Systems thinking at work - improving homelessness services
Systems thinking was central to our work with Monmouthshire County Council, one of the five Welsh councils we worked with as part of an improvement programme commissioned by the Welsh Government. The Council wanted to harness systems thinking to deliver internal behaviour change and provide a more people-centred service.
Our systems thinking practitioners helped to design a more accessible, joined up service; challenge the reliance on the housing form; make best use of staff resource; and provide a legacy of skills and knowledge transfer.
Taking a people-centred approach to internal behaviour change, our team designed a programme to deliver facilitated sessions to the Council. We brought together key staff from Monmouthshire to attend weekly sessions designed to provide background, theory and practical learning around systems thinking. We used our proven five stage model (Establish, Explore, Envisage, Experiment and Embed) to help uncover how the current system was working, identify what an improved ‘future state’ would look like, support new ways of working and ensure we equipped the Council with the necessary skills to continuously learn, adapt and improve in the future.
Our systems thinking work with Monmouthshire County Council has identified huge opportunities to improve the service for both customers and front line staff. The Housing Options Manager is also further embedding learning and driving sustainable behaviour change by replicating the process with the Supported Housing Gateway.
