Design Thinking in What Kinds of Value and Innovation Methods

Designing for Public Services Introduction Skills impact. Its Innovation meaningful organisation's tocreate culture must becometo life of an part required innovation tobring skills the organisations, and that within the foundations for innovation need the recognises tostrengthen Nesta programmes. and practical investment toin-depth research its activities from early range stage help can that improve lives, our all Dedicatedlife. ideas tosupporting organisationsgreat ideas bring to amissionwith tohelp people and Nesta Nesta This guide has been created by... designforeurope.eu. boost design and innovation continent. the across Find out at more at a three-year co-funded programme by Commission European the to been made has guide possible supportThis for with from Design Europe, Design for Europe team works team closely with is an innovation charity innovation an is charity increase innovationincrease capacity. broadly on how develop to and more advising while also skills, organisations tohelp embed these public and social sector human-centred approach to tangible a tomake thinking design been practising IDEO has and foundations tosolve problems. government development agencies supporting in firm’s experience ideo.org,profit arm, leverages the and national levels. IDEO’s non and state atEurope Asia and local, globally governments in US, the in it deployed has its learnings aglobalsectors. organisation, As private,across the public third and 30 of experience working years over with and innovation firm IDEO IDEO is a world-renowned a is design challenges in Ethiopia. in challenges productionsolving agricultural a unique to Peru school in system from building challenges, systemic its approach increasingly totackle problem uses solving. Now firm the Introduction

“Design is one of the most important drivers of the quality of experience for users of services. For governments to remain credible to their citizens, they must treat the design quality of their services as seriously as the best businesses.”

– Tim Brown, CEO and president, IDEO

3 In this section... Introduction

Welcome to this collection of practical tools and methods for using design in public services. You have made it this far in your journey, so hopefully you are already aware that design is not just for designers - everybody has the capacity to design! Introduction

Historically, designers have lived sector. They will encourage you to parallel lives to policymakers and see things differently and give old public administrators. But this is challenges a new perspective. These changing as governments across tools and methods are commonly p.05 — p.08 — the world experiment with design used by designers across the world Why design thinking in What kinds of value and innovation methods. This and are the bread and butter of government? is design thinking might include bringing in expert our creative industries. They can delivering? design support, but we also believe be adopted by any sector and be that anybody can start exploring used to inspire the progress and p.10 — p.06 — with these same methods. innovation we all strive for. They can help strengthen your Case study - Ministry of Learning to use these tools and Expanding a portfolio understanding of citizen needs, Manpower, Work Pass methods will be like learning any of methods in the public add value to daily work practices Division new practical skill. It’s true, you sector and bring new life to can’t perform a piano concerto old problems. after a few piano lessons — it’s all p.11 — p.07 — In this guide we introduce you to about practice. So, don’t look at A note on leadership a process called design thinking them as a silver bullet, and instead Why the move to these and a set of tools and methods that build your confidence by trying new approaches? underpin it. Together, they offer them out. Apply them to different p.12 — new ways to do things differently stages of a project and involve and provide you with guidance on others in exploring them. Contents how you can introduce them into We hope you enjoy! 4 your day-to-day work in the public Why design thinking in government?

Design thinking has been practised Financial pressures are really biting outside in’. Governments drive the desired changes of a government by design and innovation firm IDEO in many countries so simple cost change they want to see and tend to with the desires of the citizens. It is for decades. cutting measures are no longer focus on delivering in a way that is ultimately about creating tangible enough. Many governments need most efficient for them. and positive impact. Introduction The private sector has been on the to think much more fundamentally journey of building design capabilities As a result the desired change often about how they deliver services, in its organisations for many misses the mark with citizens. Using and so innovation has been put on years. More recently, we are seeing design approaches puts in balance the the agenda. Design thinking is an governments embarking on a similar innovation approach and its tools and journey. Dependent on where you techniques can lead to significant are in the world, there are a number TRANSACTION BASED changes in both policy design and of reasons why design thinking is service delivery. becoming a valuable methodology for governments. There is a separation between those WHAT WHAT CITIZENS GOVERNMENT who make policies and those who SAYS Citizen trust in many governments EXPERIENCE deliver the services, and this often continues to decline. Citizens believe results in an incoherent service their governments have lost sight of experience for citizens. A design led who they are and what their needs are. approach connects these dots, with Design thinking is a human-centred both policy design and delivery being SERVICE PROCESS POLICY approach, meaning that it starts considered concurrently rather than with people’s needs (and considers sequentially, and quite a number of both citizens and civil servants). The governments are now experimenting nature of this approach puts people in this space. back in balance with what they’re doing at a time when both citizens Irrespective of where a government and civil servants feel they are being is in the world and their local led by processes and regulation, rather challenges, there is one common than enabled by them. issue: a shift from ‘designing from BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS 5 the inside out’ to ‘designing from the 6 Introduction 03 —LEARN

02 — RELEASE 01 —BUILD requirements documentation. requirements through which articulated are of the government agency, the needs with tostart tends process that alinear also is This and deploying services. software methods building of designing, governments deploy waterfall space, online the In most — — — — commonthree attributes: of methodologies these All share Management, Six Sigma and Business Process Re-engineering. Lean government in as such typical approaches problem-solving Working in the public sector, you may be familiar with other methods in the public sector of portfolio a Expanding

services is the goal. is services when opimisation of existing most deployed are They often linear in how in the projectslinear flow and structured highly are They quantitative data tendThey tobe driven by the ‘inside out’ led are They from by designing requirements of the government). needs of (in citizens the with balance iterative highly is by and inspired the process this Again, services. software and deploying building designing, methods of Development Agile when tools with and experimenting are the online space,In governments — share commonshare attributes: methodologies three These also StartUp Economics. and Behavioural more recently, along Lean with with have been experimenting of approaches governments that one is of anew set thinking Design — —

by qualitative about data citizens quantitative and inspired data informed by are They when innovation the goal. is most deployed are They often approaches iterative, are They test-and-learn

Why the move to these new approaches?

The reasons somewhat vary dependent on the circumstances a “Increasingly, the public sector government department finds itself in. Introduction has to deal with uncertainty The sense of less certainty. way of building and iterating rather than risk, and it is Governments at all levels are software services as the needs of good at managing risk but embracing ever growing levels of government and citizen change. complexity and in increasingly Irrespective of where a uncertain times. There is a bad at managing uncertainty. government is in the world, there sense that even all the questions is a common challenge: creating Design offers the capacity are not quite understood, let greater connections between alone the answers, so the idea of citizens and governments. The to engage with user needs deploying innovation approaches new set of approaches all start is appealing for many. and social needs, and to with people. Cost-cutting measures. This guide primarily focuses on take a prototyping approach Many governments require the tools and methods associated more fundamental change so to solutions. This is a way with design thinking, however, are adopting approaches more in Chapter 5 we do draw in associated with innovation. In the to build a bridge between several tools and methods from online space, there is evidence that other approaches that are highly uncertainty and risk.” deploying agile methods has many valuable when thinking advantages — one of them being about prototyping. – Marco Steinberg, government innovator and founder, that over time, it is a cost-effective Snowcone & Haystack, strategic design practice for government 7 What kinds of value is design thinking delivering?

These new approaches are From our experience, we are also activities civil servants also report relatively nascent in the public seeing benefits for civil servants too. feeling a sense of reconnection with

Introduction sector, but across the globe why they joined government. They In governments across the globe, civil governments are seeing higher are personally re-connecting with the servants report that they feel led by citizen satisfaction scores on citizens they set out to serve. processes and regulations, rather the services they deliver. than being enabled by them. Putting This is all positive news, but that In governments that are people back in the heart of problem doesn’t mean that these new experimenting with design in the solving is creating a new balance methodologies should replace more policy formulation space, early between people and processes/ established ones. They shouldn’t signs suggest they are designing regulations. Civil servants themselves be used in every situation either. policies that connect more closely are now part of the picture. Instead, we believe that governments with citizens, and therefore are which have an expanded toolkit will Working for a government is highly more likely to hit the mark when be better equipped to take on an meaningful for most staff, and they implemented. uncertain future. The future will be want to make a positive difference about considering the nature of the So, there is a lot of evidence emerging to the lives of citizens. These newer challenge at hand, and deploying in terms of citizen value. methodologies are informed not just the right methodology against the by quantitative data but qualitative challenge. Getting to know the tools data too — spending time with and methods in this collection will citizens, enquiring and unearthing help you to achieve just that. their needs. This is a critical process

point, but by carrying out these

8 Introduction “Design methods can bring a vital new energy to public services by helping them to listen to citizens about their lived experiences, prototyping fast and learning by doing, and using visualisations as well as texts. All of these quicken the pulse of innovation and help governments get to better solutions more quickly.”

— Geoff Mulgan, CEO, Nesta

9 Case study, Singapore The job of the Work Pass Division (WPD) in Singapore is to process work permits for foreign workers, who comprise about 40% of Singapore’s workforce. It was generally Work Pass Division, considered the most efficient department of its kind in the world, and yet, customer satisfaction scores demonstrated there was more work to do. Several rounds of Business Process Ministry of Manpower Re-Engineering had driven their efficiency and the team turned to design thinking to consider more broadly the Introduction customer experience of their services. The team at the WPD worked with IDEO over a period of three years. Together they tackled the customer experiences in the service centres, how they communicated with customers through all written communications and even re-structured the department away from internal process and towards industry sectors. In one example of impact, the Employment Pass Service

“The most important lesson we learnt from our customers was that being world-class is all about ‘values’. It made us ask ourselves how we could turn speed and efficiency into a holistic customer service experience that our customers valued.” — Penny Han, Director, Work Pass Division

Centre — which processes the permits for all incoming white collar workers — saw its customer satisfaction ratings shoot to 5.7 out of 6 after the launch of the new experience design. Additionally, the centre is now able to process more than 95% of visitors within 15 minutes. WPD concluded; “It seems that when you aim to improve the experience, you also improve efficiency”. The combination of using Business Process Re- Engineering and design thinking has ensured it is a world 10 leader in terms of efficiency and customer experience. A note on leadership

“Leaders can create the The job of leaders both in More and more we are seeing the private and public sector that governments need to re- conditions for innovation; is becoming rather more think what they do rather more complex. fundamentally, and the problems Introduction encouraging their people they are tackling usually We predict that the leaders who come with a higher degree of will succeed in the future will to empathise with users, uncertainty. In some cases, the be those who have the following problem is not well understood at generate new solutions and abilities: the outset, let alone the solution. test and adapt them over time. — The ability to ask the very best Newer approaches such as design It calls for a blend of humility questions play well in this space. — The ability to choose the In the future, leaders will be and curiosity, patience and right methodology against required to become more modal a particular problem and in terms of how they govern, perseverance.” knowing how to govern the switching between governance work, methodology dependent. styles depending on the nature of – Brenton Caffin, Director of Innovation Skills, Nesta the problem and the methodology Using the methods and tools in deployed against it. It may this collection will help these be an anxious time for many leadership qualities to emerge — governments but it is also an not just in terms of hierarchy, but exciting time. The need and also in how you as an individual opportunities for innovation can effectively drive change. abound!

