Barcelona Activa is the main economic agency that promotes the city's economy.
In 2023 I designed a research to evaluate one of their services.

Here is the Story

What
RevEESStim el Tèxtil is a program run by Barcelona Activa aimed at empowering companies and entrepreneurs in the textile sector. At the end of the fourth year of the program, I designed an evaluation to measure the impact it had on the participants.
Who
Barcelona Activa is the economic agency that promotes the city’s economy by providing consultancy, renting office space, and offering courses to freelancers and companies at different stages of their development.
How
As the program was coming to an end, we established a day to bring participants together for talks and participatory workshops based on their interests. Simultaneously, we ran a survey to gather different sources of data.

Context

Barcelona Activa is the public company that promotes the City's economy. They organize courses, résumé training, provide advice for job seekers and offer a variety of courses. One of their areas is to support the social economy of the city. RevEESStim el tèxtil is a program focused on supporting companies and entrepreneurs in the textile economy with a social perspective. The service was based on three axes:

Courses
Assessment
Networking

I joined the service in the last year of the first edition of the program. To give a sense of closure of the program, we organised an event with key speakers of the sector and activities to evaluate the service and get to know first-hand users' opinions and get to know their expectations for the next edition of the program.

Panel discussion in a garden setting with four speakers on stage and an audience seated outdoors, facing a screen with visuals.

Objectives

1. We had to evaluate the impact the program had on the participants.
2. We needed to know what their expectations and desires were for the next four years.

Tools

Tailored Worskhops to unocover unmet needs

Survey impact evaluation to assess the outcome

Tools

Tailored Workshops to uncover unmet needs

Person holding blue sticky notes with handwritten text, surrounded by other notes and photographs spread out on a white table.

Impact Survey evaluation to measure the outcome

Results

By combining results from the different workshops, we were able to detect the main needs of our users. The premise was to ask for anything, regardless of whether it could be possible or affordable from our side. This allowed us to detect what the primary needs, concerns, and undercovered areas were.

Demand for more infrastructure: Textile ateliers for makers and connection with textile schools.
Increase the networking: Connect people at different stages of the supply chain.
Promotion from public administration: Public campaigns for socially responsible textile.

Demand for more infrastructure: Textile ateliers for makers and connection with textile schools.
Increase the networking: Connect people at different stages of the supply chain.
Promotion from public administration: Public campaigns for socially responsible textile.

The data obtained from the survey was insufficient. Fewer people showed up than expected. Initially, it was a problem because it meant we didn't have enough data to extract solid conclusions. After doing a combined analysis of the workshop and survey data, two hypotheses came out: people who attended the event were at earlier stages of their business than the ones who didn't.

So, we tested the hypothesis. Since we had a register of the people who showed up, we sent the survey by email to the ones who did not come. This allowed us to simultaneously enhance the sample and have two different groups that were comparable.
Of course, since we couldn't invite them to do the workshop, some modifications had to be made in order to capture the differences, and the hypothesis appeared to be correct: not only were the ones who stayed at home at later stages of their business, they also valued different aspects of the service and had different kinds of demands.

So, we tested the hipothesis. Since we had a register of the people who showed up, we sent the survey by email to the ones who did not came. This allowed us to simultanieously enhace the sample and have two different groups that were comparable.

Of course, since we couldn't invite them to do the workshop, some moddifications had to be done, in order to capture the differences, and the hipotesys appeared to be right: Not only the ones who stayed at home, were on later stages on their business, they also valued different aspects of the service, and had different kinds of demands.

Survey design

Changing the goal
The first thing I did is to change the goal of the survey. The aim was not anymore to evaluate oour service or do determine the level of satisfaction of the people who used our services. What it was needed to be evaluated was if the service provided to our users, had an impact or it did not. To be able to evaluate it, the way the questions were asked had to change. I did not want to mesure the satisfaction level of the program, because what can satisfy a person could vary from one to another. Is it that who did the assesment was fun? Did they found it entretaining?

As much of the quality of the content delivered this may tell us, it does not tell us any information regaring the program goals. The goals of the program were to improve and strength the textile sector within the social and solidarity economy industry. This is why, by analyzing the documents that were created when the program was created and presented. I formulated the questions to be able to evaluate if the goals were fulfilled.
Re-shaping the survey questions
From….
Rate your level of satisfacttion with the networking events you have assisted frrom 1 to 5
Rate from 1 to 5 your satisfaction level with the assesment received.
Rate from 1 to 5 your level of satisfaction with the course you have assisted to
To….
Being 5 absolutely agree and 1 absolutely disagree, mark your level f agreement witht he following sentences:
"Doing the courses has allowed me to discover ways to cut my costs"
"The networking events has allowed me to adquire new providers from the social economy sector."
"The support obtained from Barcelona Activa has allowed me to gain more confidence on myself"
Independant variables
An independent variable is the one that has influence on the outcome of the others. For example, the amunt of studied hours has a direct impact on an exam, the total hours of the week spent going to the gym, will have an impact on the muscular shape. In this situation I tried to think what could make the answer of the participants, and their perception towards de utility received vary. And I came to the conclusion that probably, people who are starting their bussiness and people who are more consolidated have different needs. That's why other questions of the survey, following the same structure were:
- Most of my annual income comes from the textile business
- How many years have you been runing your bussiness
- I spend more than a 50% on the business

