WSDA team focuses on customer in Results Washington design challenge

Vicky Leonard
Performance and Planning Management Office

The Farm to Food Pantry Initiative
sign displayed by Kirsop Farms,
an Olympia Farmers Market vendor.

The Governor’s Results Washington Office asked WSDA’s Performance and Planning Management Office to send a team to the Agency Design Challenge, a two-day workshop to explore and experience the “Design Thinking” problem-solving method. 

This human-centered approach begins by interviewing customers to gain insight about what is important to the target audience. A team uses this information to generate ideas and develop a prototype. Testing the prototype with customers then provides feedback used to shape the result.

The design challenge, held in November 2018, focused on improving customer experience with an email, letter or paper form. The WSDA team challenged itself to reimagine a fact sheet used to increase awareness of the Farm to Food Pantry initiative (F2FP). The fact sheet promotes the benefits to food pantries, lower-income families, and farmers, as well as engaging community businesses to support these efforts. 

Around the table from left, David Bobanick, executive director of Rotary First
Harvest, Nichole Garden, WSDA Food Assistance programs coordinator,
Bobbie Mostyn, Department of Licensing, and Kim Eads, program manager of
Food Assistance.

WSDA’s challenge team included members from the Performance and Planning Management Office, Food Assistance programs, Rotary First Harvest, a program partner, and a farmer who participates in the F2FP initiative. Three Department of Licensing staff were on hand to provide an outside perspective. A coach guided the team’s process.   

The workshop resulted in both a new prototype document, as well as insights about how engaging customers in person and getting outside perspectives can help. 

In addition, the team realized that even a good communication tool does not necessarily work for all audiences. They have since begun work with the Communications Office to make their prototype an official agency document.

WSDA and other state agencies are working to improve customer satisfaction as part of meeting the Gov. Inslee’s goal for efficient, effective and accountable government (Results WA Goal 5). This workshop showed that Design Thinking is one more tool that may help.

In summary: At the invitation of Results Washington, a WSDA team took part in a design challenge, where they used a customer satisfaction approach to redesign a promotional fact sheet for Food Assistance.