11 Contents

01 — 04 — Introduction Setting up Testing ideas for success through prototyping Laying the foundations to get your Turning your idea into something project off to the best start tangible you can experiment with 02 — 05 — Getting Preparing for inspired implementation Digging deeper into your challenge Getting ready to launch your idea in area and gathering new perspectives the real world 03 — 06 — Developing Overcoming insights & ideas challenges Identifying new insights and looking Some common challenges and how 12 for new opportunities you might address them Getting01 — Inspired Setting up for success

Nesta x IDEO Key activities Introduction

First things first — the flow of a design led project looks and feels very different to other approaches you might be familiar with.

p.16 — p.20 — We mentioned in the introduction process, where you focus on coming Exploring the Assembling your team that methodologies such as up with a particular solution. This challenge Business Process Re-engineering is appropriate if you are looking are usually deployed when the to improve what you already do, p.21 — objective is to optimise what you for example by increasing the p.17 — Setting up for success for up Setting Team roles already do. Design led approaches efficiency of processing income Creating a are more often deployed in service tax returns. You will already have challenge brief of innovation, when you want to re- a lot of knowledge and experience p.22 — think what your policy is or how it in the area and not seeking to is delivered to citizens. Innovation make fundamental changes. When Setting up p.18 — requires inspiration and divergent you are looking to completely re- your foundations thinking — meaning you'll explore think an area — for example if a Case study: Mindlab many different solutions. Ever sat policy is simply not achieving your and the Danish Ministry in a brainstorm with your team desired outcome, or you are feeling of Employment p.23 — and kept coming up with the same overwhelmed by negative citizen Running workshops ideas over and over? feedback on a service you deliver — the flow of the project will be The flow of a more traditional p.19 — a combination of divergent and project generally looks and feels convergent thinking. Planning your p.24 — like a convergent problem solving project Case study: Land Transport Authority, Singapore 14 “We are heavily programmed at work to have the answers to problems, and to have them as quickly as possible. But not all problems are created equal. Divergent thinking is critical when you are looking for very new solutions. This can feel very Setting up for success for up Setting uncomfortable at first; you have to get used to the fact that you won’t have the solutions in the early part of your project and you may have a feeling of uncertainty. With practice and experience though, this way of working becomes second nature.”

– Andrea Kershaw, Partner, IDEO

15 Exploring the challenge

You know the challenge area you Steps want to address, perhaps even 01 With your team, identify the 05 This exercise might lead you the problem you want to solve. specific issue you want to reflect to ‘reframe’ the problem you But is it the right one? Step back on and why you think it is initially addressed, which and open it up by thinking about important. can then offer clues as to the it from different angles. direction of your project. 02 The key aim here is to capture, You think you know what the problem compare and discuss different is. It’s simple, right? But sometimes viewpoints on the problem. You what at first seems to be the issue can then review the notes and is just a symptom of something discuss with your team members Setting up for success for up Setting deeper. It's important to see things whether you are making the same through fresh eyes, and to open up assumptions, and whether you are your challenge by thinking about framing things in the same way. wider issues and influencing factors. Discuss and write down on Post- Examining it from a number of 03 its who it is a problem for, and different angles can help you uncover what social and cultural factors alternative perspectives, and this in shape the problem. Think about turn will help you create a stronger what evidence you have that brief for your project. this particular problem is a Doing this as a group helps bring significant one that it is worth everyone behind the problem from investing in. the start. You may also think about Now, taking your notes into involving other stakeholders such as 04 account, explore different ways service users or staff. of viewing the problem. Can you look at it from different perspectives? 16 Creating a challenge brief

Great briefs drive great rigid. It is meant to provoke new outcomes, so create one thinking, invite contribution from Brief that truly tries to define various users, and create room to your challenge area, sets evolve. A 'brief template' worksheet template the course and frames the can be found here. opportunity space. Steps Having explored your challenge, Phrase the challenge brief it’s then important to align on a 01 from a user point of view. — The design challenge: How might we... challenge definition as a team that excites, inspires and ensures focus. 02 Articulate the challenge in an — Why is this challenge important? How would

Setting up for success for up Setting If a challenge brief has strong optimistic, inviting tone, often you describe the problem you were solving foundations and is bought into by as a “How Might We…?” for or the new opportunity you are looking to the team, then it's more likely that Use action verbs and leverage and why it matters? it will be referred to throughout 03 aspirational goals that the project. A good brief centralises encourage people to take on — Do you already have stated ambitions? If so, thinking, maintains intent and the task at hand. what are they? helps keep everyone on track as they may dip in and out of 04 Make sure it doesn’t — What research and resources do you already the project over time. It should presuppose a solution. have? (Trends, bespoke research, etc.) be broad enough to spark new 05 Take out words with bias. directions, yet focused enough to — What is the project plan? help teams innovate. It’s also important that we ask — Who's involved? (Core, extended, leadership the right question by centering team, etc.) on human need first, instead of starting with policy, business, product or service goals. A 17 challenge brief is responsive, not Case study, Denmark Since 2013, Danish public innovation lab MindLab has been working with Denmark’s Ministry of Employment to reform a number of employment services —­ many looking at The Danish Ministry of Employment, radically new ways of dealing with long-term unemployment and vulnerable citizens. One of the main elements has been to create a shift from a focus on activity to a focus on MindLab outcomes for citizens. This has been done by exploring how to best invest in creating positive change in the citizens’ situations through interdisciplinary collaboration and greater professional freedom in case processing. To enable this shift, MindLab began a process of merging development and implementation: using ethnographic methods to explore how employment processes really worked for citizens, in job centres and in the everyday practice of frontline staff. They then used this research to engage national decision-makers Setting up for success for up Setting and local practitioners in collectively analysing insights, co- creating new ideas and co-designing a number of activities in order to productively put the new reforms into practice.

"One of the main elements has been to create a shift from a focus on activity to a focus on outcomes for citizens. This has been done by exploring how to best invest in creating positive change in the citizens’ situations."

The project has since evolved into a strategic partnership between the ministry and MindLab where human-centred design is being applied and experimented with in other phases of the policymaking cycle. This is resulting in various new ways of connecting policy and practice — including mandatory internships for policymakers alongside local case workers, and practice-oriented preventive units focusing on 18 quick adaptation of failing reforms. Planning your project

Plan your project by How considering the challenges, Remember that the flow of these feature of the design process. This outcomes, resources, and types of projects allows for both format provides the opportunity deliverables. Paint a picture divergent and convergent thinking, to work more collaboratively and of timing, with layers of so the template below gives a sense dynamically, and will help to push engagement and progress of what a project plan may start to your project forwards (see page markers. look like. 23 for more, or click here for the Considering your organisation's 'planning your project' worksheet). Instead of lots of traditional-style intent and innovation appetite meetings, workshops are a common against current organisational

Setting up for success for up Setting capabilities is crucial to project impact. Whether it is distilling high-level policy, creating citizen- Learn centred design briefs, or working from ground-level initiatives Frame Opportunities Generate Focus rolling up into organisation-wide efforts, the project team needs permission, support and planning to succeed in its mission. How do Research Ideation Implement we break down a challenge that CHALLENGE IMPACT might feel overwhelming into bite- Synthesis Design sized, discrete chunks? Frame Prototype Focus Opportunities

Learn

19 An overview of the typical stages in a design project, showing where to focus your thinking and where to go broad 20 Setting up for success phases and milestones. milestones. and phases people with the right skills or knowledge are engaged across forward-looking and empathic individuals. Make sure the right Build acollaborative team consisting of the most optimistic, people it’s sure make — and not about toinvolve time the right key along carefully journey? the Think of stakeholders, at points the right engagement, types acrossright the do level theright we garner of points. at Howin different then organisation need tobe brought of the other state, parts the current potentially disruptive to nature At due time, thesame toits stays together. that strong team the continuous of stewardship a collaborativehighly requires and design The process is tofail. likely and above workloads, current it is over activity extracurricular an itWhen becomes too much of participation. incentivises staff it so that focus encourages and yourwith organisation's strategic enoughcompelling and aligned briefshould challenge The be Assembling your team your Assembling in and out and in of aproject. themselves up they dip speed to as people continuously bringing more that lostargue is by time we fact would and in time, same to work on multiple projects at the productive for core members team no evidence it more is suggests that We hand. in on challenge the have who focus teams time can full with more be achieved can alot faster demonstratesexperience alot that over longer our of periods time. All multiple projects concurrently and work servants on civil typically the project. We that understand for time the duration full ofis whenbest core team the team led workDesign projects typically smoothly. progressing things to becritical will are makers too late! who Knowing decision the Team roles

Sponsorship At leadership, management or business unit level Invested in the success of the project and its impact Core Team: Extended Team: Leadership Team: on the organisation Actively involved Engaged Informed Gives permission, energy and emotional support to What they do: What they do: What they do: the core team, and the The core team are the soul of the These are typically people The leadership team are the Setting up for success for up Setting people they appoint project and its chief designers. identified as subject matter final decision makers, but they Attends key workshops and They also own the project plan experts, and could come from the should be kept informed along the project checkpoints to and ensure it stays on track. The policy space and/or delivery space. course of the project and able to align direction Project Lead manages the core They contribute their expertise to contribute their thinking. They team and liaises with the extended the challenge. are invested in the outcome and Project Lead and leadership teams. support the work of the team Brings content knowledge across the organisation. and stays connected around the organisation Key project roles: Key project roles: Key project roles:

In charge of steering the project The team accountable for the Providing subject matter expertise. Decision-making and air cover for forward and increasing its success outputs of the project. the core team. Can also act as reviewers of the core Empathic, ‘people’-person who Owners of the design process. team’s work. is optimistic, resourceful and When bringing in collaborators, doesn’t give up easily the facilitators of the conversations Often supported by a team and input. member to coordinate schedules, 21 communication and logistics Setting up your foundations

Form a space and rhythm that works by setting up a Kickoff Steps shared project space and working calendar. 01 Find an area you can dedicate agenda to your project. Ideally it Design projects need a home should have plenty of wall to enable rapid idea generation space and room to invite and to inspire behaviours that — Review the project brief and envision the others in to engage with are creative, open, playful and impact outcomes together. your activity. non-judgmental. Setting up the Setting up for success for up Setting — Define what you think success looks like environment has a huge impact on 02 Visually map out your project developing rapport between team using Post-its and make for yourself, the team and the organisation/ members, setting expectations critical milestones clear for country. and establishing norms for others to see. You may even working together. For more consider printing out a large — Discuss team members strengths, and how guidance, please use the 'Creative project calendar and make it a team members can support each other. workshop template' found here. fixture in your workspace. — Share hopes, fears, and expectations. 03 Host a kick-off meeting at the beginning of your project, — Understand work-life balance needs and asking core team members who can be the team champion. to share thoughts about themselves, the project and the — Define the areas of learning and team. experimentation to push.