Changing the goal
The first thing I did is to change the goal of the survey. The aim was not anymore to evaluate oour service or do determine the level of satisfaction of the people who used our services. What it was needed to be evaluated was if the service provided to our users, had an impact or it did not. To be able to evaluate it, the way the questions were asked had to change. I did not want to mesure the satisfaction level of the program, because what can satisfy a person could vary from one to another. Is it that who did the assesment was fun? Did they found it entretaining?

As much of the quality of the content delivered this may tell us, it does not tell us any information regaring the program goals. The goals of the program were to improve and strength the textile sector within the social and solidarity economy industry. This is why, by analyzing the documents that were created when the program was created and presented. I formulated the questions to be able to evaluate if the goals were fulfilled.
Re-shaping the survey questions
From….
Rate your level of satisfacttion with the networking events you have assisted frrom 1 to 5
Rate from 1 to 5 your satisfaction level with the assesment received.
Rate from 1 to 5 your level of satisfaction with the course you have assisted to
To….
Being 5 absolutely agree and 1 absolutely disagree, mark your level f agreement witht he following sentences:
"Doing the courses has allowed me to discover ways to cut my costs"
"The networking events has allowed me to adquire new providers from the social economy sector."
"The support obtained from Barcelona Activa has allowed me to gain more confidence on myself"
Independant variables
An independent variable is the one that has influence on the outcome of the others. For example, the amunt of studied hours has a direct impact on an exam, the total hours of the week spent going to the gym, will have an impact on the muscular shape. In this situation I tried to think what could make the answer of the participants, and their perception towards de utility received vary. And I came to the conclusion that probably, people who are starting their bussiness and people who are more consolidated have different needs. That's why other questions of the survey, following the same structure were:
- Most of my annual income comes from the textile business
- How many years have you been runing your bussiness
- I spend more than a 50% on the business

Personas

Maria

38 years old.
6 years running a business as a textile designer.

Maria
38 years old.
6 years having a busisness as a textile designer.

Maria started her business a year before the program started. The entrepreneurship is now her unique source of income and she is looking for sustainable and socially responsible providers and different ways to expand the business. She would be interested in mentoring newcomers and wants to partner with other textile sustainable businesses to open a shared store. She would also be interested on exporting their designs

Marta

45 years old.
1 year running a textile side bussiness.

Marta

45 years old.
1 years having a side bussiness while working as a teacher.

Marta is a primary school teacher who has always liked to knit and design different clothing. She has a side business, not registered, and has been selling her designs at some fairs. She has some savings and now is working 20h a week as a teacher and wants to expand her business. She would profit from having a mentor and mainly wants to learn about how to run a business and be profitable.

Final conclusions and recommendations

Most of the requests made by the participants were not doable but revealed what the participants lacked. Most of them wanted to feel support from the city council and be able to tell the general public the added value their project had. As the program is heading for the second round and is meant to be continued for 4 more years, there were some improvements that could be made to add more value for the participants:

Set a Mentorship program, so more experienced users could help newcomers.
Create public events and fairs where people who are starting their projects can show their designs.
Open a public atelier for starting businesses to have a place to build their projects.

Start a Senior mentorship for businesses that need to grow, expand and export their product.

With those recommendations, the program for the upcoming years could be more suitable to the actual needs of the users, and someone who starts a project as a newcomer, after 4 years, could become a mentor and be part of the community fueling the socially responsible textile sector in Barcelona.

Set a Mentorship program, so more experienced users could help newcomers.
Create public events and fairs where people who are starting their projects can show their designs.
Open a public atelier for starting businesses to have a place to build their projects.

Start a Senior mentorship for businesses that need to grow, expand and export their product.

Back to start

Created by Andreu Coy Fité

Back to start

Created by Andreu Coy Fité

Tools

Tailored Worskhops to unocover unmet needs

Survey impact evaluation to assess the outcome

Changing the goal

Re-shaping the survey questions

From….

To….

Independant variables

Changing the goal

Re-shaping the survey questions

From….

To….

Independant variables

Personas

Personas

Marta

Marta

Final conclusions and recommendations

Final conclusions and recommendations