Design in the public sector – opportunities and challenges 140127
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The 27th of January Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Malmö University in collaboration with Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, The Swedish Faculty for Design Research and Research Education and SVID arranged a seminar at Konstfack to discuss the future role of design in the public sector. Around thirty people from diverse organisations gathered to discuss the future role of design in the public sector. The starting point for the discussion was based on concrete experiences from Sweden and France presented by specially invited speakers. Stéphane Vincent who is director for La 27e Région. Bjarne Stenquist who is project Manager at the Environmental Department, City of Malmö. Bengt Jacobsson is Professor in Business Administration, The School of Social Sciences at Södertörn University and Stefan Holmlid from Linköping University. With reflections that have emerged in the empirical work done in Malmö Living Labs and inspirations from several international initiatives such as Mindlab, Nesta and DESIS several questions where posed: • What opportunities and implications for design in the public sector can we see? • How can you balance stability and dynamism within the public sector, between managing the status quo and creating new futures? • How can the public sector deal with ambiguity and uncertainty? • Where can we locate design? • How can we support mutual learning between work practises? DESIGN IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR – OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Seminar - 2014-01-27
Design in the public sector – opportunities and challenges 140127
Actes du colloque organisé à Stockholm le 27 janvier 2014 - Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Malmö University in collaboration with Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, The Swedish Faculty for Design Research and Research Education and SVID, Konstfack University.
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Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Seminar - 2014-01-27 DESIGN
IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES The 27th of
January Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Malm University in
collaboration with Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and
Design, The Swedish Faculty for Design Research and Research
Education and SVID arranged a seminar at Konstfack to discuss the
future role of design in the public sector. Around thirty people
from diverse organisations gathered to discuss the future role of
design in the public sector. The starting point for the discussion
was based on concrete experiences from Sweden and France presented
by specially invited speakers. Stphane Vincent who is director for
La 27e Rgion. Bjarne Stenquist who is project Manager at the
Environmental Department, City of Malm. Bengt Jacobsson is
Professor in Business Administration, The School of Social Sciences
at Sdertrn University and Stefan Holmlid from Linkping University.
With reflections that have emerged in the empirical work done in
Malm Living Labs and inspirations from several international
initiatives such as Mindlab, Nesta and DESIS several questions
where posed: What opportunities and implications for design in the
public sector can we see? How can you balance stability and
dynamism within the public sector, between managing the status quo
and creating new futures? How can the public sector deal with
ambiguity and uncertainty? Where can we locate design? How can we
support mutual learning between work practises?
Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Seminar - 2014-01-27
STPHANE VINCENT DESIGN IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR; EXPERIENCES FROM
FRANCE The first presenter was Stphane Vincent, from La 27e Rgion.
La 27e Rgion was founded by a group of people with a lot of
experience from the public sector, where some also had been working
as civil servants. They had no experience of design but felt that
they wanted to re-new the 26 regional governments in France, lets
start the 27th region someone then suggested. Today they are a
non-profit organisation with seven staff members and they have a
contract with all regions to work as a do-tank or an in-house
innovation lab. We try to set up a zone where people within the
public sector can step out of their everyday roles and forget that
they are civil servants, politicians or project managers. During
this process its important to spend time on re-interrogating and
re-framing problems and not only to focus on producing solutions.
Its good with private design firms, but you also need in-house
design labs, because in the end you can only change things from
within. Their core approach is called friendly hacking and they try
to set up a zone where people within the public sector can step out
of their everyday roles and forget that they are civil servants,
politicians or project managers. During this process its important
to spend time on re-interrogating and re-framing problems and not
only to focus on producing solutions. The public sector often
spends time on building very nice solutions in front of very bad
formulated problems, said Stphane Vincent. Working with this
approach put emphasis not only on the methods, but also on the
relationship and that you set up new forms of contract. La 27e
Rgion tries to go beyond traditional consultancy models because its
difficult if you are a consultant to re-interrogate and re-frame,
rather you have to work with an action-research partnership. Its
good with private design firms, but you also need in-house design
labs, because in the end you can only change things from within. We
try to balance being neutral and being activists, said Stphane
Vincent. A strong common point in La 27e Rgion is that they truly
believe in the public sector, but they also believe that it has to
be modernized. There is a lot of innovation in the public sector,
but these innovations are in silos. Each silo makes innovation, but
they dont take a systemic perspective, Stphane Vincent said.