22 Sample agendas Running workshops

Customise the agenda based on whether you’re organising Design led projects are typically meeting light and workshop a kick-off, research storytelling, co-creation or visioning heavy. Workshops are about bringing people together, getting workshop session. productive and moving the project along.

There are different types of they are about people coming workshops associated with design together to collaborate, all Introduction Exploring the Empathy thinking projects, and the sample contributing in equal measure. to design challenge exercise or agendas on the opposite page list If your workshop is successful, these out. Each workshop has a you should feel that you have thinking brief icebreaker specific purpose that helps to move significantly moved your project

Setting up for success for up Setting teams through the design process. forward. No matter the purpose of the You can expect several formal workshop, there are behaviours meetings along the way with your common to all. Workshops are not leadership team too, where you will Research Opportunities Brainstorming about stakeholder management; be more in presentation mode. storytelling and insights

Prototyping Ideas Reflections sharebacks and next steps 23 Case study, Singapore

Singapore will be doubling its rail network over the next 15 Land Transport years and opening over 100 new stations. With this in mind, the engineering team responsible for designing the stations had been wanting to take a different approach by thinking Authority about how they could design for commuter needs. Previously stations had been designed with technical constraints as a starting point: what’s the available land size? What number of fire exits are required? So instead they asked a different question: how would you start to imagine a future differently, using design? And they came to a different landing point, that the community needed to express itself through the

"So instead they asked a different question: how Setting up for success for up Setting would you start to imagine a future differently, using design?"

stations. The stations needed to have the right facilities to respond to community needs — childcare centres, bike parking, spaces for community collaboration and more. The process of exploring this has led to several key design archetypes for future stations that include these facilities and that will now guide their detailed design process.

24 02 — Getting inspired Key activities Introduction

Once your project plan is set up and you have brought the right people together, it’s time to get going. p.27 — p.33 — Kickstarting your research Creating interview The first stage is about exploring you need to get closer to them. discussion guides your challenge further, considering Spending time with citizens what you already know, and what and service users to deeply Getting inspired p.28 — else you may need to discover. understand how they interact with p.34 — You will now begin to dig deeper, products and services is a way Influencing forces and by delving into the detail to inspire new thinking. This is Case study: Mind, and immersing yourself in the qualitative research, and should be Get up and Grow, UK context you can uncover insights supplementary to commissioning p.29 — and see the challenge from new or reviewing quantitative research Qualitative research perspectives. — not instead of. p.35 — You can draw upon traditional Qualitative research methods are Observations research techniques to probe heavily inspired by the social and p.30 — further as well as trying some behavioural sciences, and they User interviews new tools and methods. Your have long been core methods in p.36 — department or organisation will the design industry to inspire new Analogous research typically have an array of useful solutions. p.31 — sources of information to hand; This chapter covers a number benchmarking reports, trend Tips on conducting of the most commonly used p.37 — Case study: Creative reports, outputs from scenario interviews qualitative research methods. It Councils, Havering Council, planning and quantitative research also takes you through a number UK on their own services. This is all of methods that are invaluable greatly useful information. p.32 — for sparking inspiration, such as But if you want to innovate in opening up a problem, visualising Recruiting interview a policy or service in a way that challenges and learning from other participants 26 really resonates with citizens, contexts. Kickstarting your research

Consider how best to get Steps closer to people, and what 01 Organise a team brainstorm. you want to learn from them. Explore the knowledge The key to getting the right gaps you have around your insights during your research challenge and consider how activity is asking the right you might cluster them Getting inspired questions. You’ll need to work with into themes. your team to collectively decide For each theme, discuss key on the themes and issues that you 02 questions such as: what do we think are most important to think we know, not know, and your project. need to know?

03 Ensure you consider different types of citizen profiles. Try to think about the extremes as well as the norms. It's important to include rich perspectives and human stories.

04 Think about what research methods might help you get closer to the gaps in your knowledge.

05 Explore within your group who has any skills that may be useful, and where else you may go to get support from within 27 your organisation. Influencing forces

Investigate your challenge Steps further and uncover areas 01 Gather your team and begin for research by exploring the by collectively identifying the different forces that might core problem you want influence it. to unpack. Finding answers to complex issues

Getting inspired Using Post-its, discuss and isn’t simple, so it’s important to try 02 write down what you think and begin to understand all the the different symptoms are different causes and relationships — including direct symptoms that influence a problem. Many and less obvious symptoms of the challenges we’re trying to — as well as any confounding solve have lots of causes and effects, factors that might influence and understanding these forces the problem. is vital to then finding effective ways to address them. Delving into 03 Next, go through your your challenge will also help you symptoms and map out all identify areas that you might want the possible causes — again to do further research in. thinking about both direct and underlying causes, as well Using brainstorming techniques, as other confounding factors. start with the obvious causes but be quick to move on to the ones 04 Once you’ve completed this, that you are less familiar with. Use reflect on both the symptoms the knowledge of the group to fill and causes and discuss what in the gaps and work together on insights you can take from the painting a bigger picture. process. Repeat the process for any other problems you want to explore. 28 Definitions Qualitative research

Quantitative research Numerical data is great for informing you on what is going on in your challenge area, but make sure to combine it with qualitative Formal, objective, systematic process in which research. numerical data are used to obtain information about the world. Quantitative research can start both kinds of research in projects. to point to solution ideas, and

Getting inspired There are many qualitative you should review all research research tools and methods, but Qualitative research you already have. But central to here we focus on three: Primarily exploratory research. It is used to design thinking is also qualitative gain an understanding of underlying reasons, research tools and methods. opinions and motivations. It provides insights Qualitative research enables you — User interviews into the problem or helps to develop ideas or to get closer to citizens, establish hypotheses. The terms qualitative research root causes to problems from — Observations and ethnographic research are often used their perspective, and inspire new interchangeably. In reality, ethnographic solutions. Design teams include — Analogous research research is a subset of qualitative research.

Ethnographic research Ethnography, simply stated, is the study of people in their own environment through the use of methods such as participant observation and face-to-face interviewing.

29 User interviews

These are typically face-to- Listen carefully and don't dismiss face interviews with citizens their insights. You will learn much that can be carried out one- more than if you were just doing on-one or conducted as desk research. For futher support, group interviews. click here for the 'User interview discussion guide'. Governments are increasingly Getting inspired aspiring to become more citizen Consider who you approach centred, and user interviews are a carefully and strive to go to where great method to do just that. If you people live, work and play to trigger only use quantitative data, there is discussions about behaviours, a danger of making assumptions mindsets and lifestyle values. If about the nature of the challenge. you do a group interview, allow Digging deeper by spending time everyone to be involved equally with citizens enables you to either and listen to all perspectives. It reinforce your assumptions or might feel like a focus group, but challenge them. the purpose is different. Whereas focus groups are typically used to If you haven't done an interview gauge citizen reactions to a new before the prospect can be service or campaign once they have daunting. But people like to been designed, user interviews share, and you may be positively are used to enquire about the surprised by just how much! If you challenge and to gauge opinions, approach the activity in an open beliefs and feelings to then inspire and transparent way, and are clear a new range of solutions. Managed about your objectives, then you well, user interviews can be fun will be able to unlock invaluable and productive experiences for insights. Ask questions in a non- everyone involved. threatening and curious manner. 30 Recruiting interview participants

Always recruit a range of Types participants for interviews. Usually, you’ll look to recruit Conduct 60-90 minute participants with different in-depth interviews at perespctives. people’s homes, offices

Getting inspired and everyday contexts. — Look in: people who represent internal perspectives from Stepping into the shoes of citizens frontline to operations, and frontline staff on the ground management and is crucial to developing empathy ecosystem stakeholders for the end-user experience of a system. It needs team input and — Look out: citizens, customers scheduling in advance so that you and users of the system, can stay focused during your time product or service in the field — it is as tiring as it is Seek out extreme users and inspiring! Prioritise quality over — experts: people who have quantity. Having the right balance interesting ways of using the of demographic representation is system because they represent important, but not as important specific need sets. as the right mix of behaviours. (For example, think about how a Ideally, start recruiting participants 70-year-old can have behaviours through formal and informal in common with a 20-year-old, networks one to two weeks before regardless of gender or race). the research phase begins.

31 Creating interview discussion guides

Preparation is everything and Steps creating a discussion guide 01 As a team, generate interview can make or break the value questions and exercises to ask of the interview. It is about your users and cluster them designing for a dialogue, not

Getting inspired into topic areas to allow a a survey. comfortable flow (e.g. three Planning discussion guides helps to umbrella topics of around 30 impose order on your conversation minutes each). and prevent discussions from Ensure that the questions are straying too far from research 02 open and non-leading. They needs. Planning together as a group shouldn’t presuppose an answer. also helps your team to generate consensus around the purpose 03 Rephrase binary ‘yes/no’ of the research. If you are doing questions to ‘why’, ‘how’, and multiple interviews, a discussion ‘tell me about a story when...’. guide helps keep the responses you Start with warming up, getting- get back consistent. 04 to-know you type questions. Do a final review of the guide to check you have a well- rounded approach to eliciting experiences, struggles and aspirations.

05 Rehearse with a colleague to help you experiment with going ‘off-book’ and maintaining a 32 natural, casual flow. 33 Getting inspired Tips on user interviews user on Tips language. observe context and body one point. data to Besure youWhat only is hear language body Observe three. nodefinitely more than but insights, to capture the questioning and one Two works one well, to do imbalance.and create an overwhelm interviewee the you need. Too many can consider how many people doing alone, interviews then youIf don't feel comfortable interviewers your Choose in advance.in session the goingare torun tester) how and agree you photographer or concept interviewer, note-taker, Give everyone arole (i.e. role everyone a Give ‘guest in their reality’. their ‘guest in interviewee's Bea behalf. correct on or an speak why.Ask Never judge, why Ask general statements. examples rather than tangible and specific to use appropriate encourage them goand then deep. Where 32). up broad, warm Start (see guide discussion page alongBring your prepared guide discussion Prepare a agreement. anyonewith without their you won't content the share Always that them reassure privacy them of their Reassure from talking. way ideas adifferent spark in helps also Drawing research. and establishes arecord of barriers or language cultural helps tobridge visual getting graphsketch, or timeline, words. Whether aquick athousand A picture paints visual Get the gist. just forthem quotes direct not onrelying atranslator, ask impressions. you If are ofinstead recording your verbatimCapture quotes, quotes great Capture Case study, UK Through its network of over 140 local charities, Mind provides mental health services across England and Wales. A significant proportion of its work is on behalf of the Get up and Grow, National Health Service and local authorities, which have been under growing financial pressure in the last few years. In order to try to find new answers to these changes, in 2013 Mind began looking into design-led approaches and set Mind up a Service Design programme. It piloted the programme with five local Minds, including Suffolk Mind, who were struggling to make the most of an allotment project that

Getting inspired had been established by a small group of volunteers. Suffolk Mind realised they needed to expand their knowledge of what services users wanted and needed from their allotment

“Suffolk Mind realised they needed to expand their knowledge of what services users wanted and needed from their allotment project.”

project. They conducted in-depth interviews with six people to understand what day-to-day life looks like for someone living with mental ill-health and how ecotherapy might be of benefit. The team drew a storyboard to help communicate their new ideas. The fun, visual format helped them to engage more people in their plans and get more feedback to shape the offer. The ecotherapy project, now known as Get up and Grow, has since expanded to five fully-funded allotments.

