I'm passionate about flexing our inventive muscles myself. In my twenty years as a public sector manager, I spent way too much time using the processes of problem-solving, analysis, and that tried and true - "further study" - when confronted with an issue.
At the Public Strategies Group, we advocate adding the process of invention to the mix. We have developed design labs™, as our primary tool for creating conceptual breakthroughs useful for a client. Lab participants start with a "clean sheet of paper" and develop a blueprint of something new (and often unheard-of). Creating from a blank piece of paper allows designers, including client owners, to explore what just might be possible if the services or systems were conceptualized anew.
Invention is risky. By its nature, it means that you never quite know what will come out the other side. But, I have absolutely LOVED every minute I've spent designing. How does it feel to participate in a lab? I'd use two words - uncomfortable and wonderful. Uncomfortable because you can feel lost, stuck in hypothetical questions, and reduced to admitting you're not sure where to go from here. And wonderful, because - each and every time - an "aha!" moment or two arrives to help show a new path.
These are a few illustrations of 'aha' moments where invention of a new way appeared. Some designs I've written about before. This time I've added a lesson I took away from participating in the design experience.
Arts Grants
As a State Arts Council envisioned an on-line future, we said we could help them take out 60% of the time they spent on grant processing while retaining process integrity. The 'aha' happened when designers challenged the assumptions underlying current practices, such as treating every application alike and receiving applications at only certain times of the year. We designed an on-line application and portfolio to make it easy for the applicants - and designed a risk-based algorithm to focus review time on the most risky applications from a financial or quality point of view. Our clients report that setting the unreasonable challenge of removing 60% of the time was what was needed to reinvent the whole process of giving away money.
- Lesson One - Being unreasonable is often the reasonable thing to do. Set an improvement target of at least 5X over current performance. The current system cannot deliver on that without rethinking operating assumptions and processes.
Child Support
The purpose of the design was to achieve greater compliance from those expected to pay child support. The "aha!" happened when designers started by asking why non-custodial parents did and did not comply with their court-ordered obligations. A highly responsive system was designed based on those reasons - a system that encourages those who do comply, and responds differently to non-payers who are unaware, unable, or simply unwilling. This situational compliance design changed the national debate regarding child support.
- Lesson Two - Don't be system-centric. Look through a new lens- particularly the customer's. Ask designers to understand what it is like to receive service, or in this case, to comply. They'll want to make a difference in that experience, I guarantee it.
Health Consumer Information
The purpose of the design was to improve citizen access to answers about their health care or insurance coverage. The break-through occurred when designers threw away a one size fits all approach and designed a nested set of services, each layer of which offered more personalized navigational and diagnostic service - for a price. While designing the new services, the architects gave each level a name that was totally free of GovernmentSpeak or jargon. Want examples? Two of the names were 'gizmo' and 'trip tic planner!'
- Lesson Three - Be playful. Include designers who are chosen for their willingness to experiment with ideas, their tolerance for ambiguity, and their ability to have faith. You can't design with people who can't suspend their disbelief in order to play with an idea.
Property Tax Equity
The purpose of the design was to help achieve property tax equity in an Eastern state. Several 'aha' moments occurred. We discovered through listening that people literally held TEN different definitions of property tax equity. No wonder it was hard to achieve! A second moment happened when designers inverted the design challenge from how to achieve equity to how to make the costs of continued inequity painfully obvious to counties and citizens.
- Lessons Four and Five - Clearly define success up front, then turn the question inside - out. Design so that the opposite of success can't occur or continue.
Blind Adult Self-Sufficiency
The purpose of the design was to reach more people and reach them earlier - helping adults with vision loss to regain or keep their personal independence. Designers were particularly challenged because the number of rehabilitation staff was very small compared to the number of people to be served. When designers stopped to ask 'what if there were no staff?' they started to build the conditions for a universe of self-sufficient blind persons. One component they designed is a solutions inventory where blind persons can access a menu of resources available to them - resources from within the family, the neighborhood, the person, and from the government.
- Lesson Six. Ask 'what-if" questions. And, imagine empowering customers of government to 'self-serve'.
I'll stop here. PSG has produced over 50 redesigns of government services and systems - each one produced with an "Aha!" Remember to use your own muscles of invention inside your public work - then tell me the story of what sparked your break-through for the customers of government. Imagine what just might be possible!
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