RSA Bicentenary lecture 2015 - What is the role of design thinking in Government? This talk was first given in October 2015 at the Royal Society of Art. It looks at how design approaches are being used to open up policy-making, enabling a wider group of people to shape ideas at the heart of Government.

1. How design is
shaping thinking
at the heart of
Government
Dr Andrea Siodmok FRSA
RSA Bicentenary Medal #RSASiodmok
29th October 2015 @PolicyLabUK
Or click here to watch the unabridged talk on You Tube

2. Using design
principles to
democratise
Policy-making

3. A view from Policy Lab office #openpolicy
Why do we need open approaches to policy-making?
When we think of the heart of government, in reality we are probably thinking of ideas born, in one
form or another, within the sound of Big Ben (they may be conceived elsewhere of course). Yet civil
servants don’t have a monopoly on wisdom. Open policy is about ensuring policy advice draws on
the best possible expertise from the public to professionals and from anywhere in the world.

4. What does
this sign
say?

6. #trusteconomyFrom high tech to high touch
Future public services need to be more human
In the high-touch world the modernist belief in linear progress, absolute truths and the standardisation
of knowledge and production, is giving way to a more entrepreneurial spirit - where we can easily be
connected to one another in social solidarity and action, where new technologies are enabling us to
make our own products and share them online.

7. Harvard Business Review #newpower
New power is changing the context for policy-making
Harvard Business Review calls this ‘new power’. New power operates differently, to old power. It is
made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven It is enabled by technology, but not defined
by it. This new power operates on a more human scale.

8. Open Gov
= Govx
This is the context for a people-centred, more-open and more-transparent
Government. Not simply government 2.0 but what might be called:
‘Government to the power of all of us’.

9. Design in Government #designthinking
So where on earth does creativity and design fit in?
On first inspection, design and Government are unlikely bed-fellows. ‘More Human’ is also the title of
former number 10 advisor Steve Hilton’s latest book. A close advisor to David Cameron, Steve
subsequently spent time at D-school in California. His latest book is about designing a world where
people come first.

10. Design consequences #designfail
Not all design is good design!
Ill thought out campaigns, branding that fails to convey its intended message. Good design can cost
the same as bad design – it’s just that bad design costs more in the long run. Good design changes
the world, This is one of the reasons why, in the pages of Wired magazine, Melinda Gates picked
human-centred design as the single biggest driver of social change in the last few decades.

11. Impact
80%
Implementation phase
Design phase
Get it right early, through trial and error
It’s easy to inadvertently design problems into our public services but much more costly to design
them out at a late stage. Particularly as we know from the OECD that 80% of the impact of a product
or service is determined in the design phase.

12. Design at its best on one way or another re-forms our world
As designers we are eternally optimistic, yet constantly dissatisfied. From digital technologies to
service design; from new forms of manufacturing to the circular economy – we consciously seek to
create order out of chaos, delight from dreariness, magic from the mundane.
Re-forming design #circulareconomy

13. The 3 big Ds
Design
Digital
Data
Times change, and we change with them. Looking forwards design, digital and data
will all have a significant role in creating better, lower cost, public services.

14. Designing
form
For me the role of design can be
described in two words:
‘purposeful creativity’*
* Other definitions are available

15. Industrial Design
Printing Machinery By Octo Design for Crabtree of Gateshead Ltd.

16. Knowledge = Power Virtual Reality training for the financial industry by Octo Design

17. Informing
design
Ten years ago the Treasury asked
Sir George Cox to look at the role
of creativity in business. George
said that design connects creativity
and innovation. It also provides us
with a practical toolkit for turning
strategy into action, for managing
risks and for implementing change.

18. Designing out failure
What if we use design approaches on the things that matter?
Not simply styling commercial projects, but getting to the heart of public needs, transforming people’s
lives through design. I started looking for bigger more intractable problems. It led me to the Design
Council and building design for public services.
Design Bugs Out NHS PASA, Design Council,
Design Business Association, Royal College of Art

19. Design decisions
Great design needs great clients
This is Paul Cryer. A Civil Servant. Paul had the vision and courage to ‘get ahead of the problem’ by
designing the problem out – designing out the bugs or ‘designing out failure demand.’
Design Bugs Out NHS PASA, Design Council,
Design Business Association, Royal College of Art

20. Designing out failure #codesign
Design Bugs Out NHS PASA, Design Council,
Design Business Association, Royal College of Art
Great design needs great collaboration
Together, Designers, Design Council, Design Business Associate, DH, Doctors (anyone starting with
D), elevated the humble commode to iconic museum status.
A feat only previously achieved by Marcel Duchamp.

