City of Parramatta Case Study
Practical design thinking workshops focused on learning through doing and coaching by exploring the Socially Sustainable Parramatta goals and increasing citizen engagement
About City of Parramatta
The City of Parramatta (CoP)’s Social Investment staff is focused on building the capacity for people in their community to achieve their goals. CoP is committed to developing innovative community business partnerships, growing and sustaining social enterprise in Parramatta LGA, and promoting social procurement through their Social Investment Action Plan.
CoP is also looking to grow a design thinking mindset and capability across a broad range of teams in the organisation.
Challenge
CoP’s Social Investment team partners with providers to deliver innovative programs for their citizens. In 2019, CoP ran an Active Citizenship Conference to bring together global experts to explore new ways to engage and activate citizens.
Opportunity for Impact
Dynamic4 was engaged to host the Active Citizenship Conference panel on Social Investment/Social Enterprise Leadership and to design and deliver two practical and experiential design thinking workshops.
“The team really lives and breathes what they teach; creativity and flexibility to meet clients’ needs.”
Lucy Brotherton
Community Capacity Building Officer – Social Investment, City of Parramatta
Approach
- Partnered with Social Investment staff to design short, impactful, and practical workshops focused on learning some key design thinking practices through doing
- The Active Citizenship session coached teams of participants to take a human-centred approach to explore the challenge of increasing citizen engagement in their own local areas – with clear actions to test their riskiest assumptions
- The CoP staff session coached teams to take a human-centred approach to exploring the Socially Sustainable Parramatta goals and sharing their findings
Results & Feedback
Feedback from the workshops were incredibly positive.
“I learnt so much in the 3 hours and have been applying the principles and techniques ever since in different areas of my life.”
Workshop Participant
“Ben is great to workshop ideas with as he always brings a different way of thinking about our challenges. He introduces new opportunities and proactively comes to me with solutions that he’s willing to adapt to our community.”
Lucy Brotherton
Community Capacity Building Officer – Social Investment, City of Parramatta
Make contact now and say hello. We’ll have a chat to understand what you’re looking to achieve, the budget and timeline you’re working with, and how we can work together - to get your idea to market.