34 Observations

Behaviours show what Steps people can’t always 01 Observe actions and articulate. Embed yourself interactions keeping your in the experience of your subject in mind, not yourself users through ‘fly-on- or the organisation. the-wall’ observation to

Getting inspired complement interviews. 02 Ask yourself what is being done, how it is being done, Finding ways to stand in the shoes and why. Look for and capture of the user is key to challenging patterns, workarounds, assumptions and gaining insight repetitions and what’s missing. into people’s pain points and unmet needs. People don’t always 03 At the end of an observation, do, think or feel what they say ask to take a guided — and often at times, aren't even tour through the home, sure of what they really want. workplace or operating Observational techniques can environment of the user. be applied in lots of different This ‘show and tell’ reveals scenarios to unlock new insights, 04 new talking points, helps and the findings are often more you probe deeper and authentic and signpost the actual discover what’s important. values, habits and preferences of users. 05 Capture information responsibly — only take photos or videos of faces and belongings on agreement.

35 Analogous research

To get a fresh perspective on Steps your research, shift your focus 01 List the activities, to a new context through behaviours, and emotions analogous inspiration. This you might be researching. helps reframe the challenge to find openings for solving it. 02 Next to each, write a situation

Getting inspired where you might observe these Breakthrough innovation comes happening. For example, if by looking at the current state the activity is “use a device through new lenses. Challenges at the same time every day,” can be unlocked by isolating parallel situations might be elements of an experience, product, how people use alarm clocks. service or interaction and then simply drawing parallels with 03 Have teams vote on what where others have solved similar they would like to observe problems before. Rather than or take a closer look at. approaching the process in an When there, pay close overly cerebral manner, getting 04 attention, stay curious, ask out from behind our desks into questions and share notes. new situations helps draw upon our natural reserves to spur fresh 05 Reflect and synthesise as a thinking. Creative stimulus and team to map back thoughts ‘aha’ moments often happen in to your challenge area. unexpected places. Analogous research creates ways for teams to facilitate the chances of that happening through open, reflective absorption.

36 Staff from University Hospital of Wales’ neonatal unit worked with the Williams Formula 1 pit stop team to see what speed techniques they could adapt to improve their resuscitation process for newborn babies. Case study, UK The London Borough of Havering was facing challenging issues around its foster care services. Children were frequently moved from placement to placement, with high Creative Councils, levels of instability amongst their carers, and this was leading to disruption and poorer outcomes. To understand the issues better, as part of Nesta’s Creative Councils programme the Havering Council council carried out ethnographic research to get a better understanding of the fostering system from the perspectives of both the young people and carers. By putting themselves in the shoes of the teenagers, they saw how it was easy for

Getting inspired them to game the system, and they saw the frustrations the foster carers felt that led them to treat fostering as just a kind of job.

“The research challenged their assumptions and allowed them to draw out insights that would otherwise be missed.”

The research challenged their assumptions and allowed them to draw out insights that would otherwise be missed by ‘tick box’ approaches or traditional research techniques. By using the real words and voices of people, the research created a really powerful emotional anchor for innovation. Instead of seeing clients as cases to be processed, it brought them to life. It also helped staff in the foster care service to realise that they were part of a wider system that was failing. The impact of the research was that it gave the foster care team the focus and moral purpose to drive through change in their services.

37 Getting03 — Inspired Developing insights & ideas Key activities Introduction

Once you have completed your research, it’s time to draw meaning from it all. With quantitative research, the data is normally numbers. With qualitative research, your data takes the form of stories. From here on in, it’s about using these to create new opportunities for solutions.

p.40 — p.45 — Downloading your learnings Generating opportunities Numerical data feels neat to work From these themes, you can start with; stories can feel messier to to generate insights. This isn’t an make sense of. Drawing out the exact science, but insights are key p.41 — p.46 — value of stories is a disciplined to creating ideas that you may process and you need to allow not previously have considered. Sharing stories Generating ideas time to do it well. The stories and You can then work on developing views you have gathered during your ideas into concepts, before Developing insights & insights ideas Developing the research should remain at the sharing them with the people that p.42 — p.47 — heart of this stage. you’ve learned from and getting Creating themes Creating concepts their feedback. There is enormous From the stories, you will start to value in making your ideas more spot patterns and themes in what tangible by using visuals when you are learning. Teams are often p.43 — p.48 — doing this. surprised by how quickly this Identifying insights Co-creating concepts can happen; they begin to realise The rest of this chapter covers that the core needs of citizens, say methods for turning your research around healthcare delivery, are into the start of new solutions p.44 — p.49 — remarkably similar no matter their using a step-by-step approach. circumstances. Case study: InWithForward, Case study: Life Programme, Burnaby Starter Project, Participle and Swindon 39 Canada Council, UK Downloading your learnings

Capture your stories and the challenge. Given this kind of learnings in a consistent way. research is more about dialogue than a survey, conversations can Now that you’ve got a huge amount sometimes wander off point and of notes, photos, impressions and therefore not all information quotes, it’s time to start making you gather will be valuable. sense of them. It’s likely that the core team won’t attend all the Steps research sessions together, but it Find a place to conduct a is important that everyone hears 01 download with all team the learnings from all parts of members who attended the the research. The first activity is particular research session. therefore to simply download your stories in a consistent format. The 02 Find wall space or have download might consist of photos boards at the ready so that Developing insights & insights ideas Developing of the interviewee, a little about you can capture the learnings who they are and the story points and make them tangible. that you found most interesting One team member leads in the context of your challenge. 03 the download, with others It’s easier to do story downloads contributing along the way. as you go along, throughout the Share key information such course of the research, rather as who you met, what you than waiting until the end. The saw, and your impressions learnings will be fresher in your of the experience. mind if you do it as soon as At the end of each download, possible after an interview or a 04 you may want to check there day in the field. Don’t be afraid is a logical flow to the story to discount some information if as you will be sharing this you don’t think it is valuable to 40 with the rest of the team. Sharing stories

Once all the story downloads have been done, it’s time to share amongst the team.

This is about everyone in the team either sharing or hearing about the 01 — 02 — research learnings of others. Some learnings may reinforce assumptions Capturing Sharing you already have about the challenge, Affix a large piece of paper to the Using Post-it notes, write down the some learnings may challenge what wall so you can capture the most most compelling stories from the field you imagined to be true. Perhaps an interesting, relevant stories and that you feel are most relevant to the assumption you had was simply a observations as you story tell. challenge, and then share them with symptom of a deeper challenge your the team. Write large enough so that citizens are experiencing with your everyone can read your notes.

Developing insights & insights ideas Developing services. This should feel like a very discursive session, where as a team you are pulling out what you all find most 03 — 04 — interesting and relevant in terms of the brief. Use the information from Organising Synthesising the individual downloads and start to Put all the Post-its up on the large At the end of sharing stories, you’ll collate them. sheet of paper, organising them into have many sheets lined up on the wall separate categories for each person with many Post-it notes. Consider this Don’t worry if you are leaving your team interviewed and each place shared information as a group and some information behind, it may your team visited. pull out the most compelling stories be interesting but not necessarily you heard. important in terms of the challenge you want to solve them. 41 Creating themes

As you share your learnings Steps with your team, patterns and 01 Gather your team around the themes are likely to emerge. Post-its from your previous Here’s how to spot and make sharing stories session. sense of them. Look for patterns and Once you’ve shared learnings and 02 relationships between inspiring stories with your team, your categories and move you’re ready to find themes. Take the Post-its around as you a good, long look across your continue grouping. The goal interviews, analogous inspiration is to identify key themes and and other learnings. Have any then to translate them into patterns emerged? Is there a opportunities for design. compelling insight you heard again and again? A consistent problem 03 Arrange and rearrange the Developing insights & insights ideas Developing the people you’re designing for Post-its, discuss, debate and face? What feels significant? What talk through what’s emerging. surprised you? These themes are Don’t stop until everyone bound to change, but as you move is satisfied that the clusters through the this phase, continue to represent rich opportunities find themes and sort out what for innovation. they mean. 04 Identifying these themes will help you create frameworks for developing your ideas.

42 Identifying insights

A critical piece of this phase is plucking the insights that What's an will drive your ideas out of the huge body of information insight? you’ve gathered. You’ve heard a lot from many help you frame “How Might We” It is: It is not: different people, uncovered questions and give shape and form — A gut-felt — Immediately learnings and identified key to subsequent brainstorms. It’s not response that obvious themes from your research. The always easy to create them, and makes you sit up next step in the synthesis process it will probably take some work — A head-nod and think is to create insight statements; editing them down to the three to that implies you succinct sentences that will point five main insights that will help — A revelation understand but the way forward. Insight statements you drive toward solutions. are not surprised — A new way of are incredibly valuable as they’ll interpreting — An observation Developing insights & insights ideas Developing existing — A new piece of information information — “I never thought — “I never knew that” about it that way before” — It does not exist simply to provoke — It communicates or prove a point a user’s need (sometimes without them even knowing that need) — An opinion-changer 43 Case study, Canada How can we support people to not just live in a community, but to flourish as part of that community? Especially people with disabilities, and others, too often left out and Burnaby Starter Project, disconnected? These are the questions that social innovation practice InWithForward posed when it teamed up with local community living groups in the city of Burnaby, Canada, InWithForward to come up with new ideas to reduce social isolation. Its team spent 10 weeks doing ethnographic research in a social housing complex, spending time with residents and collecting 50 stories on their everyday life. Through this they observed a pattern; the residents had regular contact with their family, interaction with neighbours and good relationships with care workers. But what they were missing were opportunities to try new things, go to new places or to find new sources of purpose and meaning. This new insight led the team to

“What they were missing were opportunities to try new things, go to new places or to find new

Developing insights & insights ideas Developing sources of purpose and meaning. This new insight led the team to reframe the problem and to shift their focus.”

reframe the problem and to shift their focus from social isolation to ‘experience poverty’ instead, leading to very different ideas about solutions. Since then InWithForward have developed Kudoz, a new type of volunteering programme where local people can host learning experiences for those with cognitive disabilities.

