In April 2019, Dr Umar Taj, an expert in the field of behavioural science and decision making, came to Cape Town to implement BI4Gov’s first Nudgeathon.
A Nudgeathon is a two-stage crowdsourcing competition to find solutions for real problems. Teams of six draw on the insights and methods of psychology, economics, design and the performing arts to produce solutions to major problems involving human behaviour. In short? They figure out how to solve problems.
TEAMWORK TO CREATE AND TEST IDEAS
Each team was roughly half behavioural science and design experts and half problem owners. By leveraging the combined power of diversity, expert knowledge, and competitive group analysis, we can not only create new ideas, but also stress test them.
Groups were made up of WCG officials, organisations in the sector, students, and individuals directly affected by the topic under review. The teams took part in a brief master class in behavioural insights before they started working on their problem brief and developing their solutions. The problem brief was safety themed, to align with one of the Western Cape Government’s strategic priorities.
Small groups work together on a problem brief to develop a solution.
NUDGEATHON IMPLEMENTATION
The concept of the Nudgeathon was developed in 2015 at the Warwick Business School and has since gained international acclaim through its highly effective application. There have been over a dozen Nudgeathons across four continents, all received with high commendation from all partner organisations and participants.
The Cape Town Nudgeathon was implemented by Dr Umar Taj, a research fellow in Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School in the United Kingdom. Dr Taj has successfully implemented over a dozen Nudgeathons in various different countries (i.e. Australia, China, Mexico, Sweden and the UK). In addition to founding the Nudgeathon, he is also the founder of Behavioural Insight, which is a technology-based behaviour change solution that identifies barriers to behaviour change and guides the user to develop successful interventions.
CROWDSOURCING SOLUTIONS
A key aspect of Nudgeathon is crowdsourcing. While one team’s idea might be judged the best by a judging panel, the goal of Nudgeathon is to generate a wide range of solutions that ultimately can be combined to form an integrated approach to the behavioural problem being examined.
Following on from Cape Town’s Nudgeathon, BI4GOV will carry out an expert behavioural audit session with the Warwick Business School’s Behavioural Science Group faculty to consolidate the ideas emerging from the event into scientifically robust interventions.
The goal of Nudgeathon is to generate a wide range of solutions that can be combined.
4 REASONS WE’RE EXCITED TO HOLD THE NUDGEATHON:
Cutting edge behavioural science thinking will be brought into Western Cape Government.
It will help create a strong behavioural science network within South Africa through links with industry and academia.
Western Cape Government employees will receive training and development in Behavioural Science.
The Nudgeathon provides a safe, burden-free and fresh space for these multiple problem owners to come together, share their perspectives, understand each other's perspectives, develop a shared understanding of the problem and finally work together to find solutions to the complex problem. This is often quite difficult to achieve in public sector space.
We’ll report back on the Nudgeathon and the solutions the teams come up with after the event - watch this space!