Pillsbury United Communities
Report date
February 2018
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
Partnership with Inmar Analytics
Pillsbury’s Innovation team forged a partnership with Inmar Analytics over the past six months. This partnership grew out of Inmar’s interest in the North Market project. They connected North Market to a vendor they normally contract with – Reach Influence – who specializes rewards programs. Reach Influence assisted North Market in creating a rewards club and all the details entailed for a pilot cohort with North Market patrons. Of great benefit is how tied the rewards program is to our POS system. We can easily track what reward incentives are working by pulling real-time data. This allows us to adapt, iterate, and also tell a story with the data.
Pillsbury’s Innovation team forged a partnership with Inmar Analytics over the past six months. This partnership grew out of Inmar’s interest in the North Market project. They connected North Market to a vendor they normally contract with – Reach Influence – who specializes rewards programs. Reach Influence assisted North Market in creating a rewards club and all the details entailed for a pilot cohort with North Market patrons. Of great benefit is how tied the rewards program is to our POS system. We can easily track what reward incentives are working by pulling real-time data. This allows us to adapt, iterate, and also tell a story with the data.
Deep Engagement for Most Encounters
Ultimately, we found that face-to-face, hour-long conversations were the most effective. It often took about 15-20 minutes to gain the person’s trust and then authentic responses and true dialogue occurred, helping individuals understand our goals and learning what the community wants and needs through North Market. We referred to these as 1:1 empathy interviews with significant time dedicated for each conversation. This portrays an authentic interest in people’s life stories and genuine concerns for their needs. These engagements helped us to establish trust with the people we are most trying to serve.
Ultimately, we found that face-to-face, hour-long conversations were the most effective. It often took about 15-20 minutes to gain the person’s trust and then authentic responses and true dialogue occurred, helping individuals understand our goals and learning what the community wants and needs through North Market. We referred to these as 1:1 empathy interviews with significant time dedicated for each conversation. This portrays an authentic interest in people’s life stories and genuine concerns for their needs. These engagements helped us to establish trust with the people we are most trying to serve.
Clear Vision and Purpose of Project
After conducting the empathy interviews we saw “wellness” as a main desire and need for our community. Because a human-centered design process is iterative it is easy to stray from a main goal and go where the wind blows. To avoid this pitfall we anchored the rest of our learning and discovery around the goal of wellness. This proved very important as other topics came about, such as finance, that we had to choose to leave behind to continue to focus on wellness. It also allowed us to innovate around the idea of wellness, not predefined, but as the community sees wellness. Having this anchor helped the human-centered design process and iterations stay focused.
After conducting the empathy interviews we saw “wellness” as a main desire and need for our community. Because a human-centered design process is iterative it is easy to stray from a main goal and go where the wind blows. To avoid this pitfall we anchored the rest of our learning and discovery around the goal of wellness. This proved very important as other topics came about, such as finance, that we had to choose to leave behind to continue to focus on wellness. It also allowed us to innovate around the idea of wellness, not predefined, but as the community sees wellness. Having this anchor helped the human-centered design process and iterations stay focused.
Key lessons learned
Partnership Challenges
As a community based organization we had high expectations of our relationship with the healthcare system. Initial meetings with healthcare system staff were positive and full of energy. As we progressed along our relationship we realized that two core challenges were occurring. First, the healthcare system simply is too large and bureaucratic to withstand the risk of innovation. Secondly, the leadership of the healthcare partner was not brought along on the journey throughout the development of the partnership. This lead to a weak partnership, time spent updating new leadership, and barriers to innovation as a partnership. I would not characterize this as a failed relationship but definitely a challenge and a partnership that didn’t meet our original expectations.
As a community based organization we had high expectations of our relationship with the healthcare system. Initial meetings with healthcare system staff were positive and full of energy. As we progressed along our relationship we realized that two core challenges were occurring. First, the healthcare system simply is too large and bureaucratic to withstand the risk of innovation. Secondly, the leadership of the healthcare partner was not brought along on the journey throughout the development of the partnership. This lead to a weak partnership, time spent updating new leadership, and barriers to innovation as a partnership. I would not characterize this as a failed relationship but definitely a challenge and a partnership that didn’t meet our original expectations.
Project Management
Pillsbury is dedicated to a human-centered design process where community members co-design with program staff to create a solution that is relevant and sustainable. However, as a project of this size and scope is new for the Pillsbury Innovation team we underestimated the full scope of the work. We quickly realized that we had insufficient bandwidth for our in-house team to stay close to the project at all time and maintain progress. This led us to use consultants to help build out our team. However, the budget for consultants was insufficient to achieve all of the goals before us. Pillsbury staff and the consultants were collectively too optimistic regarding the amount of work and time needed to complete that work.
