Lessons from the first three years of the BC Public Service’s behavioural insights unit.
By Heather Devine, BC BIG
Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash
BIG Difference Round Three
A couple of months ago, the BIG team co-hosted our third BIG Difference for BC conference with Decision Insights for Business and Society (DIBS @ the University of British Columbia) and partners from the City of Vancouver and WorkSafeBC. It was a sold-out event. Over 200 participants gathered at UBC Robson Square in downtown Vancouver to hear what organizations were learning as they applied behavioural insights (BI) to their work.
Image of Robson Square from UBC.
Attendees came from local, provincial and federal governments, health authorities and crown corporations, non-profits and social purpose companies, private industry, and academia. Some were experienced scientists working in research universities. Some were launching BI projects in their workplaces. And others were curious observers wanting to learn more about this new ‘behavioural insights thing’ they keep hearing about.
Keynotes and lightning talks
In the morning, our keynote speaker Dr. Dilip Soman, from the Behavioural Economics in Action at Rotman Research Centre (BEAR @ University of Toronto), kicked things off by recounting some of his experiences as an early pioneer of the Canadian BI movement. He also shared his more recent efforts to understand the drivers of organizational behaviour. You can see his talk here.
In the afternoon, practitioners from public, private and non-profit sectors gave lightning talks (10-minute presentations) to share their latest BI endeavours. You can check out their decks here, embedded in the program.
For BIG’s lightning talk, I decided to share some of the lessons we’ve learned from three years of growing an applied behavioural science practice and building a BI movement with colleagues inside and outside of government.
Here are the seven lessons at a glance:
· Lesson 1: Science is Hard
· Lesson 2: Embrace Failure
· Lesson 3: Mix Your Methods
· Lesson 4: Grow Your Talent
· Lesson 5: Find a Partner
· Lesson 6: Pay it Forward
· Lesson 7: Share Your Story
And here’s where I go deep on each one…
Lesson 1: Science Is Hard. #thestruggleisreal
I think we can all agree that science is awesome. It expands our understanding of how people, places and things interact under different conditions. That’s pretty amazing.
But, let’s be honest, science can sometimes be hard, especially in a government context.
At BIG we’ve delivered several projects over the last three years. We know applied research can be done and, in many cases, with great ease and success.
But there are a couple of things we’ve found particularly challenging about ‘doing science’ in government:
Data
Whether it’s access, quality or tech issues, data is an ongoing struggle. Many of our project speed bumps are driven by data, or a lack thereof. We know from counterparts across the country that they wrestle with this, too.
Conditions
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are the gold standard in behavioural science. What’s great about them is they allow us to make causal claims about what works to shift behaviour and what doesn’t. What’s tricky about them is that randomizing people into groups and implementing trial protocols in a live operational setting is more complex than in controlled lab environments. It’s still doable but requires some determination and creativity.
Lesson 2: Embrace Failure/Learning #growthmindset
Failure, I mean Learning
Science demands a lot of humility. In fact, the motto we’ve adopted at BIG is “nudge for good and with humility” [full props to David Halpern at the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) who introduced us to this handy maxim].
Image from Pinterest
You have to get really comfy with failure, however you define it, and be okay with not having all the answers even though you’re the “experts”. You have to create psychological safety for your team so you can have honest conversations about disappointing outcomes and how you’ll grow from them. As mentioned, science is hard. Testing and experimenting means some things will work, and some won’t. If you’re doing it right, you’ll have a lot of opportunity to lean in to your humility and build up resilience. Having a great team and a good sense of humour really help.
Manage expectations
It’s important to manage expectations — yours, your client’s, and your funder’s.
People get excited about the outcomes of a trial, and they’re counting on significant results. We get emotionally attached to our projects so it’s easy to be disappointed when an intervention doesn’t deliver the anticipated behaviour change. But we have to remind ourselves and our clients that every outcome tells us something interesting about behaviour in a given context. Learning what doesn’t work is just as important as learning what does.
Biases
Another thing we learned at BIG is that we’re all vulnerable to biases and blind spots, even those of us who do this work everyday and are well-versed in human vulnerabilities.
