skills for other projects. Some team members have already applied what they learned to help develop their new website design.
A prioritised list of follow-up work that will add further improvements, as identified during the project.
“It was a great experience and so incredibly useful in my professional development, not to mention enjoyable too. I’ve used so much of what I learned and I’m so grateful for your support, thank you!”
Nat Hudson, Change Project Manager at Audit Wales
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