A logic model is a story or picture of how an effort or initiative is supposed to work. A logic model is similar to a road map, it shows the route traveled or steps taken to reach a certain destination. The process of developing the model brings together stakeholders to articulate the goals of the program and the values that support it, and to identify strategies and desired outcomes of the initiative.
About The Toolkit
Systematic Approach to Public Service ReDesign, from The Evans School
Many of today’s practices, programs, and policies were designed narrowly to respond to a need or crisis situation. They do not take into consideration the complexity and interconnectedness of economic assistance, education, housing, transit, post-secondary education and workforce development, health and wellness in families lives or in community conditions. That fragmented thinking and the operational realities that grow from it significantly limit the effectiveness of publicly funded services. Current operations do not respond to what people need when they turn to governments or nonprofits for assistance.
To make intentional improvements, we believe it is important to have a clear methodology of change making. A methodology is an articulation of why – why is this work carried out in this way? It provides underlying concepts that clarify purpose and allow intentional application of a particular method or tool.
As you explore this Toolkit, remember – the resources shared here alone won’t make change. Clarify the underlying methodology of change, as it is the foundation for what other elements will be used and how.
At the Evans Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC),
we use a three-phase design methodology:
The first stage is situational analysis. Our team explores the current conditions. Who is involved? What are their values, dreams, hopes, and desires? What insights might they have based on their experiences? How might they want to be a part of this project? How might we approach redesign together? What are the real and perceived constraints?
Secondly, we engage stakeholders in generating ideas of what might be and refining them through further exploration. What are solutions that have been tried? What might work now? What creative thing might we consider that is not typically considered? What wild idea might we want to try out? Questions are encouraged and possibilities are sought so we continue to challenge assumptions that are at the core of the problem.
Thirdly, we implement concrete prototypes that try out potential solutions and assess what happens. Prototypes are low-cost, temporary ways to help people experience the ideas in their actual settings, for example mockups, roleplays, storyboards, and temporary roles. Implementing these ideas allows them to be refined and retuned based on feedback or systematic evaluation. This helps us assess the prototype’s potential, guiding future upgrades or improvements, and eventually leading to a much larger size pilot or full-scale implementation.
This methodology of human-centered design in public systems is something we are constantly honing based on our learning. Redesigning public services – developing new products, improving service experiences, and improving administrative structures – is an ongoing practice and study.
We know that tools and methods alone will not make any of us good design practitioners. But they are important resources in change-making. We hope you make good use of these we share here in your work!
CLARIFY YOUR DESIRED RESULTS
ReDesign can focus on:
- creating products, such as applications or assessment tools, to improve user experiences;
- changing services;
- improving user experiences when they interact with public agencies by distinct measures: decreasing wait time, reducing confusion around service access, or enhancing service response ;
- increasing communication and greater effectiveness or improving the overall climate;
- addressing supervision, management, and policy in light of what needs to be supported on the frontlines.
ReDesign can uplift perspectives that have been traditionally left out due to systemic and institutional biases based on race, gender, and class, and ensure that these perspectives are present.
In clarifying the desired results, consider the public value being created such as fairness, effectiveness, efficiency, equity, transparency, and justice. What is the public value proposition of the design project for the design team, for residents, and for the sponsor?
UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT
The methods and tools offered in this toolkit can be assembled and used in different ways – at various stages in the design process – depending on the context of the design work you’re doing.
In a situational analysis, we discover limitations of a system’s operations but also strengths that could be used to disrupt practices that are no longer serving. Exploration takes time but taking time early saves it later. This includes the time needed to rebuild trust, build new relationships, and develop new understanding of the context. Throughout the design process, as new ideas and information are introduced, individuals’ and shared understandings will likely change.
Some considerations:
- How comfortable is the organization with change?
- What has been the level of engagement between the organization and stakeholders? (e.g., program participants, frontline staff, community members, other partners, agencies in different levels of government, businesses, foundations)
- What are some power dynamics to note in this context? How might they be incorporated as part of the process?
Rather than simply exploring the experiences of individuals in isolation (what designers think of as the ‘user groups’), we place those experiences within the macro-context, the organizational and policy fields that shape what current exists. This systems perspective assures the design process is influenced by how the problem manifests itself in a particular context.
Changing a system requires slow, meticulous, persistent work – that is why knowing who else in the space has similar aspirations helps with the longevity of a redesign effort.
REDESIGN IS PRAGMATIC. SLOW DOWN TO SPEED UP.
Power and authority matter. To navigate these dynamics, you must invest in relationships. Trust between the design team and project leaders will help address situations when sense-making breaks down or confusion threatens to overtake the project. Relationship-building needs to happen throughout the process, and designers must know how different people show up in the design process.
Understand that some people trust knowledge that emerges from their own experience, while others tend to value what is understood as legitimate within their organization or lessons from science. These various ways of thinking sometimes come into conflict and relationships matter in navigating it to resolution.
Try small, learn, keep building and scaling up.