44 Generating opportunities

Translate your insight Steps statements into opportunities 01 Start by looking at the insight for innovation by reframing statements that you’ve created. them as 'How Might We' Try rephrasing them as questions. questions by adding 'How Might By finding themes and creating We' at the beginning. insights, you’ve identified problem The goal is to find opportunities areas that pose challenges to the 02 for innovation, so if your people you’re aiming to support. insights suggest several 'How Now, try reframing your insight Might We' questions, that’s great. statements as 'How Might We' questions to turn those challenges 03 Now take a look at your 'How into opportunities for innovation. Might We' question and ask We use the 'How Might We' format yourself if it allows for a variety Developing insights & insights ideas Developing because it suggests that a solution is of solutions. If it doesn’t, broaden possible, and because it offers you it. Your 'How Might We' should the chance to answer the question generate a number of possible in a variety of ways. A properly answers and will become a framed 'How Might We' doesn’t launchpad for your brainstorms. suggest a particular solution, but Finally, make sure that your gives you the perfect frame for 04 'How Might We' questions aren’t innovative thinking. too broad. It’s a tricky process but a good 'How Might We' should give you both a narrow enough frame to let you know where to start your brainstorm, but also enough breadth to give you room to explore non- 45 obvious, creative ideas. Rules of a brainstorm Generating ideas

Energise your team and drum up a great amount of new and 01 — 04 — innovative ideas. Encourage wild ideas Defer judgement We use brainstorms to tap into a fruitful brainstorm. The best It’s the wild ideas that often There are no bad ideas at a broad body of knowledge and policy is to promote openness, provide the breakthroughs. this point. There is plenty creativity. Over the course of lots of ideas and creativity over It is always easy to bring of time to judge later. your project, you should do them immediate feasibility. Brainstorms ideas down to earth later. not only with your own team, work best when the group is but also with partners and the positive, optimistic and focused 05 — people you’re designing for. Refer on generating as many ideas as 02 — Stay focused to the rules of brainstorming for possible. Build on the ideas on the topic of others You get better output if

Developing insights & insights ideas Developing Think ‘and’ rather than ‘but’. everyone is disciplined.

03 — 06 — One conversation Go for quantity at a time Set an outrageous goal That way all ideas can be and surpass it. heard and built upon.

07 — Be visual Try to engage the left and 46 right side of the brain. Creating concepts

Move from a handful of ideas Steps and insights into a fully- The concept 01 Bundle your ideas into groups fledged concept, one that and themes, and then put them you’ll refine and push forward. capture sheet up on the wall on Post-its. So far you’ve come up with, Now might be a good time shared and even discarded scores 02 to start thinking about of ideas. Now it’s time to bundle — Give your concept a name frameworks that help you your ideas and turn them into a visualise the wider systems concept. A concept is more polished related to your challenge, — Brief description of concept and complete than an idea. It’s so try to notice where your more sophisticated, something bundles are pointing. that you’ll want to test with the — Who is your target user? people you’re designing for, and 03 Don’t worry too much about it’s starting to look like an answer all the details of your solution — What is the value to the user? Developing insights & insights ideas Developing to your challenge. This is the now — you don’t need a finely moment where you move from tuned strategy just yet. The problem to solution and it drives goal is to get a robust, flexible — What is the value to the organisation? everything that comes next. It may concept that addresses the be helpful to use a 'Concept capture problem you’re trying to solve. — Critical partnerships within the organisation? ' worksheet when undertaking this Keep referring back to your activity, which can be found here. 04 challenge. Are you answering — Potential partnerships outside the organisation? it? Are there elements missing in your solution? What else can you incorporate? — Anticipated barriers/challenges?

05 There will be a bit of trial and error here, and you’ll probably — Key factors to success? create a couple that don’t work 47 out. That’s fine. Co-creating concepts

The people you’re working to Steps create your solution for can 01 The first step is to identify tell you plenty, and they can who you want in your show you more. Here’s how to co-creation workshop. Perhaps further incorporate them into it’s a handful of people you’ve your design process. already interviewed or a You’ll be talking with scores of particular demographic. people throughout your project, Once you know whom you and a co-creation workshop is a 02 want, arrange a space, get the great way to get feedback on your necessary supplies (often pens, ideas and bring people deeper Post-its, paper, art supplies) into the process. The purpose and invite them to join. of a co-creation workshop is to convene a group of people from 03 Maximise a co-creation Developing insights & insights ideas Developing the community you’re serving and workshop with conversation then get them to design alongside starters, a brainstorm, role you. You’re not just hearing their playing, rapid prototyping voices, you’re empowering them (see following section on to join the team. You can co- Prototyping) or other activities create services, investigate how to get your group engaged. communities work or understand Capture the feedback your how to brand your solution. 04 group gives you. The goal isn’t just to hear from people, it’s to get them on your team. Make sure that you’re treating your co-creators as designers, not as interview subjects. 48 Case study, UK Working with Swindon Council in the UK, social enterprise Participle developed the Life Programme to help stop the cycle of crisis that a small number of families were Life Programme, experiencing. These families were experiencing long-term issues of neglect and deprivation, and were usually involved with several government agencies who had little interaction Participle and with each other. After spending eight weeks observing and talking to families and interviewing frontline workers to understand the issues, the team selected four families to help Swindon Council them co-design possible solutions. Both the Participle team “The family and worker teams then spent time together on both leisure and community activities, building trust.”

and family members interviewed frontline workers who wanted to be involved in the programme, and together they built a team. The family and worker teams then spent time

Developing insights & insights ideas Developing together on both leisure and community activities, building trust between the two different sides that had previously often been missing. This in turn created a subtle shift in power, and rather than being given instructions the families were asked to decide how they wanted to use the team's support and what they wanted to change, placing them at the centre of developing their own solutions.

49 Getting04 — Inspired Testing concepts through prototyping Key activities Introduction

This stage is about taking your concept out for a spin. Ideas on paper can be interesting, but bringing those ideas to life and testing them can be invaluable.

p.52 — Getting started p.61 — Wizard of Oz Think of a moment when you have There are many different elements described an idea to a colleague that can be prototyped, from a in the past and thought you were service experience through to a p.53 — The difference p.62 — Interactive prototype on the same page, only to discover policy. Prototyping doesn’t only between the P's later you both had a completely apply to physical products or different take on how the idea software services, so whatever p.63 — Minimum viable would play out in reality. your concept is there will be a p.54 — Different levels of product (MVP) prototyping approach that works prototyping At its most basic level, prototyping for you. Prototyping can also be is about bringing tangibility to carried out at different levels, and p.64 — Randomised control your ideas through developing you’ll move through different p.55 — How do you trial (RCT) concepts so you can align on them tools and methods as your concept prototype? internally. As you move through progresses. By the time you have the process you then develop your completed the prototyping process, p.65 — Case study: concept more deeply so that you p.58 — Paper prototype your solution should be at a much Pharmacy redesign, can test it more broadly internally more robust stage for planning its Whittington Hospital, UK and with citizens. This gives you

Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing implementation the opportunity to learn about p.59 — Roleplaying what works and what doesn’t, so The rest of this chapter describes p.66 — Case study: Design that you can adjust and improve in more detail the value of Thinking for Libraries, Bill & your solution before you actually prototyping, and then walks p.60 — Simulation Melinda Gates Foundation implement it. through a range of tools you can and IDEO, USA and Denmark deploy to test, learn and iterate on your new solutions. 51 Getting started

Prototyping is the act of making a concept “real” — whether it’s a sketch on a napkin or a fully machined piece of equipment. It shifts our behaviours away from meeting after meeting discussing and debating to thinking Why prototype? more like designers: how would someone hold or interact with this? Should this stand upright or lie on a desk? When someone looks at this, what will the first thing on his/her mind be? How might a Develop Communicate Test child interact with this service? Prototyping builds your Prototyping expresses your Prototyping brings your At the heart of prototyping is risk mitigation. understanding of what the concept in a tangible form. concept in front of those Where there is uncertainty around a new concept really means. How Your collaborators will whom you are designing for, solution, prototyping enables you to remove risk does it look and feel? How be able to give you more so that you will yield the through cycles of testing and iterating on your will people interact with it? constructive feedback if most direct feedback and new solution. they can see, touch and feel uncover insights. your concept, instead of just hearing you explain it. Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing

52 The difference between the 'P's Pilot Prototype Increasingly, you hear the language of both piloting and prototyping in governments. — Used when you believe — Used when you have a you know the answer hypothesis about the Pilots are an accepted norm in In a government context, piloting answer governments so this section goes typically happens as a ‘live’ activity — A pilot is about ironing out deeper on prototyping, which is a and is often considered the first the creases — Prototyping is about newer concept in the public sector. phase of a policy or service launch. building towards the right Prototyping happens at different But first, what’s the difference — Ultimately a pilot is answer levels. For example, when you are between a pilot and a prototype? measured by success or exploring the early stages of a Although both are methods for failure — A prototype is measured concept, you are likely to develop experimenting, our observation by how much you learned prototypes behind closed doors. is that in the public sector pilots and what it informed Once you are more confident of are viewed much more of a ‘phase what your concept is, but there is 1’ rollout activity than pure still uncertainty around various Focuses on seeding the partially Focuses on iterating your concept to experimentation. aspects, you may choose to go ‘live’ implemented concept to a limited maximise learning. Best for: and put it out into the world of real population. Best for: Learning if your concept users. — — Observing behaviours fulfils a need

Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing around the actual solution — Evolving your concept — Preparing to scale the from low-res to hi-res solution to the entire population — Engaging your stakeholders 53 Different levels of What can be prototyping prototyped? Prototyping can be undertaken at different levels of resolution Almost anything can be prototyped. What follows is how to and serve different purposes. The graph below breaks go about prototyping and some specific tools to support your prototyping down into three core levels of resolutions. activities.

— Citizen experiences — Organisational structures

— Policies — Systems

— Software — Processes

— Public offer experiences — Spaces RESOLUTION When not to prototype

There are times when prototyping immigration and social services, is not appropriate. If you have there is mounting evidence of the certainty around a concept that is value of prototyping in both the quite incremental in nature, there policymaking and service delivery

Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing may be very little risk attached spaces. For some policy spaces like Concept level 'Looks like, feels 'Works like' to it. Focus should be placed on foreign policy or defence policy, prototype like' prototype prototype implementation in this situation. it’s too early to understand how TIME Tools such as prototyping that feasible it is to prototype. Finally, are associated with design are timing can be critical. Sometimes, still a long way from being fully there simply isn’t time to prototype explored in the public sector. But and you have to make the decision in spaces like housing, education, that you are prepared to run with 54 healthcare, transportation, the risks. How do you prototype?

1 2 3 4 5 Clarify your Develop your Create your Run your Iterate your learning goals experiment plan prototype prototype prototype Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing

55 1 2 Clarify your learning Develop your goals experiment plan Be clear about why you To maximise your learning, are prototyping. What you will need to add structure assumptions have you made? to how you prototype. What do you need to know before you start design ?