Last year, when we performed our postmortem on projects, we found the most common causes of project failure were the planning fallacy, optimism bias, and sunk cost effect. We’re human too, and we have to check ourselves all the time to ensure we’re not committing these sneaky decision-making errors when going about our day-to-day work.
Lesson 3: Mix Your Methods #hellohumans
In a field where quantitative methods are king, the value of qualitative data can sometimes be overlooked. In our lab, we’ve adopted a mixed methods approach to projects, and our work is stronger for it.
The data we gather from our focus groups, interviews, and other qualitative tools capture rich stories, user experiences, and testimonials that make the program or service we’re investigating more real for us and our clients. It also builds empathy (something our Service Design colleagues talk a lot about) and gives us deeper insight into the problem we’re there to help solve.
Lesson 4: Grow Your Talent #capacitybuilding
BI is still a relatively new practice in government.
We learned early on that to socialize concepts, generate interest, and move projects forward we needed to build BI literacy and capacity.
So, we got busy delivering shorter training like workshops, presentations and boot camps. We’ve now reached thousands of public servants in BC and beyond, and the demand continues to grow.
Shorter training is a great primer to build enthusiasm about BI. But it’s not designed to build advanced practitioners. In an effort to make more in-depth training available, we partnered with DIBS and others to create a new Advanced Professional Certificate Program in Behavioural Insights. It’s scheduled to launch in September 2020.
While we wait for the talent pipeline to grow in BC, we’ve had to find creative ways to bring experienced scientists and practitioners to the West Coast. For example, we recruited a Mitacs Science Policy Fellow and hired a professor on an ‘academic tour of duty’. We also established a vetted list of consultants to draw from when we need special expertise or additional bench strength.
Lesson 5: Find A Partner…Or Two Or Three #bettertogether
Partnerships and networks have been foundational to the growth and maturity of our BI practice.
We launched the Behavioural Insights Beyond Borders (BiB2) Network last year to facilitate connections across boundaries so that others could be part of the growing community. By across boundaries, we mean collaborating within and across organizations, disciplines, sectors, and jurisdictions. In other words, all of us together transcending our traditional structures to create positive change.
We’re convinced that if we can get out of our silos and talk to each other, we’ll have greater success addressing cross-cutting policy problems like homelessness and climate change. We don’t have to do this work alone. And neither do you.
Lesson 6: Pay It Forward #sharingiscaring
At BIG, we stand on the shoulders of giants.
People like Dilip Soman at BEAR, the federal and Ontario governments, BIT, and of course DIBS have offered advice and templates, and plugged us into their networks when we were first getting started. Their generosity has allowed us to accelerate the growth of our practice and amplify our reach within and beyond government in a relatively short time.
I would urge you, regardless of where you are in your BI journey, to share what you know with others new to the field. Sharing could be offering someone a seat in your training workshops, letting them shadow your projects, having a call to download your experiences, or sharing your templates and contacts. It all helps.
You’ll not only feel good, you’ll also be strengthening the BI community.
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
Lesson 7: Share Your Story #storytelling
Storytelling is a critical part of the scientific process, and it’s one we’re trying to do more of.
We have a number of outreach channels to promote our work and we’re actively using them to share stories (e.g., newsletters, blogs, website, social media, conferences, hackathons, and pop-ups).
But we’ve focused a lot on the outcomes and not as much on the process or the journey. Sometimes the behind-the-scenes stories are more compelling and instructive than the carefully curated highlight reel. So, going forward, my team will invest more time working in the open and being vulnerable with what we share.
One of the ways we plan to tell more candid stories is through less formal formats like podcasts and short videos. It’ll be an experiment so please bear with us. And be honest about how it’s landing. Feedback is a gift.
We’re also thinking about how we tell the story of BIG in our first ever progress report, set for release before BX2020.
Speaking of BX, if you haven’t heard of the Behavioural Exchange (BX) conference and you’re a huge BI fan, you need to get up to speed soon because it’s coming to Canada in July and tickets are going fast!
Well, those were my seven lessons. As we settle into the new year and new decade, we look forward to more learning, connecting, and storytelling.
Tell us what you think. Did any of these lessons resonate with you? What are you observing in the BI landscape?
By Heather Devine
Head of BC Behavioural Insights Group