Regional knowledge sharing

With the Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP) South West Regional Development Centre

Map of the South West region of EnglandCSIP South West works to improve the quality of life for people who use health and social care services in the South West region.

The development centre operates in a region with a population of 9.9 million people living within rural and urban communities, different cultural communities, and some areas of economic deprivation.

Kate Schneider, Deputy Director, CSIP South West, invited Surepoint to work with the team at the development centre to help support their knowledge management and communications activities. We are working with the team enhancing internal and external communications, supporting better knowledge sharing and improving performance management and evaluation processes.

Visual planning

Mind map of the work to be delivered in the South west during 2008-09This diagram provides a high-level schematic overview of the scope of work to be delivered during 2008-09. It is typical of the visual approach to concept development and planning that we are employing to help us gain a shared understanding



Networked co-production

Example of a wiki page to support our workThis screenshot shows how we are using collaborative tools such as wikis to support our work.

Once we have agreed the broad outline of work we use wiki pages to create an overall delivery architecture and shape up the detail of each area of delivery.

The wiki has helped to us quickly establish agreement about and a shared understanding of our work. The project team have found that this is a much more practical and dynamic tool to support ongoping operational activities than the traditional PRINCE 2 project plan. The wiki lends itself to a more emergent and networked form of co-production across teams. There is an immediacy to change that helps us to feel connected to work that continually lives and breathes. This is particularly important when we are geographically dispersed.

Rowan really listened to us to discover exactly what we wanted and now works alongside us to deliver great
solutions.
Kate Schneider, Deputy Director, CSIP South West

Benefits we have seen

  • Innovative use of visual tools for concept development
  • Early delivery of positive results to gain support from development centre staff
  • Willingness to adopt a prototyping approach, using what works throwing out what doesn't
  • Effective use of social software tools to support planning and delivery
  • Increased confidence in communications potential amongst the development centre staff
  • Growing commitment to the importance of evaluation to our work