Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action - Tech for Non Tech

THE ASK

The Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA)’s Predictive Services team engaged Code for Australia to deliver a one-day Tech for Non Tech Workshop in order to enable their staff to work well with delivery teams, and gain a greater understanding of technical concepts and Human-centred Design.

The Predictive Services team manage a suite of tools that use data analysis to inform decision making around environmental hazards and extreme weather events. Collaboration with technical staff and vendors is central to their work.

Our Tech for Non Tech Facilitators covered a number of topics throughout the workshop including:

• Tackling Jargon
• Introduction to computing
• Core concepts of web development
• Working well with Delivery Teams
• Managing Technical Debt and Testing
• Human-centred Design
• Running Retros
  

Our Facilitators shared their own experiences, and led open and honest conversations with the DEECA team that helped them feel more confident in understanding the technologies and ways of working used in digital product management.

OUR APPROACH

Central to all of our educational offerings is creating a friendly and open environment for folks to learn, ask questions and bring real-world examples along to work through. The sessions create an informal and interactive atmosphere wherein people can ask lots of questions and build-up their knowledge. Participants can jump in at any time throughout the different presentations, and we encourage an open dialogue throughout the day.

We invite all participants to add their unknown tech terms to our 'Jargon Wall', and throughout the day we then utilise those tech terms in a range of activities, including creating analogies of those terms, and even building them out with Lego. We also continue to share supplementary resources for 12 months following the workshop, which allows participants to go deeper on specific elements of topics they find most interesting or valuable in their work.

This Tech for Non Tech was delivered as an all-day in-person workshop, and we can also facilitate it online for distributed teams.

OUTCOMES

The workshop resulted in an increase of confidence across all focus areas:

• Technical Stacks: 94% ↑
• Digital Ecosystems: 89% ↑
• Human-centred Design: 77% ↑
• Having technical conversations: 59% ↑
• Computers and the internet: 26% ↑

Participants also indicated that they found it super valuable to collaborate and connect with other people from across their Department, and enjoyed the opportunity to discuss their projects and challenges in a friendly, safe environment.