Dept of VA: Service Integration Workshop

Project Type: Facilitated Ideation Workshop

Artifacts/Deliverable types: Concept Posters (9), 350+ ideas generated, Workshop Summary Report

Timeframe: November 2023 – February 2024

Veteran Experience Office (VEO) Teams: Customer Experience Strategists (myself and 3 other Strategists)

My Role: Lead Facilitator, Stakeholder Relationship Lead, Workshop Planner

VEO Goals for Service Integration Workshop:

The purpose of the ideation workshop was to engage VA field leaders in discussions about how to embed the PACT Act into VA’s organizational culture and processes, and to brainstorm ways to catalyze efforts that further integration across VA. In small groups, the VA leaders participated in a set of fast-paced activities facilitated by designers at the Veterans Experience Office (VEO) to identify and prioritize integration opportunities.

Overview

The Veterans Experience Office was invited to create a high‐level VA leadership ideation workshop around the future of VA integration across the three administrations – Veterans Health Administration, Veteran Benefits Administration and the National Cemetery Administration. Nine cross-agency groups were formed to participate in ideation activities designed to promote collaboration and creative thinking.

This workshop laid an important foundation for the desire to continue to unify the VA and present ourselves as one organization to our customers.

The group brainstormed around four themes that could be turned into feasible concepts to be shared across VA leaders and offices for future strategic planning opportunities.

Approach

We thoughtfully designed the agenda, materials, and experience for 50 leaders across VA to collaborate across Administrations which led to three tangible concepts that could be carried forward.

Our team made stakeholder accommodations for the Integration ideation workshop agenda to support their desire for over 50 participants, four hours of initial program briefing, and the Secretary of VA speaking. We were able to design a shorter agenda with a larger audience that was successful in the intended outcomes of tangible concepts and Administration collaboration.

Ideation Workshop Activities:

• Partner Portrait Energizer activity

• Workshop expectations, participant agreement, goals and agenda

• Relevant customer experience research shared for participant reference

• Divergent and convergent brainstorming within the team across four themes

• Impact prioritization activity

• Concept poster development and presentation

Below are the ways I supported this workshop:

Workshop Planner/ Lead Facilitator

• Consulted rapidly over two months with the hosting office to understand the scope and outputs needed for the workshop

• Managed competing and changing priorities, growing participant list, and less time provided to conduct the workshop

• Led the CX Strategist team in the development of workshop tools and activities

• Created agenda, facilitator guide, and talking points for host leaders

• Was lead facilitator during the workshop and supported table facilitators where needed

• Led the synthesis of workshop outputs and developed workshop summary document and presented to host leaders

• Provided summary presentation during second workshop that host leaders facilitated some months later

• Was primary consultant when questions about the outputs of this workshop came up across VA teams

Outcome: Similar concepts emerged from the nine participant-led solutions to form three opportunities.  The three opportunities are representative of the nine concepts developed by the 50 event participants and were presented back to participants and other leaders across VA. Additional ideas that surfaced from the workshop were also shared to leadership. A second workshop led by the hosting office was developed afterwards to continue the work of these three concepts.