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CODE FOR VICTORIACase Study

In 2016, three teams of three technologists were paired with three Victorian government agencies and departments. Tasked with solving civic problems with technology, they worked for six months to create change through innovation.

PAGE 1 INTRODUCTION

IntroductionDigital transformation is driving some of the biggest changes we are experiencing in society. These changes, however, have been largely experienced in the private sector, which has lead to:

- public disengagement and distrust in government services

- a lack of investment in government technology

- cultural barriers between public servants, industry and citizens

Code for Australia believes that governments can capitalise on the opportunities digital transformation presents, and work together with the public to find new solutions to old problems.

The Code for Victoria program was an initiative funded by the Public Sector Innovation Fund and run by Code for Australia that created opportunities for ordinary citizens to use their skills to help improve Australian society and transform government from the inside out.

Victorian Government departments and agencies were invited to nominate technology-based challenges. Three of these departments were then paired with a team of technologists for six months to tackle the challenges collaboratively.

Victoria Legal Aid (VLA) was one of the three agencies chosen by Special Minister of State, Gavin Jennings and in August 2016 was paired up with technology fellows, Becca Blazak, Christian Arévalo and Rikke Winther-Sørensen.

Over 26 weeks the team worked to find better ways to match people with the right legal aid service across Victoria. This is the journey of what they discovered, what they created and most importantly what was learned along the way.

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PAGE 2 THE CHALLENGE

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There’s a lot of unstructured data about what we do, what people tell us.

As Manager of Client Access at VLA, Khoi Cao-Lam is responsible for making legal services more accessible for the most disadvantaged people in Victoria. He works persistently to find and introduce new ideas and new ways of working, in order to solve complex challenges in the legal assistance sector. One of the biggest problems he grapples with is a sector-wide disconnect in how individuals are matched to services and

how clients are referred to different organisations across Victoria. “One way of looking at referrals, and the way we assess people, is as a whole lot of unstructured data,” Khoi explains. Taking that data and translating it into a tool that could match people to services, in a way that was consistent and efficient, was the initial proposal that VLA submitted to the Code for Victoria challenge.

The fellowship team took this proposal as a starting point, and set out to explore the problem by conducting user testing. Over four weeks they shadowed duty lawyers in court matters, sat in on phone calls, pored over surveys and data, and visited regional offices and community legal centres.

Discovery: understanding the bigger picture

During the discovery phase, the fellows identified key themes from VLA clients and staff. On the client-side, many people were being referred to places that couldn’t actually help them and as a result, were having to tell their story over and over again. It was also unclear to them what kind of advice or service legal aid offers unless they were already familiar with the organisation. On the internal side, they heard from employees that if they could do anything, it would be to decrease the queries they could not help with.

From these findings, the fellowship team identified two projects to begin work on: an SMS tool and an online Legal Aid Checker.

PAGE 3 TRANSFORMATION

“If other departments or other organisations have an appetite and a willingness to experiment to bring in fresh perspectives, then I highly recommend the program. It offers enormous benefits.

- Khoi Cao-Lam

Improved TransparencyThe team worked in the open during the project, gathering feedback from

all users and using it to iterate

Design ThinkingVLA gained a greater appreciation and understanding of conducting

user research

Better CollaborationThe fellowship gave VLA a better

understanding of how to work with their internal IT team

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The fellows introduced new ways of working to VLA. By focussing on a user-centered design approach and using agile methods, the organisation discovered new practices of working and also developed new capabilities amongst their team.

Improved TransparencyThe fellows adopted open working practices - running open workshops where participants could see the progress they’d made, ask questions and provide feedback, as well as making their code publicly available and documenting their journey through blogging. The fellows also demonstrated the benefits of “having a can-do attitude,” says Khoi, “so doing research, but then bringing that research back to things that users can then test and critique”. Design ThinkingThe project allowed for a discovery period of about four weeks when the fellows gathered and synthesised enormous amounts of user feedback. Breaking down the feedback into themes and actionable tasks allowed VLA to experience what it means to truly design for their users. Khoi highlights that this has created a better understanding and a better capacity in conducting user research within his team, and has shown “the importance of design thinking and designing systems for users who are intended to benefit from them”.