Questions may be: — What parts of the solution Questions may be: design are working well, Concept level — What prototypes do you — What’s the timeframe, budget where do we need to iterate? want to create to support your and resource requirement? — Are we all aligned on the idea — What are we learning about learning ambitions? now we have made it tangible? — What’s the communication feasibility and viability for — What research methods plan that supports the — What else can we learn scale? are you going to deploy to experiment? about the idea? What’s capture your learning along missing? What potentially Works like prototype the way? needs to change or be built upon? — Are the outcomes of our — What environment are solution in line with our you going to test and learn aspirations? in? Offline in a managed Looks like/Feels like environment where citizens

Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing — Which of our possible prototypes are invited in? Or live in real solutions is generating the scenarios,where you track what — Does the experience greatest level of impact with happens? we are designing for feel like citizens or staff? it effectively fulfils a need — What would it take to make that citizens or staff currently the solution operational at have? scale in terms of feasibility 56 and viability? 3 4 Create your Run your prototype prototype Make sure you have the logistics sorted Make the prototype as tangible as you need to in order to talk to your collaborators This might include the booking of about it or put it in front of a physical space, permits, sourcing users to gather feedback. of uniforms, finding additional staff to manage traffic, or briefing In some cases, you want to be existing staff who might share the scrappy as a way of inviting your Concept level same space as the prototype. collaborators to build on the concept further. In other cases, you — Roleplaying want it to be semi-functional to — Paper prototype 5 observe responses from users. Looks like/Feels like level Opposite is a list of potential Iterate your prototyping tools that you could — Roleplaying prototype use. It’s not exhaustive but it gives — Interactive prototype you a starter for ten on commonly Gather data to support used tools. Some tools are more — Simulation your learning goals appropriate at particular levels and Works like level Based on what you learned, how some work at multiple levels. More

Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing would you evolve or pivot the detail on how to put these tools — Minimum viable product concept? Your prototype might fail into practice begins on page 57. (MVP) — this is not a bad thing, because you — Randomised control trial would have learned why users are not (RCT) converting to your prototype, or why the feedback is negative. Channel your learnings towards the next 57 iteration of the prototype. Paper prototype

Sketch your idea with pen and By bringing your idea to life paper. visually, it helps you resolve the key features and understand how If you can draw rectangles, then people would experience them. you can create a Paper prototype. It is also a hands-on activity that Paper prototyping is a quick way to you can do with stakeholders and express your concept. It could be a users to invite them to co-design piece of communications, a sketch with you. Post-its come in handy of a new service, a web screen or when you want to communicate simple wireframe exploring how any changes. If you are really not a user would navigate through keen on drawing, you can also use a website. software tools like Balsamiq. Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing

58 Roleplaying

Get into character as Steps someone (or even as a piece 01 Determine the essential roles of equipment) delivering a and who will play them. new experience or stepping These roles can be customers, through one. frontline and backend staff, Roleplaying is an immersive or even systems needed to activity to help you prototype your support the experience. idea. You’ll learn a lot about the Use costumes and props to flow within your concept by trying 02 enhance the story, but don’t out various roles even just within spend too much time making your office. How will the different them perfect. roles interact with one another? How will information travel from 03 Improvise your way through one role to another? the story or pause at important moments to resolve how each role is contributing to the overall experience. Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing

59 Simulation

Mock up your concepts at Steps scale to invite feedback. 01 Determine what you want to Physically walking someone design and build depending on through your concept, especially your learning goals. What are if your concept is space or service you uncertain about that you related, immerses him/her in the want to learn more about? experience and invites them to Most often, physically provide specific and constructive 02 building experiences using feedback to help evolve the concept. basic supplies like foam core Simulation is especially great for and incorporating tools like engaging your stakeholders to gain roleplay is a great way to bring their support before you bring your concepts like new service concept out to the real world. experiences to life.

03 Virtual reality (VR) tools are increasingly becoming more accessible so this is also a great way to simulate a potential new experience. Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing

60 Wizard of Oz

Create the illusion of an Steps automated system without 01 Determine the front-end building one. user interfaces and back-end A Wizard of Oz prototype makes systems in your concept. people feel that your prototype is Use simple tools to build the the actual solution, without you 02 front-end user interfaces. having to build the real thing. Sometimes, you may develop a People will react to your prototype simple web app or script a new with the most genuine behaviours conversation for existing staff; and emotions, so you can evolve other times, you may repurpose your prototype with more reliable tools such as Google Forms, data and you can also be confident WhatsApp, IFTTT, MailChimp, that you will see the same Facebook or Google AdWords. responses when your concept is implemented. 03 Formulate a strategy to run back-end systems manually. For example, you might “pretend” to be the system when you reply to users via email or SMS.

04 Pay no attention to that man Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing behind the curtain! Make sure that people are shielded from the manual back-end operations. You want people to assume some form of automation and efficiency in order for them to give you their 61 most genuine responses. Interactive prototype

Elevate your paper prototype Steps with clickability. 01 Determine what you are If you are developing a digital going to build based on your solution, an interactive prototype learning goals. allows you to communicate how There is no need to move into your software concept works 02 full software build at this without you having to write any stage. There are some great code. A great interactive prototype software tools you can use that allows people to click through cheaply and quickly enable various screens to complete a you to build your prototype: particular task and understand POP (Prototype on Paper); your concept. Some software tools Keynote; Axure; Invision; that help you create interactive HTML. prototypes also allow you to host and distribute them so that you 03 New software tools for can invite a big group of online prototyping are launching all users to test them and give you the time so it’s useful to keep feedback. in touch with what is going on in the world, and what is new that you can leverage. Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing

62 Minimum viable product

Test the essential core (and MVPs are often associated with nothing else) of your concept technology, but the logic can with real users. be applied across a range of prototyping exercises. It’s about If you are trying to learn how using fewer resources and minimal people may navigate through an effort to gather insights and obtain online system or service, then a feedback on potential changes. minimum viable product (MVP) is a simple but realistic way to do To quote Steve Blank, who so. It allows you to accelerate your popularised this term; “You’re learning while using minimum selling the vision and delivering resources by including only the the minimum feature set to core features of your concept rather visionaries, not everyone.” than the full solution. This means Methods and tools associated with that you can find out early on what agile development greatly support is working for your users and what the ability to design and build an isn’t, and make any adjustments MVP rapidly. accordingly. Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing

63 Randomised control trial

Use a controlled experiment Steps to test whether your solution 01 To run an RCT effectively, you’ll is working in the way you likely need to partner with intended or not. experts who have experience in There have never been guarantees running these types of trials. with new policies or services, as Some interventions lend the citizen response is not always 02 themselves more readily to RCTs, in line with government intent. so you’ll need to decide if your Randomised control trials (RCTs) are solution is suitable. The simpler, a good way to test and learn at scale more linear and well defined the about citizens’ actual responses to intervention, the more appealing new solutions before a big roll out. it is as a subject for an RCT. RCTs were previously synonymous with the medical industry, and are 03 You’ll also need to consider what used as a way of removing bias during stage your solution is at. If it is at trials. People are chosen at random, an early stage of development, and some are given the treatment its delivery methods might under investigation, while others not yet be robust enough for are given the standard treatment (or an RCT, as they require that placebo treatment) as a control group. the intervention is closely This methodology is increasingly monitored and delivered in a Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing being applied in governments consistent way. and more commonly in the policy There are several guides space. Government departments 04 out there that can help you are developing new solutions and understand the methodology using RCTs to test the effectiveness and practicalities of running of their solution before rolling out, a trial, including Nesta’s or indeed testing several different Guide to RCTs in Innovation, solutions simultaneously to assess the Entrepreneurship and Growth. 64 effectiveness of one over another. Case study, UK Whittington Hospital is one of the UK’s busiest, and its in- house pharmacy knew that collecting a prescription at the hospital was not a pleasant experience for patients. They Pharmacy redesign, entered the pharmacy often feeling unwell and anxious — and these feelings were exacerbated by long waiting times and a lack of communication. Previous efforts to improve the situation, such as user questionnaires, had resulted in poor Whittington Hospital levels of patient participation and provided no clear insights. So the pharmacy partnered with the Design Council, who brought in architectural codesign experts Studio TILT, and service design agency Commonground to help. They decided

“After taking feedback on board, the designers finally tested the new pharmacy layout and process at full scale, which helped to really understand what users needed from the space.”

to take a co-design approach and work with patient, staff and management groups to collaboratively create a space. Together, through workshops, they came up with new ways for how the space could work and created cardboard models to try out their ideas. Next, these ideas were tested in the actual pharmacy at half scale. This gave both the workshop attendees and other visitors the opportunity to experience the changes and give feedback. After taking feedback on board, the designers finally Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing tested the new pharmacy layout and process at full scale, which helped to really understand what users needed from the space and what they did and didn’t like. As a result, the queue of patients at the registration area has been shortened, prescription tracking has been introduced and new areas for confidential consultations have been created. The work has measurably improved the patient experience, boosting staff 65 morale and increasing sales at the pharmacy. Case study, USA and Denmark What’s the future of libraries? As information goes digital, the role of the brick-and-mortar library has to evolve, too. With a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Design Thinking for Libraries, Chicago Public Library and Denmark’s Aarhus Public Libraries partnered with IDEO to explore this theme. The final result: the Design Thinking Toolkit for Libraries, a collection of reading and workshop material that can be Bill & Melinda Gates used by any frontline library staffer to adapt to library users’ changing needs anywhere in the world. Over the course of six months, library staffers engaged with patrons Foundation and IDEO to test out brave new ideas that change our perception of the typical library. These included an anything-but-quiet teen expression lab with music- and art-making tools, a ‘tech spa’ for users looking for how-to information, and a series of narrative storytelling workshops for kids that used play as a springboard for learning.

“IDEO helped our staff see how to create rapid change, in service of our patrons, effectively, quickly, and with very few resources.”

— Andrea Saenz, First Deputy Commissioner, Chicago Public Library

The ‘lessons learned’ from these design experiments were

Testing concepts through prototyping concepts through Testing then pulled together and synthesised to create the toolkit. Since launching in January 2015, it has been downloaded by over 11,000 librarians in more than 100 countries and has been translated into Romanian, Japanese and Spanish — with more planned in the future. One experiment, a redesigned children’s space that encourages play and verbal interaction to speed early learning, recently won a USD 2.5 million grant from Exelon and is being rolled out to 15 Chicago 66 neighborhood libraries. Getting05 — Inspired Preparing for implementation

67 Key activities Introduction

So you have reached the final but perhaps most critical phase of any project. If you’ve launched services or policies before, you’ll know that preparing for implementation can be a challenging task.

