About The Project

The Department of Communication and IT at ICRC carries the overall responsibility of representing ICRC internally and externally, ensuring information flows within the organization, and developing and implementing an IT strategy. Based on the size of the organization, this is a Herculean task. Recently, the department was reorganized with the outcomes being a new organizational design and a new interaction model. The reorganization was mostly designed from the HQ’s team perspective, although it also integrated the rest of the house including field delegations.

The COMs team, using design thinking techniques,  wanted to iterate and develop this interaction model, integrating fully all perspectives and giving a chance to various field colleagues to integrate the changes they want to see and co-create a common future.

Tanasuk Africa (doing business as Made by People) conducted a 2-day design sprint to brainstorm and design a better interaction model for the Global COMs team.

The Process

The first part of the workshop was kicked off by the Head of Employee Experience at ICRC. highlighting what the ICRC Coms team does, the new interaction model, and some of the key issues the team is facing. The issues were identified and prioritized from a survey conducted prior to the workshop.

The lead facilitator set the stage by giving the participants an introduction to the Human Centered Design process and the various attitudes and mindsets needed to implement it effectively. The participants had already been divided into groups comprising of members from diverse backgrounds to reflect the composition of the ICRC Coms team and introduce diversity during the different exercises.

Through the help of the three assistant facilitators from Made by People and two from ICRC Coms team, participants were then taken through a process-driven analysis of design activities; framing the context, generating and pitching ideas that seek to address what an ideal concept model would look like.

The Outcomes

The sprint participants managed to discuss at length some of the key challenges they face as the ICRC Coms team. More importantly, they managed to identify solutions to some of the challenges. Along the way, they learned how to use the human-centred design approach to think through problems and identify solutions collaboratively.