by James Curran, with Chris French and Lydia Suffling

Introduction

Working in partnership(s) is central to what we do in 4OC. Exposure to fresh thinking, different experiences and new skills satisfies our curiosity and sparks our creativity. It also provides us with access to a deeper pool of expertise and ultimately enables us to bring new thinking to our clients.

Our partners range in nature from software companies at the forefront of innovation, through place-shapers redesigning communities to social impact experts capturing the real impact of change on the public – all with a focus on delivering positive change.

The partnership that we have focused on here is with Morphologic, who very closely align with our vision and values. We quickly understood how we could make use of their product to support our ambition to enable effective change that delivers a measurable impact for our customers. Our work to date has already benefitted many of our clients, while at the same time increasing the capabilities of our teams.

Morphologic’s No-Code App

Emma Adair, founder of Morphologic and long-standing associate consultant with 4OC, has continually shared access to their no-code insight platform as it has been developed and improved. Emma and her team have trained many of the 4OC crew in building applications both for our clients but also to improve and support our own internal processes.

We always try to ensure that we build in a culture of continuous improvement in the work we do and with the clients we work with. We feel that through our partnership with Morphologic, we have found another valuable tool to support our approach and ambition.

Morphologic is user-friendly. You do not need to be a coder to use it. The focus of the platform is on gathering intelligence to support better conversations and more informed decision-making across functions – whether that be employee behaviour, customer service or quality control.

One of the most beneficial parts of the tool is how Morphologic lets you design bespoke applications. Whether the work is in local government, healthcare, the transport sector, or indeed anywhere in public service delivery, the tool can be flexed to fit the need.

We recently engaged with a large Housing Association who wanted to solve a business problem in relation to poor contract management, relating to contracts valued at over £600m. 4OC and Morphologic worked with the client to understand the problem and ultimately ended up with an award-nominated no-code solution that addressed this common sector issue, which was efficient, impactful, simple and that built in a continuous improvement capability in the organisation.

4OC / Morphologic Hackathon Day

During a recent 4OC – Morphologic development/hackathon day, our teams considered some real world public service challenges to further understand how the tool could work. Chris French built and demonstrated an app for a local authority, which focused on evaluating and managing housing stock. The ease with which the app, used to record property visits, was built, deployed, and ‘rolled-out’ was genuinely impressive.

A nice feature of the tool is its ‘Recommended Actions’. This allows organisations to automatically deliver prompts to employees when their response in the app triggers a recommended action from a pre-defined list. The implications for supporting organisations with behaviour and process change is really significant in the way that we work.

The best part of the tool, however, is its flexibility. Another example that was developed in the session was in the Health sector. This app, built by Lydia Suffling, allowed you to compile a baseline for staff experience with a view to improving work culture. It was designed to track employee feedback across their career journey and was tied to existing organisational KPIs.

Both examples emphasised how versatile no-code platforms can be for us and our clients. The ability to turn the fact-finding data collection we do at the outset of a project into an application that collects and visualises information and insight immediately and then over months and years, is transforming the way we’re able to support sustainable organisational change in the long-term.

Turning data into insight with dynamic dashboards 

Another key element of the Morphologic platform is its data visualisation and reporting functionality. The tool turns raw data into a vibrant, interactive dashboard. The information it presents can very quickly help the user to understand what is really happening in their organisation and supports asking the right questions.

As a change management organisation, we’re always speaking to people who are looking for ‘data-driven decision making’. Having access to this tool and using it as one part of our wider change approach, has given us a very effective method to more quickly and easily meet this customer need.

More phologic please…

In summary, tools like Morphologic can be a catalyst for transformation. It can make work easier and decisions smarter, and it allows leaders to be more connected to their people, operations, and customers.

Our partnership has been transformative in terms of the benefits it has already provided to our customers. By empowering our staff to use a simple but powerful tool, it has genuinely improved the outcomes from the work that we do. If this sounds like something that could help you and your organisation, contact us, mention Morphologic, and we’ll give you a shout.