Design thinking / Co-design – What happens when citizens decide?

Professor Mark Evans

Director, Australia-New Zealand School of Government, The Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis

Dr Nina Terrey

Partner, ThinkPlace

Adjunct Associate Professor, The Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis

What is co-design?

1. Co-Design captures a process of research and professional reflection that supports inclusive problem-solving or stabilization in policy development, and service design.

2. It places the citizen/stakeholder at the centre of an intentional process of collaborative learning.

3. It draws on ways of working that are commonplace both in the design of objects and products and in community-driven development.

4. Formulating policy through understanding the lives of others & sharing power.

Design thinking/Co-Design as a movement

• UK Design Council (established in 1944)• UK Cabinet Office Design Centre• APS 200 Public Sector Innovation Project• APSC’s Centre for Excellence in Public Sector Design• SA’s Integrated Design Commission• Ministry of Technology and MindLab in Denmark• Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard University• NZ Centre for Social Innovation• ANAO’s Better Practice Guide on Innovation in the Public Sector• Involve (UK)• The Big Innovation Centre (UK)• The Publin Project funded by the European Union’s 5th Framework Project• The Public Policy Lab in US• Design for Europe• Human Experience Lab, Public Service Division, Singapore

• Enrolling citizens, public policy makers, other people involved in the policy making process into the co-design method

• Scope and define the problem intent and identify the change objective to be produced

Co-Design involves… Should we do anything about the problem?

Co-Design involves…

Touch points with the system

No one experiences the whole system: we experience pathways through it

Dr Richard Buchanan, “Managing as Designing” 2004

• Co-discover the problem and desirable experiences

• Few cases• Not representative rather

illustrative of a range of experiences

• Empower citizens and people to tell/show their story

• Establish conditions for citizens to feel safe

• Insight driven with visualisations

Why pay attention?

Co-Design involves…

• Co-create possibilities

• Concerned with what ‘ought to be’

• Prototype, iterate and refine

• In situ, context based

• Ability to zoom between whole system understanding and deep empathy for the individual and what they need

Can we do anything about the problem?

Co-Design involves… Will it work here?

• User test in small numbers, in situ (in homes, everyday contexts)

• Evolve the prototypes, or ideas through collaborative processes

• Evidence base builds through real everyday people interacting with possibilities

Going back and forth…

Understand variations as we

user test

Example Techniques• Observations• Shadowing the everyday • In-situ interviewing • Collaborative workshops• Field work• Field shops

Example Outputs• User Journeys or Pathways• Interaction Maps• Insight maps• Personas• Blueprints• Paper prototypes• Other forms of prototypes• Service walkthroughs

Co-Design involves…

What conditions are necessary?

1. Require support of political or senior elite

2. Collective recognition of the complexity of the issue

3. Appetite to try something new or to get a different answer to a complex issue

4. Appetite for collaboration (and may not know how)

5. Access to skills and expertise in design methods

What does co-design bring policy makers?

Encourages and enables people to involved in policy to engage with each other - cross ministerial, cross agency teams reflecting complexity of policy is cross boundaries1

Empathising with people whose lives will be touched in one way or another by a policy1

References1 Junginger, S ‘Towards Policy Making as Designing’ 2014 2 Christiansen and Blunt ‘Innovating Public Policy’ 2014

Shift from perceptions of the needs of citizens, to an understanding of the desires of citizens by collaborating and empowering citizens in the process

Reflective practice that allows policy makers to reflect on the problem as it appears, and to state it, and re-state the problem

Identifying and valuing useful evidence to achieve policy outcomes because co-design uncovers insights that locate where policy will make impact2

Uncover not only human factors that are important for policy design but broader system issues

Policy applications of Co-Design

POLICY FORMING POLICY EXPERIMENTATIONPOLICY IMPLEMENTATION &

EVALUATION

[1] Focus on outcomes and not solutions

[1]Focus on possibilities

[1]Focus on viability

[2] Exploration and deep empathy with how the ‘system’ works now [small=N]

[2] Rapid and iterative prototyping of many solutions

[2]Scalable implementation (might start small)

[3] Empowering citizens to co-discovery with policy makers the aspects of citizen experience that need to change

[3] Co-design possibilities with a strong emphasis on prototyping in situ

[3]Co-create desired interactions of the policy (system touch points)

[4]Uncover the desirable outcomes – from all actors in the system

[4]Collaborative learning about what works and not

[4]Collective buy-in and support

Case Study

Improving Services with FamiliesUnderstanding the journey of families through the service system.

Approach

“In this policy space, a ‘co-design’ methodology with service users based on an action learning approach is more

likely to be effective than a traditional policy making process”

CO-DESIGN PHASES

Second Phase: Co-design and prototype service changes

First phase: Listen and co-design possibilities of change

En

do

rse

Str

ate

gy

Initi

ate

En

do

rse

Sca

le

DIVERGE CONVERGE

“What is the unique and powerful strategic

opportunity?”

DIVERGE CONVERGE

“What do we need to make to realise

the strategic opportunity?”

POLICY [RE]FORMING

POLICY EXPERIMENTING

POLICY SCALING

DIVERGE

“How do we scale?”

Third Phase: Co-design and service scaling

CONVERGE

Phase 1: Listening to families

The policy recognition is that…

a group of individuals and families experience perpetual cycles of disadvantage

The policy issue was to…

address how to improve responses for individuals and families that cannot, or choose not to, access the support they require to meet their full range of needs and to mitigate against any adverse outcomes

Approach

Co-designThe process where the development of policies and services is a collaborative effort between policy makers, service system and service users

• Recognising the everyday life• Developing future scenarios• Collaborating across fields• Prototyping ideas

Action learningRecognising that solutions to problems can only be developed inside the context in which problems arise

• See connections between issues and events• Create a safe learning environment• Focus on the whole rather than the parts• Seek a holistic solution to the problem

Network of relations within the service system drawing together policy people,

frontline staff, and the families enabled by designers and sociologists

Journey maps and Insights

Understood 6 families experiences

Generating Ideas

Family connect

Family Information

profile

Lead case worker

Phase 2: Improving Services with families

Co-created prototypes concepts from Phase 1 with public officers and families

Developed tools to enable the service to be prototyped to enable action learning

Collaborated across the service system throughout

Increased the number of families involved

Interactive, visual tools to use by lead workers and families

Periphery

Core

Joan

Understanding and developing the family and lead worker network

• Who does the family need in their network?

• Who is not there? • Who would be better closer

in or further away?

My network map 3 months ago

My network map today

Pete

Donna

Karl

Jim Cross

JuneLegal aid

HA

CT

Transport

Susan

na

Harris

DVCS

GAP!Police

Co-Design tool: The network map

Quick and dirty prototype on the digital family information profile

Family Information (online) tool

Family co-created the online tool to help them maintain their story

Information sharing with service providers

Developing networks

Phase 3: Scaling Strengthening Families

• Government case to scale

• Commitment to assemble services around the needs of families – from both the government agencies and community sector organisations

• Recognition changing policy to change the authorising environments for frontline workers and families can break down the service fail points