Transforming Public Services By Design

For policy makers and policy implementers, design challenges abound. Every design challenge presents an opportunity for change and transformation. To get from policy intent to policy outcome, however, is not a straightforward journey. It involves people and services as much as it involves policies and organizations. Of all organizations, perhaps government agencies are perceived to be the least likely to change. They are embedded in enormous bureaucratic structures that have grown over decades, if not centuries. In effect, many people have given up hope that such an institution can ever change its ways of doing business. And yet, from a human-centered design perspective, they present a fabulous challenge. Designed by people for people, they have a mandate to be citizen-centered, but they often fall short of this goal. If human-centered design can make a difference in this organizational context, it is likely to have an equal or greater impact on an organization that shows more flexibility; for example, one that is smaller in size and less entangled in legal or political frameworks. Transforming Public Services by Design offers a human-centered design perspective on policies, organizations and services. Three design projects by large-scale government agencies illustrate the implications for organizations and the people involved in designing public services: the Tax Forms Simplification Project by the Internal Revenue Service (1978-1983), the Domestic Mail Manual Transformation Project by the United States Postal Service (2001-2005) and the Integrated Tax Design Project by the Australian Tax Office. These case studies offer a unique demonstration of the role of human-centered design in policy context. This book aims to support designers and managers of all backgrounds who want to know more about reorienting policies, organizations and services around people.

This powerful new book provides a clear framework for understanding and learning an emerging management practice, leading public design. Drawing on more than a decade of work on public sector innovation, Christian Bason uses his extensive practical experience and research conducted among public managers in the UK, the US, Australia, Finland and Denmark to explore how public organisations can be redesigned from the outside in, shaping policies and services that are truly experienced as useful and meaningful to citizens, and which leverage all of society’s resources to co-produce better outcomes. Through detailed case studies, the book presents six management practices which leaders in government can use to involve citizens, staff and other stakeholders in innovation processes. It shows how managers can challenge their own assumptions, leverage empathy with citizens, handle divergence, navigate unknown territory, experiment and rehearse future solutions through prototyping, and create more public value. Ultimately, Leading public design provides a pathway to a new and different way of governing public institutions: human-centred governance. As a more relational, networked, interactive and reflective approach to running organisations, this emerging governance model promises a more human yet effective public sector.

Design for Policy is the first publication to chart the emergence of collaborative design approaches to innovation in public policy. Drawing on contributions from a range of the world’s leading academics, design practitioners and public managers, it provides a rich, detailed analysis of design as a tool for addressing public problems and capturing opportunities for achieving better and more efficient societal outcomes. In his introduction, Christian Bason suggests that design may offer a fundamental reinvention of the art and craft of policy making for the twenty-first century. From challenging current problem spaces to driving the creative quest for new solutions and shaping the physical and virtual artefacts of policy implementation, design holds a significant yet largely unexplored potential. The book is structured in three main sections, covering the global context of the rise of design for policy, in-depth case studies of the application of design to policy making, and a guide to concrete design tools for policy intent, insight, ideation and implementation. The summary chapter lays out a future agenda for design in government, suggesting how to position design more firmly on the public policy stage. Design for Policy is intended as a resource for leaders and scholars in government departments, public service organizations and institutions, schools of design and public management, think tanks and consultancies that wish to understand and use design as a tool for public sector reform and innovation.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology, DESRIST 2020, held in Kristiansand, Norway, in December 2020. The 28 revised full research papers included in the volume together with 7 research-in-progress papers and 9 prototype papers, were carefully reviewed and selected from 93 submissions. They are organized in the following topical sections: digital public services; data science; design principles; methodology; platforms and networks; and service science. Due to the Corona pandemic this event was held virtually.