But having followed the earlier perhaps crucially, you will need phases of the design process and to plan what you want to measure involved your key stakeholders, you and be clear about how you intend should feel reasonably comfortable to demonstrate impact. Getting that they are on board to support a measurement and evaluation with implementation. Before you framework in place early to capture p.69 — p.73 — plough on in however, there are a critical insights will allow you to Creating a pitch Creating a roadmap few more things to consider for the iterate and make changes more transition to be a success. In this easily. chapter we highlight a few more Preparing for implementation for Preparing Exactly how quickly you roll out p.70 — p.74 — creative decisions you may need to your solution will depend on the make. Capabilities quicksheet Building partnerships sense of certainty around it and For example, being able to clearly how big a change it is. The size and articulate your concept and pace of change may be directly p.71 — p.75 — demonstrate its viability and value related to the level of risk, so be is important to get right. This will sure to consider mitigating against Staffing your project Measuring and evaluating help win over new supporters who this before you proceed. You may, can potentially help you to leverage for example, want to consider any further funding or resources a staggered rollout for radical p.72 — p.76 — needed to get your solution off changes. Case study: Patchwork, Case study: Family by Family, the ground. You will also need FutureGov, UK TACSI, Australia to make sure you have the right 68 people and skills in place. And Creating a pitch

Now that your plan is pretty Steps much ready to go, you’ll want 01 The first thing you’ll want to to communicate it to funders, articulate is the essence of your partners, citizens, everyone! product, service or experience. A pitch is a great way to Offer context, the main thrust communicate your proposition, of your solution, why it’s how it works, why it counts and different, and any call to action who it benefits. You can use your you’re making. Try to succinctly original challenge brief to build explain it in less than a minute. from, and in the process of making You’ll want your pitch to be it you’ll clarify the key elements 02 clear and unambiguous, so don’t and refine how you talk about get bogged down in details. them. A pitch is a primary way Focus on how and why it counts. that you’ll present your solution, and you’ll be using it to convince 03 Next you’ll want to get that Preparing for implementation for Preparing different types of people — from story into some kind of format. stakeholders to senior management It could be a pamphlet, website, — to rally to your cause. book or presentation. You may need more than one. You may need a graphic designer or writer to help.

04 You’ll likely communicate differently with different audiences. Make sure you think about telling stories of varying lengths and degrees of detail. What are the short, medium 69 and long versions of your pitch? Capabilities quicksheet

What people skills do you need Steps to make your solution happen? 01 The main elements that you’ll 03 Looking at all your ideas after, The team you’ve currently want to understand are the start to group needs based on got may not be enough, so distribution of your solution, actors in the room, and then consider what gaps you may the partners you might need include a category for needs have. and the capabilities necessary to that are out of the scope of the Devising an innovative solution execute. team. Will you have to form and putting it into practice are new relationships or can you Put “Distribution,” two different propositions. This 02 leverage existing ones? “Capabilities,” and “Partners” tool will help you understand the on big sheets of paper. Have a Look at how you plan to "Staff feasibility of your solution and 04 brainstorm about what needs to your project" (page 71). Do you help you understand where your happen for each category. List need more or less help after or your organisation will have to what you’ve already got and assessing your capabilities? Now seek help. It makes sense to do this what you’ll need. For example, move onto "Creating a roadmap" exercise in conjunction with Staff Preparing for implementation for Preparing under "Distribution", perhaps (page 73). Your Project and Roadmap. Taken you need to source, store and as a whole, these three methods will distribute a product. Many help point you toward the practical smaller steps within each of implementation of your work. For these large categories should futher support with this activity, use emerge. the 'Capabilities quicksheet' found here.

70 Staffing your project

Now that you’ve got an idea to Steps put in motion, build the team that 01 Now that you’re most of the can take you from concept to way through your project, completion. determine who are the most The methodology here is pretty essential members of your team similar to when you built a team in for implementation. Make a the Setting up for Success phase, only list of the critical skills that are this time you’ll want to be far more required, then reorder the list targeted and connect with different based on highest priority. people. Whereas a multi-disciplinary Take a look at your existing team. team was great for arriving at 02 Do you need specialist skills? unexpected ideas and novel solutions, Perhaps a designer, someone with in preparing for implementation you specific expertise, or particular should also be targeting specialised sector knowledge? Do you need skills and technical abilities that may Preparing for implementation for Preparing dedicated project management go beyond your known partners or resource? funding streams. Now might be a good time for some team members to move 03 Are there organisations that you on from the project and for others to now need to partner with? What join. about funders? Will you have to get buy-in from managers or officials?

04 Implementation can take a long time, so think down the road about who you’ll need now and who you’ll need when you’ve launched. 71 Case study, UK In response to a series of child care failures in the UK, design agency FutureGov came up with the idea of a social network for public services. Having identified a lack of shared, co- Patchwork, ordinated communication between government agencies as a key issue, the team brought together children’s and social services, teachers, police, health workers, technologists, designers and funders to discuss what could be done. They Futuregov then built a prototype for a service called Patchwork — a secure web tool that connects professionals from different organisations and allows them to access the contact details of others working with their clients.

“Design research was fundamental to articulating the problem accurately, and the involvement of those at the sharp end of social care was invaluable.”

FutureGov spent six months building and testing with Staffordshire County Council. The result was a minimum

Preparing for implementation for Preparing viable product which could then be tested and scaled with wider practitioners. Design research was fundamental to articulating the problem accurately, and the involvement of those at the sharp end of social care was invaluable. Involving for example, police and social workers during the UX design phase, really helped them understand what functionality was essential and what might simply get in their way. Following a pilot of the project in Staffordshire, FutureGov expanded the process, going on to develop the live version of Patchwork with backing from Brighton and Surrey local authorities. Today 1,894 professionals across the UK and Australia are currently supporting 5,375 clients through Patchwork, enabling a higher quality of care. 72 Creating a roadmap

You’ll need a timeline and a plan Steps 04 Think about the major milestones of action to get your solution out in your project timeline: when 01 Assemble your team and all the into the world. Keep on track will you launch? When will you critical stakeholders responsible with a roadmap. need to complete your technical for implementing your idea. development by? When will you You’ve got a concept you feel excited They’ll have information that you kick off a communications plan? about and you’ve tested it in the may not know but that is crucial. Get key dates on the calendar. world. Now you need to create a plan Make it visual. Print out a big for how you’re going to implement 02 Assign a team member or calendar for the next year or so 05 it. A roadmap helps you gather the partner to each track of work to map out what needs to happen key stakeholders in your project and and get someone to champion when. Start adding Post-its with collectively figure out a timeline, each element of your project. key dates such as a pilot launch, who is responsible for which elements Be prepared to hold them rollout date, etc. of the project, and establishes key accountable to the tasks. milestones. Rely on the work from 03 Break it down by thinking about your "Capabilities quicksheet" and your calendar in chunks. Answer Preparing for implementation for Preparing "Staff your project" tools to give you questions like “What needs to a full picture of how to build your happen in the next month? In roadmap. three months? In a year?”. Themes will emerge around the various tracks of work that need to take place.

73 Building partnerships

You may need some help Steps to get your concept out into 01 Get your team together with the world. Building strong other key stakeholders and partnerships early on can partners and run a brainstorm help you get there more around what partnerships you smoothly. need. Maybe you need greater As you prepare for implementation, access to the press, maybe you you may realise that you’ll need need to raise money. to rely on a variety of partners. Next, take those key These could range from everything 02 partnership needs and have from partners for funding to those another brainstorm around who’ll help you with delivery. The who you know already and key idea here is identifying the who you can reach out to in right kind of partners you need. your wider network. Preparing for implementation for Preparing 03 Though you’ll want to remain flexible, you’ll also want to start to set parameters around what you need from your partners. Figure out when you’ll need each one, how much you can reasonably ask of them, and what kind of deadlines to set around your ask.

74 Measuring and evaluating

Your goal has always been to Steps 05 Try to find a balance between have big impact. Build in ways to quantitative and qualitative 01 Firstly, determine why you need measure and evaluate results. measurements. Stories from to measure. Is it to demonstrate partner organisations and the Throughout the design process you impact? To get more funding? To people that you’re designing for are constantly encouraged to learn, improve business practices? can be very powerful, especially if evaluate and improve your solution. Be sure to bring key stakeholders your solution doesn’t lend itself to And now that you’re on the verge of 02 into this conversation. They capturing hard numbers. getting it out into the world, you’ll may have been measuring and need a plan to find out if you’re Take a prototyping attitude to evaluating your topic area for 06 having the impact that you want. your measurement. You can years and can provide key insight. There are lots of ways to measure and always tweak your operating evaluate your solution; the key is to 03 Assess whether your team is best model based on the information understand what kind of approaches suited to carry out the process. coming in to maximise your are right for you. Sometimes it’s easy, You may need to hire an outside impact. for example if you are responding team or consultants to help. Preparing for implementation for Preparing to a clear impact measure such as A common method for assessing saving money then that should be 04 impact is an RCT (see page 64). straightforward to demonstrate. But if They are highly rigorous, but are you’re trying to change a community’s also very expensive and can take behaviour or increase the adoption years. Dynamic measurement of a service, you may need a more tools (like number of visits or nuanced approach. And in some cases sales numbers) may be more it may take years to really understand useful for you. the impact of your solution. Here are a few things to think about as you build your strategy. 75 Case study, Australia The Family by Family programme was developed by TACSI (The Australian Centre for Social Innovation) in response to a government brief to reduce the number of families requiring Family by Family, crisis services. TACSI worked with more than 100 families to identify causes of crisis and isolation and potential solutions. They then co-designed a programme where families that have experienced and overcome hardships and grievances TACSI are trained and paired with other families who are currently experiencing stress but are eager to make improvements. After a successful three-month prototype, the team started preparing for a wider rollout. They’d trialled new team roles during the prototyping process and so began to look for permanent recruits. They also carried out multiple rounds of blueprinting to plan out precisely what the service processes and touchpoints would be. During the prototyping stage

“During the prototyping stage they had engaged with stakeholders who could then act as advocates for the programme.” Preparing for implementation for ­ Preparing they had engaged with stakeholders who could then act as advocates for the programme, and this helped with pitching for funding to government departments, foundations and NGO service providers. Finally, TACSI commissioned an evaluation to take place during the first year to understand the mechanisms of change as well as the programme’s effectiveness. This later fed into a cost benefit analysis that enabled them to secure ongoing investment and expansion, and Family by Family now operates in five sites across two states. The latest independent evaluation shows the cost benefit ratio is 11:1, meaning that for every $1 spent the government saves $11 (in child protection costs alone). 76 Getting06 — Inspired Overcoming challenges

77 Common challenges Introduction

In sharing this collection of practical tools and methods, we have hopefully given you the insight needed to grow in your role and the confidence to bring about change using design.

