Keynote speech in UXSG'16 conference

1. When Policy Meets Design
8 Sept 2016 | UXSG’16
JJ Lee
Assistant Professor. Division of Industrial Design
School of Design and Environment. NUS

2. When Policy Meets Design

3. When Policy Meets Design
A decision-making system
that the government adopts for
its governance & public services
A decision-making system
that aims at changing existing situations
into preferred based on design doing

4. Why the Modern Government Needs Transformation?
Why & How Design can Bring the Transformation?
What are Our Challenges & Remaining Questions?
Transformation is a Mutual Process.
When Policy Meets Design
1
2
3
4

5. 21st Century Problems

6. 21st Century Problems

7. 21st Century Problems

8. 21st Century Problems

9. 21st Century Problems
Complex network of problems
People’s needs & contexts are complex & dynamic
Hard to define what is the core problem

10. 21st Century Problems
People-centered
Collaborative
Exploratory
Complex network of problems
People’s needs & contexts are complex & dynamic
Hard to define what is the core problem

11. Collaborative
Exploratory
Silos
Expert-oriented
Problem-fixing culture
Modern Government?
People-centered

12. Parliament of Britain
1793 2015

13. Are we trying to solve 21st Century problems
with the 18th Century tool?
Parliament of Britain
1793 2015

14. Collaborative
Exploratory
Silo
Expert-oriented
Problem-fixing culture
Modern Government? Design
People-centered

15. Citizen-oriented
Collaborative
Exploratory
Modern Government?
Empathy to Humans
Design
Silo
Expert-oriented
Problem-fixing culture

16. Citizen-oriented
Collaborative
Exploratory
Modern Government?
Empathy to Humans
Co-creation
Design
Silo
Expert-oriented
Problem-fixing culture

17. Citizen-oriented
Collaborative
Exploratory
Modern Government?
Empathy to Humans
Co-creation
Framing Opportunities
Design
Prototyping & Iterations
Silo
Expert-oriented
Problem-fixing culture

20. Very recently, this is happening in Asia, too.
Gov 3.0 Design Group, Korea (2015)

22. Singapore government starts to see potentials of design.

23. It was a fresh, potential approach to try!
…not sure how I could apply to my work, though.
“Can I have the toolkit?
We can then do design thinking!”

24. Truly embedding design capabilities,
beyond one-off projects

25. Collaboration with the Ministry of Manpower since 2014

26. MOM’s Journey to Adopt Design Sought a new approach to bridge a gap
between policy intent & people’s experience
Collaboration projects with external
design experts (e.g. IDEO)
Sending the public officers to
Stanford d.School

27. Behavioral Insights and Design Unit (BDU)
Internal agency (est. 2013) that brings
BI + Design approach to the Ministry
MOM’s Journey to Adopt Design

28. Collaboration with NUS Design

29. Collaboration Model of NUS Design x MOM
How could we truly embed design capabilities within the Ministry, beyond one-off projects?

30. How could we truly embed design capabilities within the Ministry, beyond one-off projects?
Collaboration Model of NUS Design x MOM
Reflection
& Implementation
Design Capability
Building
A Series of
Collaborative Projects1 2 3
• BA Design Studios
(11-13 week project)
• 4th project now started
• Student internship for the
development
• Follow-up project for
implementation
• Follow-up interviews with
MOM officers
• Workshops
• Design capability mapping
toolPilot
Project
(2014)

31. Design-Driven Transformation of the Government
Service Offerings
Practices, Skills & Mindsets
Organizational Structure & Belief

32. Design-Driven Transformation of the Government
Service Offerings
Practices, Skills & Mindsets
Collaborative Design Projects
Organizational Structure & Belief

33. Design-Driven Transformation of the Government
Service Offerings
Practices, Skills & Mindsets
Collaborative Design Projects
Follow-up interviews for design impactsStudent Interns
Organizational Structure & Belief

34. Design-Driven Transformation of the Government
Service Offerings
Practices, Skills & Mindsets
Collaborative Design Projects
Follow-up interviews for design impacts
Design capabilities workshops
Student Interns
Mapping tool
Organizational Structure & Belief

35. Design-Driven Transformation of the Government
Service Offerings
Practices, Skills & Mindsets
Collaborative Design Projects
Follow-up interviews for design impacts
Design capabilities workshops
Student Interns
Mapping tool
Evaluating Success & Impact
Scaling up
Long-term functioning structure
Sharing cases
Organizational Structure & Belief

36. Design-Driven Transformation of the Government
Service Offerings
Practices, Skills & Mindsets
Public Sector Design Ladder
(Design Council UK, 2013)
Organizational Structure & Belief

37. MOM Services Centre (2014)1 Temporary Job Scheme Process (2015)2
Employment of Foreign Domestic Workers (2016)3 Job redesign for Older Workers (2016)4

38. Some Principles for Designing with Government

39. Reframing the Project Brief: Problem-Solving à Exploratory
Project 1 (2014): Original Brief
Efficient service for walk-in customers
at the MOM services centre
Reframed brief
Supporting Self-Help
(effective education & communication, outreach)
MOM game card set &
ambassador program for
dormitories
Outreach e-kiosk
Some Principles for Designing with Government

