We started the current phase of My Best Life, thinking about the issue of young people not being able to access the support and opportunities they need to succeed.  By working young people in a focus group and during our remote design sprints, we have explored how we might make it easier for young people to find and access services.  How did young people engage with the problems? When exploring the ideas of making services easier to find online and making more services available to young people, the young people kept circling back to the issue of not being able… Read more “User insights from phase 2”

We started the current phase of My Best Life, thinking about the issue of young people not being able to access the support and opportunities they need to succeed and technology can help improve this. Online connectivity is a huge part of our lives, especially during the lockdown. We have the answers to most questions at our fingertips, but many young people struggle to get the support they need. We are interested in exploring how we might make it easier for young people to find and access services.  By working young people in focus groups and during our remote design… Read more “How young people access services”

Clear communication is an important part of design sprints and any collaboration between organisations. Communication needs to be clear and effective so that everyone involved has a clear understanding of the process and can get the most out of the sprint.  Within software development, we run daily stand-ups. They are so named as each member of the team will stand during them. Why? Because this means that we talk directly and don’t waste time with superfluous communication. The discomfort of standing up encourages us to be direct and short with what we want to say. Stand-ups give each person in… Read more “The Importance of Clear Communication”

The My Best Life team have been running virtual design sprints. We decided to use online software Miro to run the sessions. Miro is the online collaborative whiteboarding platform that enables teams to work effectively together, from with digital sticky notes to planning and managing agile workflows. The software was new to the team, so we have created some resources to help everyone get up to speed. We wanted to share these resources, so that others can benefit from them too. Below are some quick resources that the team have created as an introduction to using MiroX. If you have… Read more “Introduction to Miro resources”

The first two weeks of My Best Life were altered to deal with the situation around COVID-19. Working out how to guide the participants through a design sprint, with the added challenge of doing so remotely, was a learning curve for us and allowed us to discover some really useful online tools. Designing the exercises for both the design sprint itself, and also for onboarding young people and youth organisations to using Miro and Zoom was a group effort. Through collaboration, feedback and evaluation we are proud of having produced a series of effective workshops and learning tools. Moving from… Read more “Remote Design Sprints: The Developer’s Perspective”

The My Best Life team have swiftly learning about running remote workshops using Miro and Zoom. Below are a few top tips on running sessions online. Top tips for preparing for a remote workshop Preparation is key: You need clear objectives and a clear process for the work. The layout of your work is crucial. Layout out the software as clearly as possible as you have less chance to see people struggling with something, especially if you are in breakout rooms or doing independent work. Include clear instructions: Include task instructions where possible, so people can refer back to them… Read more “Top tips for running remote workshops”