Digital transformation across the public sector has stalled. After over 25 years of considerable time, money, and effort at national, state, and local levels, we’re still not 'there' yet. The reason is that successive waves of investment in digital transformation have focused largely on improving the transactional functions and activities of government. They have failed to embrace a bigger challenge - the need for governing and government to rethink a new 'theory of the business' - which that same revolution has caused and to which it is an inescapable part of the answer. This is a unique, timely, and distinctly Australian look at a global phenomenon by two 'reflective practitioners'. Their personal and practical experience of digital transformation in government and the public sector in Australia suggests it is a story missing half its plot. Packed full of insights from government and digital leaders from around Australia and across the world, this is a much-needed practical guide for public servants and leaders in any jurisdiction. It contains insights and ideas about the way digital technologies, and their associated tools, platforms, and cultures, are changing the business of governing and the design and delivery of public policy and services. "Are We There Yet? lucidly diagnoses how digital technologies, including AI and big data, are transforming the role of the public servant and the project of governance itself. Stewart-Weeks and Cooper describe the important shift from power to problem-solving and explain how to harness digital transformation to make government work better for all of us.” - Beth Noveck, author of Wiki Government, former Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the Obama White House, Professor in Technology, Culture & Society, New York University and Chief Innovation Officer for New Jersey "I've read a lot about the potential impact of digital technology on public services … this is the first book to persuade me that the power of digital, properly conceived, really can transform the nature of democratic governance." - Professor Peter Shergold AC, Chancellor, Western Sydney University, Former Secretary, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet

This book is for anyone that creates, delivers or supports public policy and services. It's about what the public sector, and everyone working with the public sector, does next, the future of digital transformation, and what we can learn from the biggest crisis in our lifetimes to date - the Covid-19 pandemic. At the heart of Multiplied is the belief that it's possible to do more, that by working in new and creative ways, we can increase the reach and impact of our work for people and the planet. How can we achieve this? Through the multipliers of: People: The importance of starting with user needs, and focusing on the outcomes services create. Teams: Aligning teams around shared goals and values, organising people in new ways, and working with modern technology. Participation: Putting citizens' lived experience and voices at the heart of change. Inclusion: Creating solutions that reach further, and that are more adaptable to everyone. Research: Working with insights from real life situations, understanding needs and context to deliver services that work best for people. Design: Taking a first principles approach to understand and reconfigure how public services work. Technology: Experimenting with new ways to build, configure and create value with technology. Data: Creating increasingly personalised services and experiences, built around personal data and insight. Delivery: Adapting and building on agile ways of working to deliver change faster, demonstrating and creating value incrementally. Knowledge: Working together, and in the open, through the sharing of insights and ideas, and with collaboration across services and new technology platforms.

"Organisations that grew up on the web have changed our attitude to the services we rely on every day. We expect them to work, be simple, cheap or free. They have done this by perfecting new technologies, practices, cultures and business models. However, organizations founded before the Internet aren't keeping pace - despite spending millions on IT. Faced with the digital revolution, many people working in large organisations instinctively see its consequences as another layer of complexity. To some of them, `digital' promises a better fax machine, a quicker horse, a brighter candle. In fact, digital is about applying the culture, practices, business models and technologies of the Internet era to respond to people's raised expectations. It is not a new function. It is not even a new way of running the existing functions of an organisation, whether those are IT or communications. It is a new way of running organisations. A successful digital transformation makes it possible not only to deliver products and services that are simpler, cheaper and better, but for the organisation as a whole to operate effectively in the online era. This book is a guide to building a digital institution. Based on experience and not theory it explains how a growing band of reformers in businesses and governments around the world have helped their organisations pivot to this new way of working, and what lessons others can learn from their experience. It is based on the authors' experience designing and helping to deliver the UK government's successful `Government Digital Service'. The GDS was a new institution made responsible for the digital transformation of government, designing public services for the Internet era. It snipped GBP4 billion off the government's technology bill, opened up public sector contracts to thousands of new suppliers, and delivered online services so good that citizens chose to use them over the offline alternatives, without a big marketing campaign. Other countries, and private sector companies too, took note. Here is a simple map to navigate a path through the blockers, buzzwords and bloody-mindedness that doom analogue organisations."--Publisher's description.