Redbridge Digital Housing Needs project has started

We have completed the first sprint of the Digital Housing Needs project!

This was topped off with the Show and Tell which provided a background to the project and highlighted the work completed in sprint 1, along with plans for the next sprint.

The housing needs digital programme covers three projects:

• First contact – the digital front door and web content. This is how our customers see us and how they interact with us, now and in the future
• Using the rough sleeper pathway – working with commissioning teams to clarify the roles and responsibilities for all parties included in the rough sleeping pathway, including adult social care and partners within the community
• Accessing temporary accommodation – looking at the complete journey from registering temporary accommodation through to service user move on into permanent accommodation

Working with our content design partner, Llibertat we are engaging with users of housing services, with a focus upon housing needs, to understand what service users want from the website and develop a strategy to redesign the web content to meet these needs.

Using Trello to map and monitor activities within each sprint, we have broken down all actions into small, manageable tasks which are more readily achievable during each sprint. This way, we can be flexible and see progress in real time.

This sprint we completed:

• The first contact kick off workshop to define the project scope, project goal and stakeholders​
• Stakeholders were contacted to identify people to interview​ as part of the user research
• A meeting was held with housing management and housing needs (Solutions and Supply Teams) to discuss the process needs for temporary accommodation
• We set up of a cross departmental/partnership approach. This included liaison with colleagues in community safety, hostels and resident engagement​
• We set up a service user research plan, with a focus on external users, the people who use our website to find information
• The initial housing solutions contact form​, which is now with housing needs for sign off
• Web content requests as part of business as usual actions
• Plans for web author training for housing needs for the second sprint

Our planned activities for the next sprint are:

• Arrange and conduct user research with service users for the Web Content Stream​
• Arrange discussions with commissioning teams and partners for rough sleeper processes, to clarify roles and responsibilities
• Start a review of temporary accommodation in use with focus upon blockages and reasons for these blockages
• Organise a workshop to map out the process for requesting temporary accommodation
• Application of Theory of Change for all alphas
• Addition of metrics for all alphas to highlight change and improvements

The next Digital Housing Needs Show and Tell is planned for Monday 20 June.

For more information about the Digital Housing Needs project, get in touch via Twitter @lbrdigitalvoice or @trinovantum.

View all Redbridge Digital Housing Needs Show and Tell videos