Why Governments need Design Thinking

We worked a lot this year on projects intended to benefit a public audience. Part of it is because we believe that after Facebook, Google and the rest of the big players, it’s the public services which has the biggest effect on our life: you can choose another shopping mall or a different brand of perfume in a moment, but it’s really hard to change any of that what the government offers: voting happens only once every few years, and you need to collect a lot of people to change governments.

Also, the public systems are usually much more intertwined and are difficult to change even for the new government, and it’s not that easy to switch your public transport provider or civil registry office.

So it’s our shared interest that these public services we use when in need interface us in the most convenient way possible, in a way that is designed to serve our goals as citizens, as human beings in need of help.

The way I see it, Design Thinking provides the following benefits here :

All government orgs have data, lots of it. But decision makers and regulators rarely meet end users, the citizens affected. This is what a simple “go out to meet your users” workshop fixes.

Noone likes “thunder from the clear blue sky” regulations — not that it happens often, anyway: lobbyists — formal and informal — usually know about prepared regulations months before they are announced. Yet trying out whether something works in practice or not is an important factor, especially if it’s more than just a visual argument in the negotiation room.

The problem with government decisions is simple: once they are out, it takes weeks to months to change any of them. Even if an honest error is found, and immediately recognized upon coming into effect, it takes weeks to go through the required legal bodies, even if all the parties involved share the exact same and well defined interest, with a well-known and agreed upon solution.

The errors which need to be retracted later usually happens because it wasn’t clear to anyone (or anyone important enough) at the negotiation desk on how serious the issue is. After all, lawmakers might be an expert on law making, and perhaps on the given field as well, but could be quite removed on what the end result would be.

So I believe, having participated in many meetings where regulations were to be set, a design thinking approach to these meetings is beneficial not just for the government (as, by experience, it makes negotiations and arguments much more practical in nature), but for the ordinary citizens as well, since effects will not only be calculated in an impact assessment as it is done regularly, but will be clearly visible for all sides of the table, before “setting them in stone”, and I believe, good governing on the long-term has something to do with the benefits of those governed.

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