Getting to grips with data (2)
By: Janine Woodward-Grant
Tags: Digital Transformation, Carer, Data, Insights

In our last post we discussed what we had learned in our ‘data pilot’ that had helped us understand our cafe programme more clearly. Categorising data; focussing on what was important and being more aware of the difference between feedback and outcomes data. All of this will help us as we progress to becoming more data informed, and we can use these 3 learnings in our wider team.

Yet when we stood back we realised we had learned even more about data, which will hopefully help us on our journey.

Don’t eat the elephant all at once, take small bites

This was by far our biggest learning from the project! About a month in, everything was feeling a little overwhelming. We had really productive initial meetings where we felt we understood the overall challenge, and we’d created a massive list of actions to be completed over a 3 month period. But we didn’t seem to be progressing on those actions. We were trying to focus on too much all at once.

We sat down and looked at what we had learned over the previous month that added to our understanding of the problem we were trying to solve. We realised it wasn’t just one problem. It was multiple problems — and we were trying to tackle them all at once! Challenges with how we store data; ownership of data; staff skills; connecting up data; having enough data to use….. You can’t eat an elephant in one go. We can’t change everything about how we collect, store and use data in one go. We needed to think smaller, prioritise, and take one measured step at a time. Our approach to collecting data is a good example, as we discussed in our last post — choose ‘just enough’ for what you need.

There were also things we started to do, and then stopped as we were running before we could walk. One of the key challenges we identified was that it was difficult for us to match up all the different types of data as they were stored in different systems. Simple we thought, let’s just move everything in to one place. As you might imagine, it’s not quite that straightforward. Lots of questions were thrown up about how different systems would interact and how we would ensure the data was accessible and useable.

So before we started down the rabbit-hole of re-organising our data systems, we stopped. We’ve only just started to understand key pieces of data we need to make good decisions. We haven’t even had enough time to collect and use it meaningfully. Now is not the right time to change the way we store data too. One step at a time……

Instead we looked at what we could do to improve data collection — and with support from Think NPC we re-designed our feedback form to pull together what had been an individual questionnaire for each cafe into one overall form. This has made it much easier for us to see more information in one place and is our first step in the right direction.

Don’t assume everyone understands or agrees on what ‘data’ is

Words used to describe data by staff at the Carers’ Centre

As odd as it sounds, undertaking a project on data has helped those who were involved understand in more detail what data actually is — or what we mean we say data. Sarah, our Wellbeing Manager reflected back to the start of the project:

“I was a little reticent to be involved. I was worried about what I could bring. I’m not that good at using excel or manipulating what I thought ‘data’ was. Now I know data is not just numbers and graphs, it’s all the information we use to improve what we do. I’m much more confident and excited about data now!”

Changing her perception has had a significant impact on the way she is using data within her team. It also helped us realise we assume everyone has the same perception of the word ‘data’ but that’s not true. People can perceive data as cold, emotionless, turning people in to numbers. We’ve come to see data as much broader than this. It’s about what we learn in conversations we have with users as well as surveys or questionnaires they fill in. It helps add context and increase our understanding of people’s needs and behaviours. Without this, how can we hope to place users at the centre of what we do?

We have more work to do sharing our understanding of data throughout the organisation and looking at how it can help us achieve better outcomes for carers. Part of this is looking at how we collect data. There are many more creative ways to collect data than simply sending users a survey, so how can we capture the information we need in the easiest, most effective way?

Screenshot of our new facilitator feedback form

One example is how we hadn’t been effectively recording the observations of cafe facilitators. Naturally, through discussions on phone, email or Teams they were sharing information about what was going well, what was challenging, and carer observations. This wasn’t recorded anywhere — but it’s a massive piece of the data jigsaw puzzle. So we created a place where facilitator feedback is stored. Now, we’re not trying to turn them in to robots who can only communicate with us through a specific form, far from it. They can fill in the form if they want to, but more often when Sarah, the programme manager, hears relevant information, she herself fills the form in so she knows this data is all in one place.

Planning is key

Our final piece of learning will be crucial as we start to use data more effectively within our decision making. It’s all very well collecting the right data, and storing it effectively, but if you’re not using it, it’s kinda moot. And that was one of our previous failings. We didn’t regularly encourage staff to reflect on data and what it was telling them within their teams. Data was for reporting to funders. Creating nice stats for the Annual Review. It wasn’t embedded in our daily practice. So we weren’t systematically using it to learn and change.

Now Sarah has a better understanding of data, she sets aside regular time in her diary to look at ongoing data for her services. A simple change, but something that we had in the past not encouraged or prioritised. Data is also at the heart of service changes and re-design she is looking to implement. Take planning around restarting our face to face work as COVID restrictions reduced at the end of summer.

In the past we would probable have gone ahead and made the decision to resume without collecting any data, or without thinking hard about the data we wanted to collect. but with the learning gained through the data pilot we took time to gather insights from carers to enable us to make an informed decision.

We used a survey to better understand carers’ preferences and feelings. We included questions to help us identify how carers would like to access cafes (e.g. online, by phone, face to face indoors/outdoors) as well as any barriers that might be present. We planned our current winter café programme taking into account the carer insights above, as well as user & engagement data, rather than going on anecdotes, gut instinct & luck.

It’s not just our data which is important

The final change in our thinking relates to the scope of data we are now looking at. In the past we have been prone to work in a bubble. Though we would look at key national statistics and resources, we weren’t proactive in learning from others, particularly at points of service development and re-design, to see how we could learn from data they were gathering.

Both as a result of becoming more aware of data, and through being part of the National Lottery Building Connections ‘cohort’ of grantees, we have started to see the value of sharing and collaborating with others on data. For example, as we started to plan resuming face to face activity, we gathered insights from our partners and other Building Connections grant holders to find out what they were planning and why. What their experiences were (some had already resumed face-to-face), the challenges, barriers and what had gone well. Essentially to learn from their mistakes or successes so that we could fine tune our own processes. And we did the same in return. Building up and sharing knowledge across the sector can only serve to strengthen what we offer and the outcomes we deliver to our beneficiaries. This has got to be a good thing.

The future

So, where do we go from here? Well, there’s lots to do in order to share this knowledge and the new practices learned across the teams. We need to think about how we measure our progress in using data and how we support each other to do this. The pilot has also had a significant influence on the development of an Outcomes Framework for the organisation as a whole. We’re starting the process of implementing this framework as we speak (in stages — don’t eat the elephant all at once!) and hope to see changes in the next 6 months. Finally, it’s given us cause to evaluate the tools we’re using around data. Now we’re more aware of what data means to us, are we using the right tools to collect, store and analyse? I expect more changes in the year ahead as we test and pilot new tools!