Case study

How to make public innovation projects a reality with visual management

PRO

Level
In-person
Remote
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Cécile de Besombes
Strategic Designer for the Val-d'Oise Departmental Council

Cécile de Besombes is a Strategic Designer for the Val-d'Oise Departmental Council in France. Her role involves cross-disciplinary work with all teams, from agents on the field to members of the management team, in order to improve collaborative practices and optimize teamwork during their various projects. She provides both face-to-face and remote support, setting up working groups to make effective progress on the topics.

The challenge: improve the collaborating practices in regional services to make them more efficient

On a daily basis and because of her job, Cécile relies mainly on visual management to facilitate the transmission and understanding of information. Whether through drawings or diagrams, for her, “getting out of words is essential because it helps bring ideas to life.” On site, she often uses physical boards, sticky notes, markers, etc., to allow each team member to express themselves and share their ideas.

To supplement these physical supports and allow her to support teams remotely or in hybrid mode, Cécile needed an online tool that was both powerful and visual. Klaxoon’s Workshop Platform provided the solution she was looking for, particularly through the Board tool.

The solution: a simple and flexible collaborative workspace

With Board, Cécile has implemented a virtual collaborative workspace in several key projects: workshops dedicated to the user journey of the Department’s solidarity organizations (Maisons des Solidarités), the welcoming of newcomers in collaboration with the HR management, as well as her talks at the School of Management by Innovation (EMI). These were very different contexts, but they all highlighted the need for effective collaboration and interaction.

The user journey workshop for the Maisons des Solidarités

The workshop held on the Val-d'Oise Maisons des Solidarités user journey aims to bring together many regional stakeholders to focus on user experience. In practice, Cécile acts as a liaison between agents and managers using a visual space that centralizes all the teams' exchanges.

Although the workshop takes place both physically and online (body language is still important), Cécile wants to be able to gather all the shared information in one place. Her goal is also to make it clear and easy to access, especially for the agents who are very attached to paper. With the ability to import text, as well as images, videos, or files into Board, she adds pictures of physical boards completed in person to the elements shared as virtual ideas.

The Board used by Cécile for the workshop about the Val-d'Oise MDS user journey, with pictures of physical boards supplementing the information shared online. | Klaxoon
In Board, all the information is already available, which means we don't have to start from scratch at each step.

This way, she doesn't lose any information, and each participant can log in from anywhere to find the data. This same medium is then used to discuss with managers and validate the different stages of the project, with a complete and transparent view of the information.

Everything is written down, and if there are any questions, the entire history is there.
The Board used by Cécile for the workshop about the Val-d'Oise MDS user journey, with the section summarizing the teams’ exchanges. | Klaxoon
The summary phase allows the information to be presented to management in a simple and clear way.

Welcoming and onboarding newcomers to the Departmental Council

Cécile also works with the Departmental Council's Human Resources Department to support the arrival and onboarding of new members in the teams.

Board allows her to establish a real dialogue to plan this crucial onboarding phase, and to have a dedicated space for discussion to support the HR department's stakeholders.

Klaxoon promotes the transparency of information. It helps show that we can work differently.

School of Management by Innovation

Finally, as a speaker at School of Management by Innovation (EMI), Cécile used Klaxoon’s tools to review projects that were already underway with all the participants.

Here again, by facilitating asynchronous work, Board gave them the means to bring all their ideas together to make progress on their topics, even if they were working remotely.

The result: considerable time savings, and a step forward for public innovation

Klaxoon is now Cecile's main working tool. She particularly appreciates the time saved thanks to all the information and exchanges on the same topic being centralized, in one place on a Board. “We don't have to search through our emails for the most recent reports, the latest version, ...” All the documentation, discussion history, and also the calendars and deadlines are accessible at any time and by everyone, from any connected device.

Cécile also points out that in addition to saving time, Klaxoon also allows her to save energy and increases her peace of mind. Once in a meeting, “we don't have to look for what we're talking about and what we did last time.” This allows her to approach workshops with the reassurance of an adapted and reliable support and, in Cecile's case, to work seamlessly on many matters requiring cross-disciplinary collaboration.

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