Another problem in the public sector is that they do long surveys
before doing things. We need the contrary, we need to do and learn
from this doing, he stated.
Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Seminar - 2014-01-27 One of
their first projects was called Trritoires en Rsidences, where they
set up a cross disciplinary team within a public organisation.
During a period the team then through ethnography tries to
understand what goes on and tries to collect a variety of ideas.The
second week they co-design and prototype new possible solutions.
Finally they produce scenarios, make an exhibition and translate
this into political strategies. During these processes politicians
and civil servants also get the opportunity to do ethnography and
try to understand how well previous established polices work (or
not work) in practice. Trritoires en Rsidences have been working
well to do flexible interventions, re-framing problems and
prototyping solutions. They also have a growing collection of cases
that build strategic visions for local, regional and national
top-managers. One of the problems, however, is that theres a huge
turnover in public sector and one of the main reasons for failure
is that people often change position within the public sector. The
continuations of the projects have therefor been very dependent on
the project manager in charge. Many civil servants are interested
in new solutions, but we need to create an empathy for how they are
working. To deal with this La 27e Rgion initiated La Transfo in
2011, where they could go deeper and during ten weeks simulate
design labs within regional governments. In these projects ten to
fifteen civil servants have been empowered with design skills. They
will not become a designer, thats not their job, but they will
learn to think as a designer, Stphane concluded. According to
Stphane many civil servants are interested in new solutions, but we
need to create an empathy for how they are working. We need more
humility; otherwise we have a risk that design appears as a miracle
discipline that will solve the problem of the public sector, he
added. Its important to think in a long term perspective but also
to work and develop this step by step, where you start from small,
concrete and not to difficult interventions and then you can later
come back and set up more complex collaborations with regional
governments that are interested. La 27e Rgion also tries to avoid
the terminology and practice of excellence. The notion of
excellence is often associated with competition, ranking and being
number one, where you then can set up expensive and huge projects
that are highly specialized and solve everything within a silo.
Instead they promote the more mundane process of craft where you
through an ongoing process do tests and trials and continuously
improve processes. Its important to think in a long term
perspective but also to work and develop this step by step, where
you start from small, concrete and not to difficult interventions
and then you can later come back and set up more complex
collaborations with regional governments that are interested.
Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Seminar - 2014-01-27 During
2014 La 27e Rgion has established a collaboration with the National
School of Administration (Ecole Nationale de lAdministration),
through the project Re/acteur public, so that they can include
design for policy within their programs. BJARNE STENQUIST DESIGN IN
THE PUBLIC SECTOR; EXPERIENCES FROM MALM, SWEDEN Bjarne Stenquist
works as Project Manager at the Environmental Department, City of
Malm, and is also a Research associate at the British think-tank
Demos and have been working with Charles Leadbeater and Geoff
Mulgan. Bjarne described that, although Malm has gone through a
tremendous transformation from an industrial city to a service
city, several complex, urgent challenges have raised the need for
new approaches. One example is that child poverty is extremely high
and there are huge differences in health in different parts of the
city. Since the City of Malm employed him, he has tried to
introduce design into the public administrations as one option to
deal with these complex challenges. The first opportunity came when
the city launched the Area programmes where they prioritized work
in five small areas and started out from these specific locations
needs and dynamics and civil servants got a mandate to innovate.
