Join us at Civic Design 2022, November 16-18
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Day 1- Innovating with People and Unleashing the Potential of Civic Design

— I’m honored to be the first person to kick off this  conference

 

— The title of my presentation is: Innovating with People and Unleashing the Potential of Civic Design

 

—  This is a title close to my heart, as there is huge potential that we still need to unleash, and we are all on this journey together

 

 

— Let’s start with the question of what do you see from your vantage point, about the potential of civic design?

 

— Scan the QR code and write down your experiences using your phone/link, and we’ll draw out a word cloud that represents what we see as the true value of civic design, that can serve as reference point for the conference

 

 

— Themes from our survey results include: access, equity, emancipation, empathy and participation

 

 

— Now, back to the presentation
  • According to the director general at an agency in Demark I interviewed about her experience with civic design, it was an eye-opener to gain empathy with citizens, and discovering potential value of the services that her agency offered

 

 

 

 

— Civic design is challenging as it involves discovering what kind of change is needed, rather than implementing a blunt policy solution

 

 

— We are in a world where the global context is challenging, changing, and where we need to place people at the center of processes
  • This includes challenges like the pandemic
— The bottom line is that we need to be placing human beings and even living things at the creation of our policies and services, as well as other actors engaged with change in our society, from the business sector to civil society

 

 

 

— The Danish Design Center is using design to unleash people’s ability to create a more sustainable world, and using civic design to do it

 

 

— Here’s an image of our humble home and office in the west of Denmark, which is an ecosystem for advancing design as well as innovation

 

 

— We also have resources you can look into following this chat, like “Leading Public Design”, and a “Framework for Public Sector Design”

 

— So what’s behind the rise of civic design?
  • Let’s look at the past before turning to the future. It will show where are we coming from and where the field is growing

 

 

— Civic Design is a response to the challenge of bureaucracy in government
  • Paul du Gay said we are seeing demise of bureaucracy. But we might not want bureaucracyy to go away, as we need the stability bureaucracy can provide
  • We need civic design and the ability to balance bureaucracy with ability to change and transform

 

 

 

— So civic design can be viewed as asking questions, and pursuing human-centeredness in government, starting with citizens and human beings

 

— It involves prototyping and figuring out new avenues forward and leveraging human senses to shape/form solutions

 

 

— We explore the problem space in civic design through immersion, empathy, interviewing, for qualitative insights of experience, alongside quantitative work

 

 

 

— We then need to source ideas from all sides of the problem, and get marginalized voices involved to help with new ideas and solutions

 

 

 

— All problems are then solved with prototypes and broad collaboration

 

 

 

— One way to look at the future growth of the civic design field is to look at design studios and labs embedded in government institutions

 

— Work from previous organizations like MindLab are part of an incredible journey where we can embed innovation and design thinking within the heart of government
  • Government at all kind of levels are working to do this
— The above journey map of MindLab showed its  movement from just a creative platform to a strategic change partner with ministries and developing its own capacity and culture
  • This map from the early 2000s to 2020 was a way to see the entire journey around civic design in the public sector

 

 

— MindLab and other civic design organization made the process of government more interesting and far faster

 

 

— And the design community overall has done well in embracing itself internally within public sector

 

— Civic Design labs are all over the world, including with organizations like Bloomberg philanthropies

 

 

— The civic design literature has grown as well

 

 

— Areas of application have grown with many massive complex problems falling under the scope of civic design. These applications include:
  • Social services and digital government
  • Enterprise and economic development and how to catalyze more sustainable/equitable growth
  • Taxation
  • Justice
  • Immigration, as it is a huge opportunity and challenge for countries
  • Funding programs, informed by design and finance authorities
— No aspect of government has been untouched

 

 

 

— The goal of civic design is radically improving the citizen experience, and creating more civic values
  • Process all insights into the citizen experience, and find out how to create value together, and de-risk interventions by going small-scale and creating prototypes
— We civic designers are creating a more meaningful service experience for people we serve, providing cost savings and productivity increases, and achieve  policy outcomes, and democratic accountability
  • Delivering on promises and making clear to citizens how we deliver and create services

 

 

 

— So how do we get started and explain civic design to someone who has had no experience?
  • We need to ensure long-term capacity and a commitment for civic design
  • So how to get buy-in? And how to obtain the first experiences of civic design?
— We need to show value and make sure civic design is seen as serious work, and then scale the design practice across the organization

 

— So can we get the two worlds of design and bureaucracy together?

