Making collaborationwork differently
RCBS wanted a dedicated space for collaboration and innovation. The bigger opportunity was to create a system that could change how teams worked together across the organisation.
Red Cross Blood Service had set aside a large space at its headquarters for collaborative projects, but there was little structure around how it should work or what role it could play within the organisation. CraigWalker was initially engaged to help bring the space to life through artefacts, communications and tools. Early conversations with stakeholders revealed a bigger opportunity: to use the space as a starting point for changing how teams collaborated, developed ideas and designed solutions.
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The project in numbers
1Framework to change how hundreds work
4Stages
5Principles
Finding the system behind the space
Starting with a small number of conversations and early insights, the team immersed itself in the organisation to understand its dynamics, stakeholders and ambitions for the space. A workshop built around these findings helped uncover the underlying issue: there was no operating model to guide how people would work together. This reframed the project around function rather than decoration, with immersion, workshops, playback and showcase used to progressively develop and test the new way of working.
A framework for working differently
The project established an operating framework that brought together the practical and cultural elements needed to support a different way of working. Five design principles provided a foundation for collaboration, supported by culture principles, a four-stage innovation process and approaches for storytelling, sharing and reporting. CraigWalker also developed The Hive identity, engagement tools, communications, spatial ideas and a topline roadmap for extending the approach across the organisation. What began with one room had become a coherent system for supporting customer experience and innovation projects more broadly.