The focus was to work with many different partners in a co-creative
process and focus on testing and experimenting, models where work
gradually are scaled up. Already in 2011 the idea of design labs
where introduced as a part of the area programs where you not only
should focus on ideas and concepts, but also on insights and
understanding. Through this structure you were supposed to be able
to mobilize people locally and facilitate experimental design
processes. However, this turned out to be very hard to embed within
the city, both regarding the terminology and language as well as
the working culture. The design labs were re-labelled into
Innovation Forums and they re-framed the design language into See!,
Understand!, Connect! and Try, try, try! According to Bjarne its a
huge potential in this approach, independent if you call it design
or something else. The problem is that it poses a challenge
Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Seminar - 2014-01-27 for a
system that only is used to do budget calculations, analyze,
conclude and implement. They have also tried to emphasise to work
with rather than for citizens, but this shift has also turned out
to be hard to accept within the administration. Recently some of
these thoughts has got a renewed focus e.g. from the Commission for
a Sustainable Malm that recommends to continue with the work in
Innovation Forums. Bjarnes final recommendations is to work
pedagogical and create a more general understanding of these
processes, to take a no as a questions rather than an answer, and
to keep on. Time will be on our side. Its a huge potential in this
approach, independent if you call it design or something else. The
problem is that it poses a challenge for a system that only is used
to do budget calculations, analyze, conclude and implement. BENGT
JACOBSSON BEYOND NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT Bengt Jacobsson is a
Professor in Business Administration at The School of Social
Sciences at Sdertrn University. He is also active in The Academy of
Public Administration. He presented a historical overview of public
sector reforms, where many are associated with the umbrella concept
of New Public Management (NPM). According to Bengt some of the
first reforms in Sweden that relates to NPM started already 50-60
years ago with for example Program Budgeting and Management by
objectives with a strong focus on results. NPM also stress the
importance of formulating clear and unambiguous goals that are
possible to operationalize. You should measure outputs and effects
and ascribe costs to outputs and effects. All this should also be
integrated in some kind of control system. It has also brought
forward what Bengt termed as an audit explosion, an enormous focus
on evaluation, certification, inspection, comparison, ranking etc.
Bengt described how the general directors in public organisations
during the 70ies and 80ies looked at private companies as the more
beautiful sister, but at that time it was mostly rhetoric, however
during the 90ies this was transferred into the public sector
organisations. Today a lot of this, at least the managerial ideas,
is institutionalized and taken for granted. People are educated
into these ideas, they think in these terms and you have to
acknowledge that if you want to change things, Bengt said. NPM also
stress the importance of formulating clear and unambiguous goals
that are possible to operationalize. You should measure outputs and
effects and ascribe costs to outputs and effects. All this should
also be integrated in some kind of control system.
Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Seminar - 2014-01-27 Today
a lot of this, at least the managerial ideas, is institutionalized
and taken for granted. People are educated into these ideas, they
think in these terms and you have to acknowledge that if you want
to change things... Its basically the same managerial ideas that
have been the content of the reforms since the program budgeting in
the 60ies until the beginning of this millennium. These ideas have
met the same problem over and over again. They have never really
worked and the reason is that the reality consists of wicked
problems and enormous complexity and therefore goals have to be
vague and ambiguous. One reason that these reforms has been
re-introduced several times, although they dont work, is the belief
that it has to do with implementation problems, for example that
people is not well enough educated, or that they havent formulated
clear goals. It has always been described as an implementation
problem and not a model problem, which I believe it is, said Bengt.
These ideas have met the same problem over and over again. They
have never really worked and the reason is that the reality
consists of wicked problems and enormous complexity Bengt summed up
some of the general problems with these reforms. One relates to
what he called an organisational logic where we try to create
complete organisations, not necessarily companies (but with
companies as models). Organisations have evolved into constructions
with a strong identity, hierarchy, rationality and this opens up
for all kinds of managerial ideas. As you know problems do not know
organisational boarders, he said. Another problem is that these
reforms have built on the decoupling between politics and
administrations. A lot of these ideas has been introduced by
bureaucrats and legitimized by politicians, but they have never
been interested. Politicians have found other more pragmatic
strategies to move forward and implement their ideas. We could move
from todays strong focus on control, competition, audit, separate
parts, and compliance and instead focus on trust, the system,
cooperation, reflection and innovation. Finally Bengt suggested
that we could move from todays strong focus on control,
competition, audit, separate parts and compliance and instead focus
on trust, the system, cooperation, reflection and innovation.
Actually I think a lot of people agree on this diagnosis, for
example Innovationsrdet had a similar conclusion.
Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Seminar - 2014-01-27 STEFAN
HOLMLID DESIGN FOR SERVICES RESEARCH COMMUNITY Stefan Holmlid from
Linkpings University presented how he has initiated a process to
build a community of research on design for service. The process
has been commissioned by Vinnova and will go on for 14 months. All
different national initiatives that focus on design and services
are welcome to collaborate in this process. The goal is to create a
research competence centre with a set of central actors and find
ways to build something that can be long term resilient. This is an
opportunity to demonstrate that design can contribute with
something good. DISCUSSION The goal is to create a research
competence centre with a set of central actors and find ways to
build something that can be long term resilient. BEYOND TECHNICAL
RATIONALITY AND CONTROL The notion of technical rationality is very
strong in todays society (where you analyze problems, conclude,
decide and implement) especially within some powerful structures
such as the Department of Finance. This is the case despite all new
design inspired approaches that emerged globally and that suggest
that we have to move beyond technical rationality. Bjarne Stenquist
suggested that its important to differentiate between complicated
and complex problems. When dealing with complexity you cant just
add and accumulate new information into the solution. Design
thinking (or whatever we call it) is a tool to navigate in an
increasingly complex reality where models are dead, he said. If we
should be able to work with design and innovation in the public
sector the notion of control within public organisations also have
to be challenged. Bengt Jacobsson described that the most When
dealing with complexity you cant just add and accumulate new
information into the solution.
Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Seminar - 2014-01-27 The
most common approach to control in public organisations in Sweden
relates to New Public Management and builds on connecting
everything to the centre and set up systems that provide the centre
with information. An alternative model would be to reduce the
necessity to collect all the information in the centre, and instead
trust the people and professionals. In every activity they have to
think about the risks and deliver in a safe way. Often because of
that, there is no space to try new ideas and no rewards for trying
to find new ways of operating. You as a civil servant are not
supposed to talk about what goes wrong. We have to set up arenas
where we can learn from these local experiments and where
experiences and practices can be disseminated on a long-term basis.
common approach to control in public organisations in Sweden
relates to New Public Management and builds on connecting
everything to the centre and set up systems that provide the centre
with information. An alternative model would be to reduce the
necessity to collect all the information in the centre, and instead
trust the people and professionals where you can delegate and hand
over issues. We have a lot of trust and loyalty in Sweden, but
still the demand for control has increased, this is really a
paradox. Donna Cicek from the Swedish Tax Authority explained that
NPM has lead to the fact that all activities are heavily controlled
and that the control part takes space from experimentation and
ongoing improvements. In every activity they have to think about
the risks and deliver in a safe way. Often because of that, there
is no space to try new ideas and no rewards for trying to find new
ways of operating. This trust needs to go beyond organisational
borders. David Lindeby from Experio Lab emphasized the importance
of different kinds of ownership structures. With a mix of
government, companies and organizations we can find a resilient way
of connecting topics and goals to a long-term perspective. TRUST
AND LEARNING If you should build trust then you also have to be
able to talk about and learn from failures. According to Stphane
Vincent this is something that is difficult to do within the French
administrations where you as a civil servant not are supposed to
talk about what goes wrong. Bengt further reflected on the fact
that we dont have systems where we can learn from all these
experiences. Even if we can see many local experiments its often
about rule following, where we introduce the latest trends, or if
it build on experiences then its quickly transformed into models.We
have to set up arenas where we can learn from these local
experiments and where experiences and practices can be disseminated
on a long-term basis. This has to be organized and be built in to
the administration and its a real challenge. To get such a platform
to work, you need to be sure that people can take part in it and
Stphane Vincent described that La 27e Rgion in their new project
try to convince the administrators that civil servants need to
spend 5 % of their time in such a platform.
Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Seminar - 2014-01-27 When
they get back to their top-manager they say that, ok today you have
played with post-it and user-centred stuff, but you did not really
work. We have to re-think they way civil servants work and having
reflexivity becoming part of their normal everyday work. Language,
and pedagogical approaches is also very important. One example that
Sara Modig from ModigMinoz brought up is that its essential to
clarify what a user perspective stands for. Most civil servants
within the public sector would argue that they always have been
working with a user centred perspective. Still, its a paramount
shift in insight when we really step into the shoes of the user and
take the perspective of the user. Tomas Edman relates this shift to
health care. Traditionally they have had a focus on the patient
rather than try to see and experience from the patients
perspective. Also a lot of front line staff is doing design without
knowing it, its important to acknowledge and highlight that. You
dont have to be a trained designer and you dont need to know all
these methods, but its central to have the mindset. Carina Rislund
from Hokahey Consulting AB emphasized that many new approaches are
pushed upon public servants and that they often feel uncomfortable
when left alone in these new situations. When moving from theory
and knowledge into practice then you have to assist, coach and
advise public servants. Its also crucial how to frame the meeting
between design practices and the everyday work that civil servants
are engaged in. Tomas Edman from Experio Lab explained that they
have changed the focus from talking about bringing design into
health care into emphasizing learning between the two areas.
Embodied experience is central and therefore you need to have a
focus on doing, all people in an organisation should do a patient/
user journey. We have to re-think they way civil servants work and
having reflexivity becoming part of their normal everyday work.
Most civil servants within the public sector would argue that they
always have been working with a user centred perspective. Still,
its a paramount shift in insight when we really step into the shoes
of the user and take the perspective of the user. We changed the
focus from talking about bringing design into health care into
emphasizing learning between the two areas.
Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Seminar - 2014-01-27 You
can show that many policies dont work, especially if you look at
them from a user/citizen perspective. Traditional evaluation doesnt
say much about the impact of policy. You evaluate the system, how
you have spend the budget, but you dont have a better understanding
of how people use or not-use a policy. This is a failure of NPM.
Design on the other hand is interested in the use of things. Design
gives you a better understanding of the real practice. The
potential to involve leaders and politicians in the empathic gaze
POLICIES AND PRACTISES It seems very hard to affect work cultures
that are so strongly established and where NPM and technical
rationality is built into the walls. However Stphane Vincent
suggests a pragmatic approach where you can show that many policies
dont work, especially if you look at them from a user/citizen
perspective. This might be used as an eye opener and by showing
this you then might be able to convince policymakers that you need
a new approach and open up the process of developing policies.
Traditional evaluation doesnt say much about the impact of policy.
You evaluate the system, how you have spend the budget, but you
dont have a better understanding of how people use or not-use a
policy. This is a failure of NPM. Design on the other hand is
interested in the use of things. Design gives you a better
understanding of the real practice. sa Minoz brought up the notion
of legitimacy and the potential to involve leaders and politicians
in the empathic gaze. Like for example the way Gran Hgglund went on
a customer journey when Experio Lab was inaugurated. Could that be
used further to build greater understanding for the importance of
what design practice can achieve amongst top leaders in
organizations?
Forum for Social Innovation Sweden, Seminar - 2014-01-27 LIST
OF PARTICIPANTS Stephane Vincent La 27e Rgion Bjarne Stenqvist Malm
Stad Bengt Jacobsson Stockholms centrum fr forskning om offentlig
sektor Eva-Karin Anderman SVID Jonas Gumbel SVID Klas Danerlv
Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting Marie Pernebring Sveriges Kommuner
och Landsting sa Minoz Malm Hgskola Sara ModigModigMinoz AB Carina
Rislund Eur.Erg Hokahey Consulting AB Martin SparrRegeringskansliet
Maria Gill Vsters stad Donna CicekSkatteverket Patrik Derk Telge
Hovsj Stefan Holmlid Linkpings universitet Bo WesterlundKonstfack
Peter UllmarkKTH Aditya Pawar Ume Universitet Ramia Maz Interactive
Institute Brendon Clark Interactive Institute Marie Denward
Interactive Institute Maria Hellstrm Reimer Malm Hgskola Pelle Ehn
Malm Hgskola Anders Emilson Malm Hgskola Louisa Szcs Johansson Malm
Hgskola Per-Anders Hillgren Malm Hgskola Tomas Edman Experio Lab
David Lindeby Experio Lab Jaklina Strand Malm Stad Caroline Wiryth
Skatteverket Hanna Sigsj Malm hgskola Lotta Solding Forum for
Social Innovation Sweden www.socialinnovation.se
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