Learning design in the public sector

My doctoral research studied how public sector professionals evaluate the suitability of design strategies and methods in their work, and what shapes their decisions.
Research findings showed the need for tailoring design discourse to how public sector professionals conceptualise and evaluate design to enhance both comprehension and credibility. Although my PhD research is over, my interest in developing effective ways to communicate design practices in the public sector is not. Thus I continue collecting data. 

INTRODUCTION TO DESIGN [IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR]

What is design-led innovation?

Design Principles: Grounded in Context & Holistic

Design principles: Creativity

The design process

Design principles: Iteration

THE PUBLIC SECTOR PROCUREMENT LADDER - a tool to aid design procurement in the public sector

Download and report available on the 25th Feb.

 
 

AREA OF APPLICATION - What designers can do for the public sector

 

 STYLING &
POST-DEFINITION DEVELEOPMENT

When the problem and key specifications are set by your organisations. Designers concentrate on the development of concepts and solutions.

OVERLAPS:

  • Designers may engage in research to uncover specifications that are not in the brief.

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
AND RESEARCH

Designers will engage with stakeholders to explore a problem or opportunity. These projects start with an exploratory purpose, to understand stakeholders’ relationships, needs, aspirations and expectations.

OVERLAPS:

  • Designers can the go on and use these insights to build ideas, specifications, or solutions.

 

SERVICE EXPERIENCE &
FRONT-LINE OPERATIONS

Designers will focus on improving the users’ experiences and designing the elements where they enter in contact with your services. This includes digital or real-world interactions, and services can be directed to the public or to groups of users with specific needs.

OVERLAPS:

  • Generally, service design and improvement require some kind of research and stakeholder engagement to understand the needs, aspirations, expectations and habits of different users and identify gaps in their experiences and service offer.

  • The gaps identified and improvements in service provision may require changes in back-end operations

BACK-END OPERATIONS &
INTERNAL SERVICES

Designers will focus on improving internal processes and operations. This can include the (re)design of internal services, aligning back-en operations to users’ needs or policy, and/or improving cost-effectiveness of internal operations.

These projects can engage employees to harness their knowledge of the current system, understand their needs, and envision feasible solutions that will improve their working experience, and quality and cost-effectiveness of outputs.

OVERLAPS:

  • The operations behind service provision are intrinsically linked to front-line engagement operations and shape users’ experiences. Ensuring that internal processes are fit for purpose entails examination of users’ experiences.

  • There is often a gap between policy and the organisational rules shaping internal processes. Aligning the organisation’s culture, structures, and processes to changing policy requirements is easier said than done, moreover, policy and user-led specifications can be at odds. Design’s holistic, creative and visual approach can help you find innovative ways to navigate these constraints.

 

INTEGRATION
OF SERVICES

Designers will focus on joining up services provided across multiple organisations with the purpose of improving service quality and cost-effectiveness. Engaging stakeholders can feel like herding cats. Cross-institutional projects entail a clash of organisational cultures and structures; and can often be tainted by complex dynamics and a history of poor relationships.

Design’s human-centred and holistic approach and visual and playful methods will help stakeholders understand and empathise with each others’ experiences, challenges, and priorities. But establishing a productive collaboration can take time, and it needs to be accounted in project milestones and budget.

POLICY &
STRATEGY

Designers can also focus on more abstract matters, such as the development of policy, strategy, or protocols. Design approaches aid this processes with their holistic and collaborative strategies, visual mapping methods, and creative process.

OVERLAPS:

  • If there is a gap between policy and organisational strategy, the gap between policy and user needs can be even greater. A holistic approach to policy-making entails building a framework that equips organisations and the people delivering services to cater for user needs.

PROCUREMENT MODEL - The different ways in which designers can work with you

WORKING
EXTERNALLY

Designers may work as a traditional consultancy agency, where they will deliver what has been agreed upon with little involvement from staff, users, and other stakeholders.

 

COLLABORATING
WITH DESIGNERS

Designers may want to involve experts in your organisations, staff, users, and other stakeholders - especially for research purposes, but also during ideation and development. The degree of collaboration can vary. Members of staff involved in the process may gain some design capabilities.

CO-DESIGN &
COCREATION

Designers become the orchestrators of a collaborative process and, instead of designing the outputs, they will be guiding and facilitating the process and creating the tools to enable your organisation to develop solutions. This is a collaborative process involving employees at different organisational levels and with different areas of expertise, users and other stakeholders throughout the project.

The organisation needs to allow sufficient time for building the appropriate collaborations, and give staff the capacity and autonomy to get involved in the process.

 

IN-HOUSE
DESIGNERS

Your organisation may choose to develop a design department, which might be more economically sustainable that procuring consultancy work. In-house and external designers alike may decide to work with different degrees of collaboration from other employees and stakeholders depending on the project. However, in-house designers will become knowledgeable of the organisation’s context, culture, processes, and services. The organisational knowledge of in-house designers will speed up development work. Although in the long term, they may also lose perspective and give some things for granted. As outsiders, external designers can bring a fresh perspective and challenging questions no-one in the organisation is asking.

DESIGN CAPABILITY
ACROSS DEPARTMENTS

Your organisation may choose to bring designers in to train staff across organisational levels in the design approach. Design methods and strategies can also be used to complement other improvement methodologies used in the organisation to better understand users, visualise processes, or iteratively develop ideas to lower risk.