Using data to make more informed decisions

This reminds me of the excellent lemon drizzle cake story told by housing IT consultant Tony Smith. The story is about how a family recipe was passed through generations of the same family using exactly the same process – even though the process was actually designed purely to make the cake fit the old tin which ‘Granny’ had used.

We have probably all been guilty of designing a process or service around feelings, assumptions or outdated facts, only to conclude in hindsight that it hasn’t quite worked out. It’s this learning that convinced me that investing in research and insight is critically important in giving housing providers greater confidence that we are making the best decisions we can – evidenced-based decisions – for our colleagues and our customers.

“We have probably all been guilty of designing a process or service around feelings, assumptions or outdated facts.”

A great example of this was when, two years ago, our commercial director approached our insight team about an additional pot of money for our planned investment programme and asked them: “Where should I invest this to have the greatest impact?”

There were six components under consideration and our gut reaction might have been to spread that investment across all six. But through a social value assessment based on real data and what our tenants had told us, we were able to identify confidently that the biggest difference for tenants would be new boilers and insulation and so we agreed to target all of the money there.

And gathering data and insight doesn’t have to start off big. Our head of insight, Carole Clark, began with a folder named ‘giving it a go’ and formed a network of other insight peers in the West Midlands, all of whom were also working alone within their organisations.

From starting off modestly, our insight team working alongside our innovation lab has played a crucial role in helping us robustly test, pilot and evaluate a range of services before deciding on the right model to invest significantly in our new localities programme and an entirely different approach to housing management.

These data geeks are experts at sitting back and asking what problems people are trying to fix, seeking out the root causes, researching potential solutions, and then mapping them out into a test and/or pilot.

Executives and operational teams always think we know what the problem is and we’re usually sure we have a brilliant solution too, but the discipline of an insight team demanding data before decisions and properly controlled pilots before roll-out can save some very expensive mistakes.

“Research can be time-consuming and by nature doesn’t deliver results overnight, which can be frustrating to executives impatient to leap into action.”

But let’s acknowledge that we aren’t designing and testing a new life-changing medication which requires a far more robust scientific method. We are simply trying to demonstrate that a particular process or service is likely to work, so a pragmatic approach to insight, control groups and measures is good enough.

At a time when the social housing sector is being squeezed from every angle, it’s more important than ever to evidence where every pound is going and that we are spending it wisely. It’s vital to make sure we are doing what we have set out to do, maximising the impact for customers, driving efficiencies and, on a wider scale, demonstrating the sector’s worth to government.

Research can be time-consuming and by nature doesn’t deliver results overnight, which can be frustrating to executives impatient to leap into action. But in exchange for our patience it gives us confidence in our own information and data so we can make better, evidence-based decisions.

The complementary skill sets of insight and innovation working together can help us make best use of all our resources to create organisations and services to meet the demands and aspirations of our current and future customers.

Philippa Jones, chief executive, Bromford