11 minutes
Discovery, and whose expertise counts as evidence What the division's own records can and cannot say about a process, and how to bring lived experience and community expertise into defining the problem before the design is fixed.
What you’ll be able to do Plan a discovery step that brings lived experience and community expertise into defining the problem, and tell the difference between co-design, advisory review, targeted consultation and testing a draft. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is the most accurate thing to say about that evidence? Document a next step for Discovery, and whose expertise counts as evidence: For one project, write down the evidence the team is designing from and who had to succeed at the current process to appear in it. Then name one person or organization who sees the people that evidence misses, and what a paid, accessible conversation with them would take. What the division's own records can and cannot tell you A division holds a great deal of evidence about its own processes: completion rates, call volumes, processing times, denial and closure reasons, satisfaction responses. It is real evidence, and it is worth reading closely. It also has one shape that is easy to forget. Nearly all of it comes from people who reached the process and got far enough to be recorded. It describes the population the current design already works for, at least well enough to finish.
The people a redesign most needs to hear from are on the other side of that line. Someone who opened the packet, read two pages and set it down. Someone who heard about the program from a neighbor rather than from the division, months after it would have helped. Someone whose request was closed as withdrawn because the third return call came during a work shift. In the records, all of them look alike, and there is very little to read. In their lives, they are different problems with different fixes.
More analysis of the same records does not close that gap. It closes when the project hears from people who see what the records miss: disabled Minnesotans and their families, interpreters, disability-led organizations, culturally specific organizations, and division staff whose job is the first call or the first letter. Their knowledge is evidence. Treat it as expertise that is arranged for, paid for and recorded, not as a story gathered to illustrate a decision that has already been made.
Where would this evidence have to come from? How many renewal packets come back complete, and how many come back late.
Choose a category Already in the division's records Only from people outside the division An assumption presented as evidence The number of calls the help line received in the week after a notice went out.
Choose a category Already in the division's records Only from people outside the division An assumption presented as evidence Closure reasons recorded by staff at the point of decision.
Choose a category Already in the division's records Only from people outside the division An assumption presented as evidence Which of three notices a household reads first, and which one they believe.
Choose a category Already in the division's records Only from people outside the division An assumption presented as evidence What a person does between opening the packet and the deadline, and where they stop.
Choose a category Already in the division's records Only from people outside the division An assumption presented as evidence How long it takes a family to arrange a ride, an interpreter and time away from work for one appointment.
Choose a category Already in the division's records Only from people outside the division An assumption presented as evidence If the packet were confusing, people would call and tell us.
Choose a category Already in the division's records Only from people outside the division An assumption presented as evidence People who need a different way to apply will ask for one.
Choose a category Already in the division's records Only from people outside the division An assumption presented as evidence Check matches Reset Four ways to bring expertise in, and what each one can carry Co-design People with lived experience work alongside staff while the problem and the options are still open. They shape what the service is for and how it works, not only how it is worded. Co-design only means something if the project still has real decisions left to make, and it asks the most of everyone: several sessions, access arranged for each one, and payment that reflects the time and expertise involved.
Advisory review A standing group of community members and organizations reads drafts and options at agreed points in the project. It can catch a great deal and build trust over time. It cannot invent a direction the project never put in front of it, so the timing of each review matters as much as who is in the group.
Targeted consultation A specific question goes to people with specific knowledge: an interpreter about how a term lands, a disability-led organization about a channel, a culturally specific organization about who in a household decides. It is quick and useful. It stays honest only if you say what is already fixed and what their answer can still change.
Testing a draft with people who will use it A few people attempt the real task with a draft form, letter or page while staff watch and do not help. It is the only arrangement that shows whether the design works. It belongs before launch and after any major change, and it complements the first three rather than replacing them. Testers are paid for their time and told what changed because of them.
Say which arrangement you are offering What you can change You control what you tell people about the decision they are being invited into: what is still open, what is already fixed, how their contribution will be used, how they will be paid and when they will hear back.
What to watch for Do not invite people into a finished design and call it engagement. People can tell, they remember, and the next invitation from the division becomes harder for everyone.
Your next step Before the next invitation goes out, write one paragraph naming what is open, what is decided and why, and what the person will receive for their time. If that paragraph is uncomfortable to write, it is the design that needs changing, not the paragraph.
They asked us to look at it the week before it went live. Everything we raised was real, and everything we raised was too late. Ask us in the month when you are still arguing about what the thing is for.
Composite community advisor perspective, illustrative Private reflection, kept by you and not collected anywhere: think about the last decision you helped make about how a program works. Whose expertise was missing from that room, and what would it have taken to have them there early rather than late?
Carry this forward Discovery answers two questions: what problem are we solving, and for whom? If only staff answer them, the design inherits whatever staff already believe about how the process works.
The division's records mostly describe people who reached the process and got far enough to be counted. They are close to silent about people who stopped, never started or were never told.
Co-design, advisory review, targeted consultation and testing a draft are different arrangements that share different amounts of power. Saying honestly which one you are offering is part of the design.
People with disabilities, families, interpreters, disability-led organizations and culturally specific organizations contribute professional expertise. Arrange access before the invitation and payment before anyone agrees.
A scenario about designing from administrative data, a sorting exercise on where different kinds of evidence come from, an accordion on four ways to bring expertise in, and a knowledge check on the limits of the division's own records.
For one project, write down the evidence the team is designing from and who had to succeed at the current process to appear in it. Then name one person or organization who sees the people that evidence misses, and what a paid, accessible conversation with them would take.
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Previous lesson Next lesson Carry this into practice Examine the early choices that shape a service and include affected people before the design is fixed.
Return to the experience: What did you notice or try, whose perspective informed it, and what would you keep or adjust?
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