At the very least, we hope you will The adoption of design thinking be able to influence the direction in governments can often feel and/or execution of a new product, disruptive for the agency or team service or system that responds doing so, but incredibly valuable to the challenges you and your once they have embarked on the department are facing. You should journey of change. Initiating this by now feel that design thinking level of change prompts a number

Overcoming challenges Overcoming is something anyone can roll their of common challenges. On the p.79 — p.82 — sleeves up and get involved in. following pages are a few we hear "We don't know how to “We don’t have enough most often from civil servants, Experimentation with design define the challenge well." time!” along with some ideas as to how tools and methods can help bridge you might address them. the gap that often exists between challenge and change. By using p.80 — p.83 — them you will also likely feel more “We have little experience in “We don’t connect as a connected to the customers and running qualitative research government; policymaking users of your services, and this it with citizens.” and service delivery don’t turn can bring about a renewed relate well to each other.” sense of purpose and responsibility in your role. p.81 — p.84 — “We pilot, we don’t have the time to prototype.” “Our politicians want big announcements and fast 78 implementation.” “We don’t know how to define the challenge well.” Overcoming challenges Overcoming Governments often spend when setting your challenge brief a long time thinking about — it is a constant reminder of who challenges from their own you are designing for. perspective, which means You should also be prepared to that civil servants can then change the challenge during the struggle to identify with the project. You will set an initial challenge from a citizen one based on what you know perspective. at the time. After the ‘Getting If citizens do not form a central Inspired’ stage, you may learn new part of the initial question, then it information that challenges your is highly likely that your solution assumptions of the nature of the will be focused on government problem. Check in at this stage and rather than citizen outcomes. consider whether you need to re- Citizens must be placed front of articulate the challenge based on mind right from the outset. Always what you have learned. 79 make sure you include the end user “We have little experience in running qualitative research with citizens.” Overcoming challenges Overcoming

Designing and running It re-connects them very personally constructive qualitative with the reason why many joined research activities with the government in the first place: citizens is a skill. As with all to contribute positively to the lives skills, it can be learnt. of people. Learning the skills and practicing It may be that you don’t always them on live projects will help have time to run the research you become more confident over yourselves, and there are many time. Once these skills have been research agencies who can support acquired, it true to say that almost you with this work. However, you all the civil servants we have should still learn the skills so that worked with have really enjoyed you can brief third parties well. 80 spending more time with citizens. “We pilot, we don’t have the time to prototype.” REPLACE IMAGE One of the biggest challenges for a bigger goal than to simply we hear when civil servants walk the same steps as before. want to prototype is around Prototyping can help to mitigate time, or more obviously the risks when outcomes are uncertain, lack of it. and it can save time on corrective action once a new solution has been Political pressures to launch a new launched. By allowing citizens to Overcoming challenges Overcoming policy, or genuine concerns about be a part of the design process, they the amount of resource required to also become part of your work and add in further steps can put a halt more than just the recipient of it. to experimentation. Sometimes we hear that public servants are simply Governments already have great expected to know all the answers, platforms for prototyping but so why the need to prototype? Well, they are frequently underutilised. if the solution is only incremental For example, many governments with no or little risk, then you can hold public consultations as part move to implementation quickly. of their formal regulatory process, but these are often perceived as But to create more ambitious being more about marketing than changes, you’ll likely need to take making a difference. Instead, bigger leaps and more radical opportunities such as these could approaches where the outcomes be a useful place to start taking are less predictable. And although some different approaches and the levels of uncertainty might engaging citizens in prototyping be greater, it may be better to aim 81 services. “We don’t have enough time!” Overcoming challenges Overcoming REPLACE IMAGE All governments seem to be feel like a luxury in terms of time. facing a consistent challenge. And yet, our observation is that government agencies often spend The world is changing fast and an enormous amount of time becoming ever more complex, so course correcting after launch. It’s the rate of change of policy and about changing the rhythm of how subsequently delivery seems to be you work. Spending more time exponential in its rise. Spending early in the process saves having to time with citizens and running make changes after launch. 82 prototyping upfront can sometimes “We don’t connect as a government; policymaking REPLACE and service delivery don’t relate well to each other.” IMAGE Overcoming challenges Overcoming

This appears to be an great experience or not. organisational construct in all Many governments have started governments, and is not the to challenge the received wisdom best way to serve citizens in of this internal divide and are many instances. bringing policymakers and those Citizens have service experiences. who deliver services together to If they are stuck down by illness solve problems collaboratively. or an accident then they consider It’s about designing with their hospital experience. When implementation in mind from the they are renewing their passport, outset. they think about their experience Governments are not yet making in terms of speed of service and wholesale change, but they are performance. So, citizens don’t see experimenting in certain agencies the divide between policymaking in the belief they will deliver better and service delivery; they view citizen outcomes. 83 services through whether it was a “Our politicians want big announcements and fast implementation.”

This is a tricky area. In a typical the solution. If there is a high flow, a government generates level of confidence in the solution either a new policy or more and outcome, then a full rollout is appropriate. If you feel there Overcoming challenges Overcoming often makes changes to an existing one, the service are still uncertainties, you should delivery arm figures out how consider a staggered approach to to deliver the new policy to rollout. citizens, and then the change is Of course, in reality, other political rolled out. forces come into play too. However, When the change is deemed as we are starting to see signs of REPLACE low risk, this is typically the right change in governments. Politicians approach. If, however, the change are starting to see the advantage is much more fundamental, the of going deep in understanding implementation plan requires citizen needs, and then generating IMAGE further consideration. Carrying out new solutions and prototyping with prototyping and piloting activities them. are all great ways to learn, but at Like with all change, some received some point implementation needs wisdoms in governments are being to commence. How you kick off challenged through the adoption of your implementation is a question design thinking. 84 of the sense of certainty around Credits

If you would like to explore further, Image credits - with thanks to... Licensing please visit: 01 Rosario Oddó for El Laboratorio Designing for Public Services by nesta.org.uk de Gobierno, Chile (pages 20, 27, Nesta, IDEO and Design for Europe is ideo.com 28, 30, 32, 40, 42, 58, 59, 63 & licensed under a Creative Commons designforeurope.eu 69) Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 02 MindLab (page 18) Credits The full text of this license is available here: Writers: Andrea Kershaw (IDEO), Sonja 03 Singapore’s Land Transport https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Dahl (Nesta), Isobel Roberts (Nesta) Authority (page 24). by-nc-sa/4.0/. Editor: Isobel Roberts 04 Mind (page 34) Designers: IDEO, Kelly Duggan (Nesta)

Illustrations: onlystudio.co.uk 05 Williams Grand Prix Engineering Ltd/LAT Photographic (page 36)

06 InWithForward (page 44)

07 Studio TILT (page 60 & 65)

08 Futuregov (page 72) 85 09 TACSI (page 76)

Brief template Follow this template to define the challenge you're seeking to address. Complete the different sections on — Setting up for success, page 17 the worksheet to prompt new thinking and bring up new questions, ultimately shaping a stronger direction to move forward in. Worksheet 1. The design challenge: 2. Why is this challenge 3. Do you already have stated 5. What is the project plan? How might we... important? ambitions?

Set out an optimistic statement regarding what the How would you describe the problem you are If so, what are they? How will you achieve your goals in a given time- outcome you hope to achieve is. solving or the new opportunity you are looking to line? Refer to the 'Planning your project' worksheet leverage, and why does it matter?

4. What research or resources 6. Who’s involved? do you already have? What have you collected that informs your brief? Think about the core, extended and leadership Think of trends, bespoke research, etc. team — and what their roles are.

Planning your project This example should be used as a guide for planning your project. Using the format below, create your own — Setting up for success, page 19 plan; assign the amount of time you need to complete each stage, and mark out when key workshops and action points will take place, in order to keep to a schedule. Worksheet

Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Research

Kickoff Storytelling workshop

Insight workshop Synthesis

Design Review Design

This stage indicates the amount of time you need This stage consists of drawing out In this stage, you take the stories and use them In this stage you design your product or service, developing and to dedicate to collecting data: through desk the experiences of the user into to narrow down the challenge you are going to shaping it using the lessons from the previous stages. research, observations, user interviews, etc., in stories which can then be shared address. order to inform the next stage. back to the team.

Creative workshop Although workshops differ depending on their specific purpose, this worksheet provides a general format to follow to support the development of new ideas by working together with people who have experience with template your challange area. This will help to move the project forward. — Setting up for success, page 23 Worksheet 5 minutes: 20 minutes: 15 minutes: 30 minutes: 30 minutes: 20 minutes:

Introduce the workshop plan. Define who the session is Put the target group notes on Define how the target user Share the outcomes with the Further build on the oppor- focused on, and take notes on a wall where everyone can see will make sense of your ideas rest of the people present. tunities identified by the this target group. them. for solutions. previous section.

Adapted from DIY Toolkit ‘Creative workshop’ tool User interview There are several ways to approach users in order to capture their experience of a product, service or discussion guide situation. Use the variety of methods set out in this worksheet to uncover the your users' perspectives. — Getting inspired, page 30 Worksheet Worksheet Show me Think aloud Draw it Be specific If approaching a user in their own environment, As they perform a process or task, ask users to Ask participants to map out their activities and ex- People often generalise about what’s typical and ask him or her to show you the things they inter- describe aloud what they are thinking. This helps periences through sketches and diagrams. This is leave out rich important details. Instead, ask peo- act with (objects, spaces, tools, etc.) or have them uncover their motivations, concerns, perceptions a good way to debunk assumptions and reveal how ple to talk about a specific period of time. Instead walk you through the process in question. Capture and reasoning. people perceive and order their activities. of what’s your typical day like, ask them what pictures and notes to jog your memory later. happened yesterday.

Adapted from DIY Toolkit’s ‘Interview guide’ Concept capture sheet Once you have produced several ideas, it’s time to refine them into fully fledged concepts, concepts that — Developing insights and ideas, page 47 you are able to test. Use this worksheet to develop these concepts so that you can present and communicate them in a tangible way. Worksheet Worksheet What is the name of you What value would it bring to Draw your concept: concept? the organisation?

Describe your concept: Are their any anticipated barriers/challenges to your concept?

How does your concept work?

What are the key factors for success?

Who is the target user?

Prototyping tool Prototyping enables you to test if a concept looks, feels and functions in the way it was intended to, in order — Testing ideas through prototyping, pages 52 to 63 to identify where improvements can be made. The worksheet takes you through the process. Worksheet Hypothesis Try out your idea to judge Test your idea again after having Make a list of all the things that whether it can work in real life developed it further you need to make your idea real

Specify the main idea/concept/hypothe- Build a small model of your idea using cardboard/ Using the insights learned from the previous stage, List things like activities, resources, people and sis that you want to test. paper, or any material you see lying around, to en- build a new model of your concept. Once again test materials that you need to implement you idea and able you to see your idea in three dimensions and with your target audience and check whether changes turn it into a reality. check whether it would work smoothly. or new elements work in synchronisation. Act out parts of your idea when you meet with Capture your observations and reflections here. your target audience. How will they know how to use it? Try acting out different possibilities to learn about alternative ways of doing things. Capture your observations and reflections here.

Worksheet adapted from DIY Toolkit’s ‘Prototype testing plan’ Capabilities quicksheet This worksheet assists you in assessing what you need to do to turn your concept into a reality. Complete the — Preparing for implementation, page 70 worksheet to discover what needs you may need to address to successfully implement your solution. Worksheet Worksheet Distribution Needs

E.g. do you need to source, store and distribute a product? Write your requirements here. Using the requirements listed in the rows to the left, list here what your needs are in terms of capabili- ties. This information can then be used to inform the ‘Staffing your project’ (page71) and ‘Creating a Roadmap’ (page73) activities.

Capabilities

E.g. are there specialised skills, such as technological capabilities, intrinsic to the development of your service/ product/process? Write down your requirements here.

Partners

E.g. are their external organisations or individuals who can support, assist or influence the success of your solu- tion? Write down your requirements here.