 

 

 

— Public managers typically use service design in response to performance pressure, a personal vision, and the opportunity to use new approach

 

— But there are two waves that typically collide when this happens
  • A wave of fear of failure, and bureaucratic  inertia
  • A wave of creativity inherent in design
— So is convergence between these two waves possible?

 

 

 

— Bureaucracy and human governance have conflicting values
  • From formal rules that need to come together versus allowing for ambiguity in service processes
  • To theories of knowledge, from the state knowing everything, to human governance being more reflective and perceptional

 

 

 

— A few months ago I wrote up a thesis that studied managers who worked with civic designers, and asked ten years after their initial encounter, whether these managers still believed civic design was the right approach?

 

— After 10 years, the managers said yes, the civic design experience was the right approach:
  • Discontinuations were typically due to changes in management, not the services themselves
  • Solutions created by civic designers lived on for a long time, and managers continued to deploy design thinking
— Examples included:
  • Reducing homelessness by 50% in certain cities
  • Creating new civic solutions based on the design process

 

 

 

— Another question I had was whether empathy/citizen engagement can co-exist with bureaucracy?

 

— It’s long answer, as empathy is not the same as taking on emotions, but design is a way to understand the full range of ‘rationality’ of citizens behavior

 

— However, it’s a fake contradiction that empathy and bureaucracy can’t co-exist, as we need  the structure of bureaucracy to have empathy

 

— Finally, I have a few ideas on where we need to head with direction of field and hope that we are doing something worthwhile

 

— First, we need more systemic design, more mission oriented innovation, and taking complex problems worth solving across disciplines
  • Examples of this include setting up a mission playbook to help ecosystems through design

 

 

— Next, we need ethics and Inclusion— including questions on AI + Digitization, as just because we can build something, it doesn’t mean we should do it
  • Examples of this are the Digital Ethics Compass

 

 

— Next, can we focus on regenerative design from a systemic level and create with all living things in mind?
  • Example of this is the European Bauhaus and transforming cities to be just and sustainable

 

 

 

—  We also need to go beyond labs, and imagine self-managing organizations, and unleashing human creativity in every place in government

 

—We are planning to do this at DDC, and what we believe that people:
  • Thrive by trust and recognition
  • Grow when they have influence
  • Want to make a difference
  • Will take responsibility
  • Can lead and can follow

 

— Moreover, the next civic design organization will have
  • Everyone choosing their personal leader
  • Everyone offering their leadership
  • Everyone freely choosing their professional area of work
  • No fixed departments or teams, but task/project based teams
  • Procedures and policies aren’t formulated before the need arises
  • Tasks are not defined by position but by roles
— This is a bit radical, but our team has done it, and we are sure more can do it

 

 

— I leave you with a call to action: Grab the tools and methods from the Danish Design Center, and apply them to your organization
  • We believe the design approach is the only way that public sector can be developed in way beneficial for its citizens
— With that, thank you, and I’m  looking to hear questions and answers for impact for civic design

 

Q&A

 

  1. Can you describe the journey of the civic design field from a civic design standpoint?

 

—> Some of first areas that pioneered area geographically were the UK and the Nordic countries
—> International institutions have had their own version of the experience as well
—> Now, it’s scaling to all parts of the world
—> I believe there is no org that can’t benefit from civic design, as its not tied to cultural context and all about human beings

 

  1. What examples can you give about applying civic design from a policy perspective?

 

—> At MindLab and DDC, we get more abstract when doing policy, as there is a portfolio of interventions available: from regulations to communication and outreach
  • Worked in a co-creative collaborative way, explaining options available for ideation
  • Prototyping handful of policy interventions and then having them go live
—> This is not always easy to do, and requires more stakeholder management, and more political conflict
—> It’s hard to do as outsider, and you need to be embedded within the industry
  • Possible to prototype policy and map out life of citizen
  1. Can you speak more about the Irish agency working in civic design/justice?

 

—> I learned that civic design in justice area is that there is so much to do in terms of understanding the human experience of things like incarceration and avoiding recidivism

 

  1. Can you tell us more about the Danish Design Center?

 

—> It’s an independent foundation, with 1/3 of budget from state, 2/3 from civic organizations, and it acts as an in between government and the civic and private sector