Background:

Department of UAE Talent was part of Ministry of possibilities inaugural cohort in 2019-2020, led by HE Noura Al Kaabi, Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development.

The work of the department was a collaborative effort with team members coming from a range of different entities that are invested in the development and support of UAE talents. The team consisted of members from the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge, Ministry of education, Advanced Sciences, Federal Youth Authority, Hamadan Foundation, and many other stakeholders that engaged in the different stages of the process.

As part of the ministry the team of public sector employees are supported by possibility designers and consultants to follow a user-centered and experimental approach in addressing their impossible.

The department of UAE talent’s impossible to tackle was:

What if the UAE can identify and develop the unique talents of all its residents?

Research:

The team conducted secondary research analysis, engaged in conversations with multiple stakeholders, asked a lot of questions, found numerous answers—then asked even more questions.

In this phase, I guided the team in writing their research questions and reports. unpacking their observations and findings on data wall, and facilitated mapping sessions to help them better understand the gaps and opportunities in the UAE talent ecosystem.

Synthesis:

All the observations and stories of the interviews, focus groups and other research methods were captured on a shared data wall and synthesized to surface trends and gaps in the talent journey in UAE.

The team was also introduced to other synthesizing tools such as user personas and journey maps. These tools were intended to help the Department of Talent to have clear pictures of the different talent profiles and barriers they face in order to design programs and services that will meet their needs.

Key insights:

#1

Current attitudes to elevating and celebrating talent may be counterproductive to identifying and supporting talent.

Many see talent as something elusive, that is hard to identify, and for which there is a narrow window of opportunity for identification. As a result, this is demotivating for parents, children, and those that support them, leading to a feeling of helplessness and paralysis.

#2

Each stakeholder within the talent ecosystem believe that the responsibility for talent development falls on someone else. Few are playing their role.

This diffusion of responsibility (and lack of understanding of roles) has contributed to the “bystander effect”, and/or multiplied efforts working on the same task.

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#3

Developing talent alone will be insufficient. There must also be a focus on developing other skills (e.g. business creativity, resilience) that enable talented people to have successful careers.

Conversations have primarily focused on developing talent; but for successful people, talent alone is only a small component of their success. It will be important to define other skills that are necessary and help talents develop these; here, alignment with the Advanced Skills agenda may be important (especially for cultural and scientific talents).

#4

It will be important to focus on post-secondary and post-university talent development, as this is key to helping young people succeed based on their talents.

Currently, most universities expect students to be proactive and independent in defining how to connect their studies to their careers; there should be more support to ensure their success.

#5

The success of the department will be defined by the ability to stimulate and develop a market for talent, primarily cultural and scientific.

Current investments in talent focus primarily on defining, discovering, and developing talent VS. demonstrating talent. The comparatively limited investment in developing a market for talent presents a significant risk and contributes to the negative cultural attitudes towards the notion of pursuing your talent.

Ideation & co-design:

During the Ideation phase the team bridged the gap between research and design—helping them move from questions to answers, from problems to solutions. In the Ideation phase, the team prioritized a range of opportunities, developed and tested rudimentary concepts at an early stage, and gathered feedback from key stakeholders during a co-design workshop.

The team was introduced to How might we questions, storyboarding, concept briefs, and co-design activities to jump start their journey in testing solutions.

Prototyping:

The team was supported to create tangible rough drafts of their ideas, which they presented internally, shared with external stakeholders for feedback, and revised based on the feedback they received. Every iteration made the teams’ ideas more concrete and got them closer to a final solution to pilot.

In this phase, the team was trained in developing service blue prints, low-fidelity prototypes, desirability testing surveys, and meetings with potential implementing partners.

Process reflections:

Throughout the process of working with the Department of UAE Talent on the daily tasks, I was working in parallel with other consultants from reboot on developing ministry-wide learning and recommendations for how the Ministry could improve the designed experience with the second cohort. We were also looking into addressing bigger questions around the role of innovation and experimentation in the public sector.

This process required me to design reflection touch-points and sessions within my process both individually, with my team members, and with higher management.