Today was the last day of the learning phase for the first cohort of fellows with NS GovLab.
The goal of the day was to ensure fellows and their teams were being given the support and tools they will need for the next phase of the fellowship. This next phase is open for fellows to continue working on their prototype, testing with end users, peer coaching future cohorts, check out and possibly be a part of what another team is doing and be part of building a community of practice with NS GovLab.
The day was made up of 5 steps:
Step One: Check-in and framing
Once everyone had arrived, the CoCreation team framed the last day of the learning phase. Fellows and their teams were going to be given a morning of open space and deciding their next steps as a team and/or individually.
Open space is sessions driven by members of the CoCreation team and the fellows. Fellows identify the topics and/or questions of interest and “host” a session to talk about it. Whoever doesn’t host a session attends the topic of most interest to them.
It was a common question from fellows before we moved forward was “what will the next 8 months bring?”
The CoCreation team explained that there was no set path in the integrative phase. It was expressed that the integrative phase isn’t just for working as a team. Fellows are invited to go into this phase as an individual and test other opportunities before committing. As an individual, fellows could peer coach, branch off, work with or check out what another team is doing and think of other possibilities that could come up for them for the remaining eight months.
Step Two: Self-reflection
The past few months have been heavily focused on learning what social innovation, human-centered design, prototyping and testing is. The next 8 months was focused on applying the learnings and approaches to their daily life.
There were questions fellows were given to keep-in-mind throughout the day and to take into self-reflection and open space:
1. What’s next?
2. What are my goals for the next phase? And what do I need to achieve these goals?
3. What do I need from other fellows?
4. What do I need from the CoCreation team?
5. What do we need for NS GovLab to build a network?
Self reflection gives fellows time to individually think about their experiences that addresses the questions above. This process helps aid individuals into deciding what their path will look like in the future.
Step Three: Open space and share back
The remainder of the morning were open space sessions. Fellows took their most important thoughts during self-reflection to have conversations with other fellows and the CoCreation team. These conversations would guide them into the second phase of their fellowship.
The open space questions were formatted as “How Might We…” questions.
There were originally two sessions of open space planned but due to the amount of conversations fellows wanted to have, there ended up being three sessions.
Some of the themes that were raised for open space included:
1. How they could continue working on their teams prototype.
2. How could the fellows stay connected and build a network?
3. What did the next 8 month phase look like?
Fellows were given a template to complete that included their How Might We question, notes and ideas they had come up with and how to action them.
Once all of the open space sessions had finished, everyone came back together to share their realizations, learnings and possible actions to the How Might We questions.
Step Four: Co-design of integration phase
The last part of the day was to take the four main objectives of NS GovLab and have the fellows share how what they want to do during the integrative phase applies to one of the objectives of NS GovLab.
The four main objectives of NS GovLab are:
1. Our understanding of aging
2. Building skillsets
3. Testing prototypes
4. Connection and networks
All objectives were filled with many actions from fellows and what they want to do during the integrative phase.
Step Five: Closing and check-out
The end of the day was filled with emotions. The fellows expressed how happy they were to be part of a diverse group of individuals with a vested interest in addressing the complex issues of an aging population in Nova Scotia.
Fellows want to stay connected with others and are excited to see what the next phase brings.
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