21. Angela Dumas called most design ‘silent design’
These ‘silent designers’ are Commissioners, Clients, Customers, Clinicians (everyone beginning with
C) whose input into the design was so crucial. Writing the brief, setting the boundaries of design’s
enquiry, choosing the budget.

22. Designs of the time
Designs of the Time (Dott) Design Council in partnership with
Cornwall Council, University College Falmouth and the
Technology Strategy Board.

23. Eco-design challenge By design agency Leap with design mentors Sebastian Conran, Sophie
Thomas, Paul Siodmok and Joe Ferry.
You are the
change-makers.
Image: Schools preparing their pitches
Eco Design challenge
Designers don’t have a monopoly on good ideas.
In Cornwall’s eco design challenge it was young people themselves that were coming up with insights
and ideas to improve their school’s environmental footprint. As a result they were super-committed to
making them happen, they were then motivated to make them work.

24. Big Design challenge
Dott Cornwall with Made Open, Kernow King and Dior Star.
Citizen-led design
Through the Design Council’s joint venture Dott Cornwall. We explored how increasing citizen
involvement in tackling local challenges could help create a more inclusive and sustainable society.
Working with a local service design consultancy Made Open balloons were in the market square at
6am in the morning, each asking the public what they would change to make Cornwall better.

25. Big Design challenge
Making things open makes them better
This wasn’t the usual clipboard consultation or town hall meeting, it was designed to inspire people
into action. We also created an online platform called Made Open and invited local people to come
up with ideas at their leisure.

26. Big Design challenge
But ideas are the easy bit
Making them happen is much harder. Over a 1,000 people gathered in coffee shops, in community
spaces, in bars and worked together with designers to develop new social enterprises.

27. Big Design challenge #frugaldesign
Community innovation awards
We created the community innovation awards - where the best ideas were pitched as an ‘angels
den’, and were funded by the council and others to go further. The digital platform was a finalist in
the public sector innovation awards. By being frugal and by working with what is already there – the
resourcefulness of local people the results started to really come to life.

28. Hacking design:
Optimistic, curious,
creative, open-minded,
humble, ingenious, frugal,
practical, world changing,
awe-inspiring, mercurial
thing that is design
Through these and other projects I have been quietly…
I love the fact that design has a mecurial quality – like
mercury, it is hard to pin down.

29. Design for policy @policylabUK
Policy Lab Cabinet Office
Can we using design approaches in Government?
Today, I work as a Civil Servant, design entrepreneur and head of the Policy Lab where my work
spans all areas of government. Our role is to bring new thinking and approaches to the heart of
Government.

30. Service design in Gov #servicedesign
Design principles applied in new places
The UK is ahead of the curve on this. The UK were probably the first Government in the world to
have a set of service design principles. Created in 2007, by Sue Dusmohamed at the Cabinet Office.

31. Government Digital Service @GDSteam
Using digital design to transform how we interact with Government
By 2012 the Multi-award winning Government Digital Service released its digital design principles in
alpha. GDS puts the user first.

32. Government Digital Service @GDSteam
GDS offices in Holborn
GDS is more like a design studio than a government department with its west coast California
bumper sticker culture.

33. Policy Lab @policylabUK
Design has to be fit for purpose
Design can be subtle like a typeface choice; bold like Big Ben; or humble like Policy Lab.
I drew our logo at 9 at night when we launched quietly on twitter – frugal design in action – but now I
can draw it anywhere.

34. Northern Futures #northernfutures
Open ideas day in action
What we do in Lab is better experienced than described.

35. Lab projects #thickdata
Reporting crime Surrey and Sussex police, Home
Office and Ministry of Justice
Policing in a digital age
Design is the DNA of our approach. In our projects we put the ‘user’ at the heart of what we do. We
start in people’s homes, building understanding from their perspective. We use design techniques to
map people’s journeys and experiences directly.

36. Reporting crime Surrey and Sussex police, Home
Office and Ministry of Justice
Lab projects
Policing in a digital age
We also bring people together. [slide Giles and police] judges, police, teachers, parents, businesses.
And through our sessions we both re-frame the challenge, and reconfigure the landscape.