40. Continuous Involvement of the Public Officers
Testing prototypes at the Services Centre (2014)
Students learn
complex issues
around policies
& enhance feasibility
of their ideas
Public officers
build empathy,
understand design,
gain ownership
Some Principles for Designing with Government

41. Perspective Shift from “Why this is impossible” to “What can make this possible”
done by
John Teo,
Chan Shi Ming,
Wilmer Tay (2016)
Some Principles for Designing with Government

42. Aiming at Impacts, beyond Deliverables
Progressive learning toolkit for employers & FDWs (2016)
done by
Chan Wing Kei, Huang Yixuan, Jomains Neo & Shanti Alberti
Some Principles for Designing with Government

43. Deliverables: Toolkits Impacts: Co-creation project for Implementation
Aiming at Impacts, beyond Deliverables
Some Principles for Designing with Government

45. Follow-up interviews
• How the officers think of the benefits and limitations of design in their work?
• What are the challenges in bringing design within the government?
• What are the opportunities?

46. There are design advocates! Then, how to support them to apply in everyday work?
Different expectations of what design can do, due to their experience & job scope
Growing interests in design & support from the management

47. In the organization’s process of adopting design,
how could we help the members realize different expectations of design among themselves,
and achieve a shared understanding and a goal?

48. Design Capability Mapping Tool
Allows employees to map their current perceptions on design,
and facilitate a shared understanding within a team and an organization
Design Capability Mapping Tool
Tool that helps members map their current perceptions on design,
and facilitate a shared understanding within a team and an organization

49. Research by Yvonne Yeo, NUS

50. Questions related to key mindsets &
practices for each phase
Research by
Yvonne Yeo
(NUS)
Levels of maturity

51. Research by
Yvonne Yeo
(NUS)

52. Research by
Yvonne Yeo
(NUS)

53. Research by
Yvonne Yeo
(NUS)

54. • 6 month-long employee-driven design projects (Mar– Aug 2016)
• Two rounds of testing: First & last workshop
Setting for the Pilot Test: Behavioral Design Platform

55. Individual
• Map their design-related perceptions & practices
• Goal-setting for what skillsets they want to develop
Team
• Identify (mis)alignment in members’ understanding
• Facilitate a shared understanding of design & goals

56. as Conversation Piece
Enhance designers’ ability to engage organizations into
a conversation about their own design legacies & visions
(Junginger 2015)

57. UNDERSTAND DESIGN TEST IMPLEMENT
For understanding project challenges, your team tends
to churn available data or seeks views from internal
discussions or through cross-department collaborations.
Your team considers the role of end-users as ’functional
informants’ who can give you feedback on service
transactions (MOMster). There seems to be less
experiences on end-user engagement in the design
process, especially for the product owners.
Your team may benefit from deeper understanding of
end-users’ real experiences, including their motivations,
goals, value system, social relationships, worries and
frustrations both at work and life. These may help your
team identify what actually stops them from using
MOMster (perhaps not only because of its features but
because of their social and cultural surroundings), and
what can motivate them to use MOMster.
Understanding the root causes of low user engagement
of MOMster may help you design in a more platform-
level than a fragmented, single problem-solving level.
Your team has strength in prototype development,
engaging in a series of co-creation activities by using
prototypes in various fidelity-levels, partnering product
owners, developers (programmers) and users will benefit
your project.
Whereas your team members have done prototype
testing with end-users and other stakeholders, the
project owner might lack the experience of involving
end-users for prototype testing. Gaining end-users’
feedbacks early in the design process and iterative along
the process will help the team refine design directions
relevant to the end users. As majority of team members
have done prototype tests with end users, it will be great
to explore more testing methods that can be done in
different phases of the design process. You may consider
to seek ways and resources to do pilot test with real
users in long-term.
Your team has experiences on creating communication
materials to brief involved stakeholders, including
implementing departments. Perhaps you could also think
of ways to involve these people who will ‘actually’
implement in essential stages of the project to increase
their understanding. Overall, your team has the mind-set
to monitor the impacts of the project. Your team may
consider creating effective, regular communication
milestones with the implementers. If the measurement
of the impact of the project is against KPIs, make sure
that the criteria to measure KPIs are shared by the
various stakeholders to have the same view.
project MOMstars
• Experts who are used to fix the problems
• Could benefit from ‘holistic views to users’: their motivations and values at work and
life, their worries and frustrations, short-term and long-term goals, social-cultural
surroundings.
• Do tap on existing prototyping skills to make them more participatory and iterative
• Benefit from empathic design methods to learn users’ experiences, journey system
visualisation and co-creation approaches
“Expert Repairer”
Conversation Piece for a team & between a designer and a team
Research by Yvonne Yeo (NUS)

58. Transformation is a mutual process.
Government /
Policy making
Design

59. Transformation is a mutual process.
Government /
Policy making
Design
Mindset: Learning organization’s legacy
& tapping on enablers
Discipline & Community:
Expanding, redefining the areas of expertise

60. Critical questions.
Portability of this collaboration model?
Teaching design to the staff who has domain knowledge?
or Teaching designers the domain knowledge?

61. Thank you.
Q&A
Jung-Joo Lee
jjlee@nus.edu.sg
servicedesignlab.net