Introduction to ‘The Solution’

As highlighted in ‘The Design Approach’, the Powering Up (pilot) and the full scale programme was designed during a period of great uncertainty, the COVID-19 pandemic. This context undoubtedly influenced the outcome of the design process. This page will take you through the very high-level elements of the Powering Up offer and the how they are linked to the problems that were defined in the design process and how they managed external uncertainties.

Designing services for uncertainty

You can read a short post, reflecting on how Powering Up was designed to manage external uncertainties. Here are some of the key considerations that we looked at,

  1. Focus on those most impacted by uncertainty
  2. Focus on ways of working and principles rather than predefined outcomes
  3. Don’t hold the programme design too tightly, it is going to change.
  4. Don’t have too many restrictions/funding criteria
  5. Be flexible and responsive.
  6. Don’t let the ‘process' dictate what you do.
  7. Have expert generalists (we refer to them as community business connectors), who have a deep understanding of organisations as systems, understanding the system is critical alongside specialist support.
  8. Giving the programme team access to specialist knowledge, in areas, where you have a focus. E.g. digital or sustainability. This light touch support is vital to the programme design. Our specialists (we refer to them as digital or climate leads) provide 21 hours of support per month to the connectors.
  9. Be able to pivot support, at pace. The leads (see above) are key to this. For example, if (let’s hope not), war breaks out in the UK. The programme could quickly pivot by bringing logistics or security specialists in as leads, to advise connectors on how to support their clients in providing services to communities in highly insecure environments. Admittedly, an extreme example.
  10. A learning culture, so trends can be picked up to help predict the next period of uncertainty and adapt the programme accordingly.

Read more below

Designing services for uncertainty

The core programme elements and what they hoped to achieve

Programme element Purpose The Ambition
Community Business Connector Community Business Connectors were expert generalists who have a deep understanding of the community business landscape, ability to work with organisations as systems, incredibly well networked within the sector, combined with lived experience of working within a community business. - Act as a trusted expert partner to the community business