37. Reporting crime Surrey and Sussex police, Home
Office and Ministry of Justice
Lab projects
Policing in a digital age
This prototyping session at the Institute for Government was attended by Giles York, Chief Constable
of Sussex Police including criminologists, academics, policing experts, service designers and policy-
makers – working together to build new ideas.

38. Lab projects
Policing in a digital age
In this project, working with the Royal College of Art service designers we then build more detail
around the ideas, testing them further.
Reporting crime Surrey and Sussex police, Home
Office and Ministry of Justice

39. Reporting crime Surrey and Sussex police, Home
Office and Ministry of Justice
Lab projects
Policing in a digital age
The Home Secretary announced that the Home Office would develop a prototype. This work is
estimated to save forces 180,000 hours of police time and £3.7 m per year – co-designed by the
police based on deeper insight into victim’s experience.

40. Open Ideas Days (aka policy jam)
Investing in a Northern Powerhouse Open Ideas Day for Deputy Prime Minister with Open Policy
Making, facilitated by So Mo, Imagination Lancaster, Phillippa Rose, Lucy Kimbell, Mark Bailey
& Joyce Yee, Rob & Kathryn Woolf, Dave Briggs, and Ian Graham & Heather Niven
Trialling new ways of working
We’re here to help policy-makers do firsts for Government. A safe space to trial new tools and to
work out what works. In the ‘open ideas days’ people came together in cities across the North to
build ideas. They were inspiring, surprising, and insightful. They informed the Autumn Statement.

41. Developing international trade for UKTI Ideas Lab with So Mo, Future Gov, Matt Edgar, Nick Devitt,
Rob Woolf, Chris Sadler, Sean Blair and Rob Maslin www.MadeOpen.com
Open Ideas Days (aka a ‘jam’) #exportjam
Export Jam with UKTI
One of the delegates was overheard saying it was the best UKTI event they had been to in 18 years.
As you can see from the tweet, people also engaged online. Over a 1,000 hours of ideas and insights
were generated in one day.

42. Open Ideas Days (aka a ‘jam’) #exportjam
You can’t be half transparent
On the left you can see the UKTI ideas lab team sharing it with the Minister, Francis Maude. On the
right a blog from someone who attended. This feels risky to policy-maker as your work is public. But
in reality it reduces the risk of not knowing if something will work.

43. Policy Lab for all of Government
We think of ourselves as a pop-up lab
Because we don’t have white coats or specialist equipment, we can operate anywhere and with
anyone. Demystifying design is part of our everyday practice. As is demystifying policy. We started
life in Whitehall, but we quickly exhausted places to go. And so we have popped up in lots of places,
inspiring venues we could never afford to rent.

44. Policy Lab for all of the UK
We think of ourselves as a pop-up lab
Sooner or later we started popping up across the country [Slide map]. And then the world, I heard
our projects being mentioned in New York, in Canada, in New Zealand. Prime Minister’s offices
started asking us if they could visit the Lab (which is slightly tricky when you don’t have one!).

45. Global expertise
Physically grounded but digitally networked
When you aren’t encumbered by estates, you can go to where people are, make it easy for them to
engage with you. Whether that is physically or digitally.
We don’t have 4,000 twitter followers, we like to think we have nearly 4,000 co-conspirators.

46. Transforming Government
Where will the energy for reform come from?
We are working to transform government from the inside out. The Chief Executive of the Civil service,
John Manzoni, recently spoke of the need for reform in public services, and that to do this he said we
will need ‘extraordinary creativity’. So practically speaking, where will the energy for reform come
from? From designers, perhaps, from civil servants, undoubtedly.

47. People power
A new socially minded Kitchener moment?
Most importantly energy and drive will also from citizens and a new contract with the state. Keep
calm and carry on could be replaced with ‘your government needs you’. How might we spend our
spare time co-designing and co-creating our public services of the future? How might government
need to change to capture our imagination, as designers, as citizens and public service workers?

48. UK Informal
economy:
49.1 million adults in
UK* or 35x the size
of the NHS.
[*2010 census]

49. Stuff on my cat.com
Engaging citizenship
How much time do we collectively spend watching funny pet videos, how might we
do more with some of this time?
This slideshare was created for the 2015 Bicentenary Medal at the Royal Society of Arts. It is also
available to view on You Tube, if you would like to see it in its original unabridged form.