This document discusses redesigning public governance models through a design approach. It argues that the next governance model cannot be prescribed, but must be discovered through three processes: 1) recognizing complexity through professional empathy and understanding citizen experiences, 2) creating divergence by engaging organizations to explore alternatives, and 3) rehearsing the future by testing and experimenting with new approaches. Public managers can engage with design by questioning assumptions, focusing on outcomes, being comfortable with uncertainty, and making potential futures concrete. This allows discovery of new governance models through co-creation with citizens and employees.

1. Redesigning governance
In search of the next public business
model
Christian Bason
Director, Ph.D. Fellow

2. When trying
something new we
are bound to
sometimes fail…How do you redesign a
national school
system?

3. Source: Ministry of Education

5. Co-designing school reform

6. MindLab works with
its owners to create
change which
generates the
desired value for
citizens, business and
society.

7. “MindLab will strengthen the outcomes of public
policies through systematic insight into the
perspective of citizens and businesses, and active
involvement of the stakeholders who can turn new
ideas into practice.”
Strategy

12. Policy
Press
2010
European
Commission
2012
MindLab
2013
European
Commission
2013
DESIS
Network
2013

13. Design
for policy
Christian Bason (ed.)
Series editor Rachel CooperGower Ashgate
October 2014

14. 1. Governance

15. The role of „governance‟ is to
organise and steer resources
to achieve desired outcomes for
people and society…
…at the lowest possible cost.

16. Contours of the next public
governance model
From delivery to activating citizen’s resources
(Denmark’s Charter for Civic Engagement)
From transactional welfare to relational wel
(Participle)
From professional quality to experienced qual
(Danish Regions)
From rights-based to outcome-based welfare
(City of Odense)

17. Co-production
A governance approach that
seeks to leverage all available
resources to produce the best
possible outcomes at the lowest
possible cost.

18. AUTHORITIES
SERVICES
RULES
FUNDING
CITIZENS

19. OUTCOMES
FAMILY
FRIENDS
NETWORK
CITIZENS
COMMUNITIES
NGOs
BUSINESSES
AUTHORITIES

21. Source: David Snowden (2007
Governance as a complex phenomenon
Causal-effect
relationship is
simple and
well-known.
There is
typically one
”best practice”.
Causal-effect
relationships
can be found
through
rigorous
analysis.
There are
multiple ”good
practices”.
Causal-effect
cannot be
established
through
analysis.
Systematic
experimentatio
n is needed to
discover what
works.
The situation
must be
stabilized
quickly.
Solutions are
unique.

22. The next public governance
model cannot just be prescribed,
it must be discovered.
This requires three mutually
interdependent processes to
open up the problem and
opportunity space.
Recognising complexity

23. 2. Redesign

24. First, professional empathy.
A deep exploration of how
citizens experience our public
systems in context.
-> What drives human behaviour and shapes outcomes?

28. The
service
journey...
...and points
of pain.

30. Second, creating divergence.
Active engagement with
public organisation(s) to help
them find out what they
must change.
- > How do we open up for alternative future scenario

33. ”It would really improve our work if there was a
place where one could see what the other authorities
did. For instance, I had a contact to Statistics
Denmark where we decided that the activity
”managing own finances” should have a different
code than ”managing other people‟s finances”. I
wrote it in my book, but of course the other
authorities cannot access that.”
Employee in Danish Business Authority

34. Third, rehearsing the future.
Probing, testing and experimenting with
concrete manifestations of potential new
governance approaches.
-> Which of our ideas have a chance of producing real
value on the outside (effectiveness) and inside
(efficiency) of the public system?

40. 3. Leadership

41. New governance models
(co-production)
New innovation approaches
(design-led)
Public managers engaging with design

42. “Managers, as designers, are thrown into
situations that are not of their own making
yet for which they are responsible to produce
a desired outcome. They operate in a
problem space with no firm basis for judging
one solution as superior to another, and still
they must proceed.”
Boland & Collopy (2004)

43. Most public managers
are good at
negotiating and
deciding between
different courses of
action…

44. ...but where do the
different courses of
action come from?

45. “A design attitude views each project as an
opportunity for invention that includes a
questioning of basic assumptions and a
resolve to leave the world a better place than
we found it.”
Boland & Collopy (2004)

46. From
”Which decision should I make?”
Question: What is the decision space?
Objective: That a decision is made
To
“What should I make a decision about?”
Question: What is the problem and opportunity
space?
Objective: That the decision helps solve the
problem
From decision- to design attitude

47. Public managers may not display
attitudes entirely like designers.
But they can engage with design in ways
that catalyse the discovery, with their
staff, of new governance models…

48. Questioning basic assumptions
Managers engaging with design
systematically question the
assumptions on which they base their
decisions. They continuously seek to
challenge their understanding of the
problem space.

49. ”A few years ago, my schedule planner and I observed
that there was something about the way in which
students select subjects for General Studies, which was
inconsistent with the goals of the subject. So either we
have completely misunderstood what's going on, or
there is something wrong with those goals.”
Mette Kynemund
Headmaster, Virum high school

50. Focusing on outcomes
Managers engaging with design are
interested in how to achieve desired
change – by impacting the experience
and behaviour of users.
They make this their first priority.

51. ”I tell my staff: In my job the priority is first and
foremost to give the users what they need, because
they have nowhere else to go. – but you do. You can find
other jobs. Our users cannot. My main responsibility is
with them … I think in the public sector we have two
obligations as managers, and some times you need to be
clear about which one you rank the highest.”
Christina Pawsø
Former manager, Camillagaarden, Odense

52. Stewarding the unknown
Public managers take active
responsibility for disturbing or
challenging their employees, for
instance by insisting on continuous
experimentation.
They are (relatively) comfortable
with not being able to answer where
the process will lead – and thereby
give their staff significant freedom to
identify new solutions on their own.

53. ”They looked a bit uncomfortable, for it was their own
efforts they were filming. Their immediate manager
was also a bit uncomfortable, I think.”
Peter Gadsdon
Development Director, London Borough of Lewisham

54. Making the future concrete
Managers who engage with design tend
to establish a narrative or vision about
the future that is so concrete that you
can see it and feel it. The active use of
models and sketches, but also stories,
media, and enactments, are all
expressions of a ”designerly” approach
to driving change.

55. Source: Izone

56. 1. How to strike the right balance between
(prescriptive) governance principles versus
(emergent) design processes?
2. What might be the role of digital tools in the
design process?
3. What will it take for managers to truly engage
with design approaches?
Some questions

57. mind-lab.dk/en
@christianbason