Task trial kit: fix the missed appointments (90 minutes)

Everything about the centre is FICTIONAL, made up for a classroom exercise: the centre, the town, its visitors, the 20 records, the "8 of 20 missed" brief, the RM2,000 monthly budget and the "14 of 40" counter survey. No real client, patient or child records are used. Only the facts in the source pack are real, and each one has a source and a date.

What this taster is

The task trial is round 1 of the Day 2 job tasters, 90 minutes long. In the current journey template every learner does it, in teams of three or four, before choosing a lab or career-area taster for round 2 (open decision D08). Learners act as a small service-improvement team at a fictional Malaysian community service centre, Pusat Khidmat Komuniti Bandar Contoh. Visitors are missing appointments or arriving late. The team recommends and builds a simple version of one change within a fictional budget of RM2,000 a month, and keeps a route for people without smartphones.

The task mixes technology, design, business, community work and care, so learners find out which parts of the work they enjoy before they pick a job title.

The brief (read aloud at minute 0)

"Pusat Khidmat Komuniti Bandar Contoh is a made-up centre. It helps people with aid applications, documents, CVs, digital skills and legal-aid referrals. Last week 8 of 20 appointments were missed and 4 were late. Staff time is tight and the budget is RM2,000 a month. Your team will recommend one change, build a simple version of it, and explain who it helps and who it might leave out. There is no single right answer."

All the numbers in the brief are part of the fictional scenario.

Materials

Print one set per team of three or four (all attached): the team worksheet, 20 fictional appointment records with mixed evidence, three user interview cards, the weekly staffing schedule, the budget sheet (fictional budget, sourced unit prices and marked assumptions), the message templates (including an unchecked AI translation with errors) and the source pack. Print one constraint card per team, to hand out at minute 45. Staff only: facilitator-and-practitioner-cards.md, with the service-owner role card, the constraint card, the observation sheet and the answer key.

You also need A3 paper, sticky notes and markers for paper prototypes, one phone or laptop per team with an AI assistant the programme has approved, a pre-printed copy of the AI draft (Template 3) for the paper route, and the practitioner task brief for this taster, signed off by the practitioner and the curriculum lead. No learner needs a paid personal AI account.

Run sheet

No AI before minute 25. Version 1 is due by minute 45 and version 2 by minute 64. With nine learners in a pod at two minutes each, the pod review fills its 18 minutes exactly, so keep a visible timer.

The mid-task change

At minute 45, after the service owner's critique, hand each team the constraint card. In a fictional counter survey, 14 of 40 visitors said they use a shared phone or a feature phone only. Teams have ten minutes to say what they keep and what they change. A good response builds on the work instead of starting again: it adds or protects a route for visitors without smartphones, such as a phone call for flagged visitors, a printed card at booking or a call to a landline, and re-costs the plan.

The real national picture makes the same point. In 2025, 99.6% of individuals in Malaysia used a mobile phone, but household internet access was 99.0% in urban areas and 90.7% in rural areas^[1]. Using a mobile phone is not the same as owning a smartphone with data, and a high average can hide the people a service most needs to reach. DOSM's 2025 release does not give a smartphone figure, which is why the survey in this exercise is invented.

The practitioner: the service owner

The practitioner plays the service owner. Between minutes 10 and 25 they answer teams' questions from what is in the pack ("We don't record that" is a fair answer). At minute 45 they challenge the operating burden: who does this, when, at what cost in month one and month six, and what stops getting done instead. They ask what happens on a Saturday when the volunteer is away, which visitor the idea leaves out, and whose phone numbers would be shared with a messaging company. They are friendly but real, and they do not give the answer.

What the facilitator looks for

Each pod facilitator records two short observations per learner against the four shared criteria: frames the task and constraints; uses and verifies AI appropriately; improves work after feedback; explains a justified next step. Record emerging, demonstrated with support, or demonstrated independently, with an example. These are teaching notes, never a score of the person.

Listen for:

• Did the learner discover an incorrect assumption, for example that everyone has WhatsApp?
• Did they check a generated translation or a number against the supplied information? Template 3 has three planted errors: the day, morning versus afternoon, and swapped reply numbers.
• Did they recognise that a digital solution might leave a visitor out?
• Can they explain a trade-off in their own words?

Real facts teams may use

Prices and rules change, so every fact below has the date it was checked. If a team needs a figure that is not here, they write UNKNOWN and say where they would check it. Unknown is not zero.

• SMS: one Malaysian bulk SMS provider listed RM0.125 per SMS at its 1,000-credit tier when checked on 23 October 2026. The page does not say whether SST is included^[2].
• WhatsApp Business Platform: Meta has charged per delivered message since 1 July 2025, by message type and country, and a reminder the business sends first is charged^[3]. On 1 October 2026 the rules changed again: utility messages sent inside the 24-hour customer service window, free since 1 July 2025, became chargeable, and each business number now gets 1,000 free service messages a month^[3][4]. WhatsApp's undated marketing page still says replies are free^[5]; the dated developer pages are the ones to trust. Neither gives a Malaysia price in ringgit, so teams record WhatsApp costs as UNKNOWN unless a facilitator checked the rate card that day.
• Staff time: the minimum wage has been RM1,700 a month, or RM8.72 an hour, since 1 February 2025^[6]. In Budget 2027, on 9 October 2026, the government announced a rise to RM2,000 a month from June 2027^[7]. The minimum is a floor: real staff pay is usually higher.
• Personal data: the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 sets seven principles, a privacy notice must be in Bahasa Malaysia and English, and for people under 18 consent comes from a parent or guardian^[8]. Since 1 June 2025 organisations must appoint a data protection officer and notify the Commissioner of personal data breaches^[9]. The regulator's portal showed a maintenance notice on 22 and 23 October 2026^[10], so these come from law-firm summaries.

Privacy and safety in the room

Use only the fictional data. Learners never type their own or anyone's real phone number into a messaging tool or an AI. Practitioners and learners do not exchange contact details; any follow-up goes through the programme team. If a learner shares a personal story about a family member who struggles with access, thank them and do not record it. Bahasa Malaysia and code-switching are welcome at every step, and a learner without a phone works from the team device or on paper.

Paper route

The whole taster runs without devices. Teams draw version 1 on A3, then redraw it on a second sheet after the constraint card. The facilitator reads out the pre-printed AI draft (Template 3) and teams check it on paper against Template 1. Learners fill in the team worksheet, give their two-minute explanation aloud, and the facilitator writes observations on the observation sheet and photographs the sheets once devices work.

What to do next

1. Curriculum lead: settle decision D08 (does every learner take this task trial in round 1?) and confirm the four pods of nine.
2. Practitioner: read the role card a week before and change one detail to match your real work, without real client details.
3. Facilitators: on the day, check the WhatsApp rate card and the SMS price and write them on the board with the date, or tell teams to record them as UNKNOWN. Rehearse the answer key and agree what "demonstrated independently" looks like, using one sample piece of work.