Pillsbury is dedicated to a human-centered design process where community members co-design with program staff to create a solution that is relevant and sustainable. However, as a project of this size and scope is new for the Pillsbury Innovation team we underestimated the full scope of the work. We quickly realized that we had insufficient bandwidth for our in-house team to stay close to the project at all time and maintain progress. This led us to use consultants to help build out our team. However, the budget for consultants was insufficient to achieve all of the goals before us. Pillsbury staff and the consultants were collectively too optimistic regarding the amount of work and time needed to complete that work.
Design Team Composition
Ultimately, we learned that human-centered design requires an interesting mix of left and right brain activities. To complete a human-centered design process well a full team is needed of people with varying perspectives and strengths. A project leader with administrative, planning, and convening skills is needed in addition to a team with skills in facilitation, visioning, planning, and synthesizing. These are all very different skill sets and a dynamic interdisciplinary team is needed to manage and conduct such an adapting, fast-paced and innovative process.
Ultimately, we learned that human-centered design requires an interesting mix of left and right brain activities. To complete a human-centered design process well a full team is needed of people with varying perspectives and strengths. A project leader with administrative, planning, and convening skills is needed in addition to a team with skills in facilitation, visioning, planning, and synthesizing. These are all very different skill sets and a dynamic interdisciplinary team is needed to manage and conduct such an adapting, fast-paced and innovative process.
Reflections on the community innovation process
All three elements of the community innovation process weave together in a unique way that makes there nearly impossible, one without the other. We found inclusivity to be very important to making the process work. Though pleasantly surprised, community members were not driven to share with us based on gift cards for their time. Instead community members were seeking genuine, sincere interactions where their stories could be heard and their opinion listened to. We found that our one-on-one dialogues were crucial to our progress on this project. To be inclusive of the community we seek to support with North Market we had to be willing to take the time for long, deep conversations – waiting for trust to build – and being able to patiently engage for 1 to 1.5 hours with one person at a time. By taking this time we not only connected with the people we seek to support but we connected at a deep enough level for community members to truly show us their vulnerabilities. This allowed us to co-create solutions around their actual needs, as opposed to their perceived needs.
Progress toward an innovation
We made great progress towards achieving an innovation through this grant period. The grant enabled us to bring a human-centered design process into the design of North Market. Through our in-depth empathy work we learned of many avenues of influence into the lives of North Minneapolis residents. We ultimately landed on the rewards program – a way to tie together traditional rewards with social behavioral change towards healthier lives for North Minneapolis residents.
The rewards program was both familiar to customers and is shown successful in nudge economics – moving individuals gradually towards changed behavior and better health. This innovation grant gave us the ability to marry the two ideas – tailoring a rewards program specifically for behavior change.
North Market customers are able to see small, incremental rewards as they make wise choices. Over time this will lead to exceptional health results such as lower A1C levels, for example. But in the meantime, while the large goal is pursued, the small incentives keep customers on a path to success.
The rewards program was both familiar to customers and is shown successful in nudge economics – moving individuals gradually towards changed behavior and better health. This innovation grant gave us the ability to marry the two ideas – tailoring a rewards program specifically for behavior change.
North Market customers are able to see small, incremental rewards as they make wise choices. Over time this will lead to exceptional health results such as lower A1C levels, for example. But in the meantime, while the large goal is pursued, the small incentives keep customers on a path to success.
What it will take to reach an innovation?
N/a
What's next?
We are currently testing the rewards program with 50 customers. This is allowing us to work out any kinks, iterate, and improve upon the program before rolling out more widely. The next step is to increase enrollment in the rewards program across all customers of North Market.
After iterations are complete rolling out the program more broadly will consist of securing finances as well as creating a marketing campaign. We first will analyze the financial aspects of the rewards program to see what built-in financial benefits to North Market are included and how we can efficiently and effectively move the rewards program out to all customers. We then will seek partnership with health insurance companies to provide financial support for the rewards program. Finally, we will create a marketing campaign to encourage all North Market customers to sign up for the rewards program and be a more integral part of the North Market community.
After iterations are complete rolling out the program more broadly will consist of securing finances as well as creating a marketing campaign. We first will analyze the financial aspects of the rewards program to see what built-in financial benefits to North Market are included and how we can efficiently and effectively move the rewards program out to all customers. We then will seek partnership with health insurance companies to provide financial support for the rewards program. Finally, we will create a marketing campaign to encourage all North Market customers to sign up for the rewards program and be a more integral part of the North Market community.
If you could do it all over again...
The single most important piece of advice I would give myself at the beginning of this grant project is that the human-centered design process involves a much more comprehensive team than is generally estimated. The people involved in the process are crucial components of the success of the project. Taking the necessary time and spending the necessary assets to build a robust, multidisciplinary, and diverse team is essential to success. In the future, we will seek more realistic staffing structures for such projects as well as capacity and diversity of team members strengths.
One last thought
N/A