Better CollaborationAs a collaborative project, there was much to be learnt on how to combine knowledge. As Rikke explains, “when everyone has different backgrounds, different expertise and experience - you really get to learn a lot from each other”. For the VLA team, working on a technical project has enabled more open communication and better collaboration with their internal IT team. Khoi has seen that from the fellowship, the team has a better understanding of how they work together and “the importance of working together from the start.”

PAGE 4 SPEEDBUMPS

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No challenge is without its hurdles: here’s how empathy helped the team overcome the obstacles they faced.

Lessons learned by the fellows...

Learning the ropes

The fellows and the team both identified the biggest challenge as getting up to speed on Victoria Legal Aid; their processes, structure, documentation, as well as the nuances and complexities of the legal assistance sector as a whole. While bringing fellows in who had no previous experience in the sector meant that the challenge was approached with a fresh set of eyes, it also required that the team have a period of getting up to speed. The discovery phase allowed the fellowship team to discover how things worked for themselves, approach every process without assumptions, and objectively assess where improvements could be made. As Rikke describes, “it was really essential for the outcome of the project.”

An overwhelming scale

The scale of VLA was another challenge the fellows encountered. As Rikke explains “it’s just really big and when we first started we got presented with a lot of documentation and data and charts about the whole organisation”. This was, again, overcome through the discovery phase; through allowing the fellows time to process the information in their own way and in their new context.

Rikke Winther-Sørensen: Collaboration and working as a team has been key — be open to learn new things from your teammates as well as the other way around. Be your government partner’s critical friend by showing (not telling) how things can be done differently.

Becca Blazak: Start by deeply defining the problem — government partners likely will have lots of ideas that they are super excited about, but often the user is overlooked.

Christian Arévalo: Be prepared to open your mind to new technologies and to break down traditional IT silos. Be prepared to build better relations between IT teams and organisations too.

PAGE 5 THE OUTCOMES

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What the team achieved in twenty-six short weeks.

SMS ReminderThe first tool launched by the fellows was an SMS reminder tool. From early research, the team discovered that administrative staff across the organisation were sending appointment reminders to clients manually, which was time consuming and left a lot of room for error. The SMS tool helps to automate the process by allowing staff to send all SMS reminders for a day at once. The fellows estimate that this tool decreases the time spent texting clients by about 80%.

Legal Aid CheckerThe second tool developed by the fellowship is an online checker, which helps individuals assess whether they are in scope to receive assistance from VLA. The team estimates that the tool will approximately save 30 hours per week for the Legal Help team. Khoi explains that the Legal Aid Checker, which is live on their website, “is a monumental achievement in terms of public sector innovation.”

Change in approachThe project also had an impact on the VLA team at a strategic level, in terms of how they approach problem solving within the organisation. As the fellowship progressed, Khoi was amazed to see “the influence, and the credibility they developed across the organisation”. What he saw by the end of the fellowship, was that the fellows were being asked to provide advice and contribute to other projects within VLA.

Project extensionOver the six months, the VLA team quickly recognised the benefits of having the fellows and their technical backgrounds involved in their work, which has led to VLA funding an extension to the project to continue work on another referral tool called ORBIT. Khoi explains that, “it follows on from the capacity building they’ve done with us, so we feel there’s continued value in having the fellows work with us and our IT area on a big IT project to improve referrals.”

6 months and 20 sprint cycles later...

The program not only succeeded in creating multiple tools that improved the efficiency and consistency of the VLA experience for clients, but also exposed the organisation to new ways of learning, created an appreciation for the value of service design and reframed their thinking around problem solving.

PAGE 6 THE ROAD AHEAD

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“Change only happens when ordinary people, from all walks of life, get together and make change. When we, as talented citizens, roll up our sleeves and put to practice our democracy.

- Alvaro Maz

Created by Code for Australia

codeforaustralia.orginfo@codeforaustralia.org

To find out more about our Fellowship programs and how we’re helping solve Australia’s civic challenges, head to our website:

codeforaustralia.org