How We Think

As a water utility, Wannon Water faces an array of challenges – from aging infrastructure, tightening regulation, climate uncertainty, and increasing pressure to provide cost-efficient services to customers in light of rising costs. Innovation has been recognised as an essential organisational and individual capability in tackling and adapting to future challenges.

The Water Services Association of Australia is an industry group consisting of water utilities in Australia and New Zealand. For some years, the association had been running a Technology Acceleration Program, but it was running out of steam, with fewer members signing up each year. It was a largely Technology driven program that wasn’t tailored to utilities’ needs and did not cater for the differences between utilities (eg large vs small, urban vs regional).

A government department identified it needed to strength its human-centred design capability as an important contribution to informing the design and delivery of service reforms. ThinkPlaceX was engaged to work with the Department as a strategic service and HCD expert consortia partner. This role ensures the voice of the end user and diverse voices are brought into the design process, so any systems, services and policies are responsive, inclusive, and future-ready.

In February 2019, on advice from the Victorian Government, the Governor of the State of Victoria formally established the Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System. This signalled that the state's mental health system was failing to support those who needed it.

In 2021, a process review of the Melbourne Drug Court (MDC) was undertaken by Court Services Victoria (CSV) with support from Department of Health (DoH). The primary recommendation was for parties to engage in consultation and a co-design process with service system stakeholders to develop a well-functioning, participant-centred and fiscally viable Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) service. ​

Federal Government agencies are on the precipice of making significant investment of public funds and setting the ERP platforms that will prevail over the next quarter of a century.