A ReDesign process can provide powerful ways to integrate what’s empirically known and contextually real. It offers a systematic and structured approach to guide inquiry and action.
ITERATION IS IMPORTANT. LEARN FROM FEEDBACK
One of the most crucial parts of design work is its continual, iterative, overlapping phases. Design doesn’t happen in linear steps. This is where the practice comes in – what happens next needs to be contextual, meaningful, and appropriate for the context. Emergence is a part of this work. Some flexibility is necessary.
We encourage thoughtful project management, helping others see phases of work and tasks associated with them, but not tied to a linear “we must go here next” way of doing. It is important to see a potential destination or a direction but have enough flexibility on how to get there. Feedback mechanisms should be built in as part of the work to help guide what’s next, and allow the design team to alter its plans.
This is where developmental evaluation intersects with human-centered design.
Developmental evaluation focuses on supporting innovation, and adaptive changemaking in complex, dynamic environments. The emphasis is on real-time feedback and utilization of findings to propel the next steps of change forward. While the use of developmental evaluation and human-centered design is growing, understanding of their practice in the context of the public sector is still emerging.
At the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, we see human centered design and developmental evaluation as complementary frameworks. Both have similar goals when it comes to innovation and match program design to citizens’ circumstances. Both are useful in instances where conventional decision making is not yielding desired results.
WHAT CAN’T BE ASSUMED
As you explore these principles, and the rest of the Toolkit, we want to stress what the human-centered redesign process is not intended to be done without thoughtful deliberation on your part:
- It does not substitute for good project management that builds and feeds the momentum needed to push change forward.
- It does not substitute for courageous leadership from all levels in the organization and across the policy fields who shape conditions for redesign. Change is difficult and requires champions and political ambassadors for systems change.
- It does not automatically overcome legacy challenges such contracting and reporting requirements or institutionalized racism. Nor does it magically override dynamics of hierarchy, power, privilege.
OPEN-SOURCE COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS
The creation and implementation of the Public Service Redesign Toolkit originated at the Future Services Institute (FSI) as part of the Humphrey School pf Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. This was meant to be an open-source way to support the participatory, Human Centered Design projects related to transforming human services.
Since bringing the Toolkit to the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance at the University of Washington, we have adapted it to better suit our mission-driven work. However, the bones and original function have remained the same. We appreciate the work and effort that preceded our own and will continue to iterate on these tools and methods as we practice and learn.
Situational Anaylsis
Understanding ‘what is’
Explore quantitative and generate qualitative information about current implementation
- What currently exists to shape the experiences of those affected?
- What might be opportunities to address some of these challenges?
Situational Anaylsis
Logic Models
Personas & User Groups
Personas and their plural form, user groups, serve as a tool to allow designers to focus on the individuals who will be accessing their product or service. Personas are not meant to be a single fiction of the user group’s experience, but rather a way to express their experiences in a rich and nuanced manner.
Accessing & Assessing Social Science Research
Social science research can be used at various times during the course of innovation, from researching the nature of the problem to considering prototypes that have been implemented in other places. In general, peer-reviewed research is seen as the highest quality, followed by government reports, reports form non-partisan independent organizations, news articles, and finally reports from advocacy/partisan organizations.
Surveys
Interviews
An interview is a type of conversation in which one participant asks questions to learn information from another. Interviews can be used to gather information at multiple steps of the innovation journey with a diverse range of stakeholders. For this reason, the amount of structure used by the interviewer can vary, from following a very strict line of questioning to flowing with the interviewee.
User Journey Map
A user journey map “is a visualization of the experiences people have when interacting with a product or service, so that each moment can be individually evaluated and improved” (Martin & Hanington, 2012:25). This helps place a product or service in a much larger context, in the real world and over time. This also helps the design team to identify what they know of the journey, and where knowledge gaps exist. It provides insight into areas to explore and further questions to be answered.
Focus Groups
Focus groups are collective conversations where interested or impacted people are able to come together to share their opinions. Focus groups add an additional dimension to information collection as they allow for interpersonal interactions and brainstorming that are not possible in a survey or individual interview.
Open Space
World Cafe
Policy Field Mapping
Process Map
Harvesting
Harvesting is the documentation of valuable information exchanged during gatherings. The ultimate goal is to capture the essence of the meeting, recollect significant details, recognize patterns, and derive meaningful conclusions. The meaning is then made visible and accessible to others within the relevant context, fostering a more informed and connected community of participants.
Stakeholder Mapping
Triads
Collective Story Harvesting
Cognitive Mapping
Cognitive mapping is any visual representation of a person’s (or a group’s) mental model for a given process or concept and may also take the form of mind maps or concept maps. There are no visual rules that they need to obey: there is no restriction on how the concepts and the relationships between them are visually represented. They are used to externalize knowledge, identify themes across different concepts and model thinking.
Generate & Refine Ideas
Explore what ‘might be’
Host creative exploration of potential ideas to improve current conditions
- What might address the underlying causes of the limitations in the current system?
- How might we use creative and generative exercises to think outside of traditional approaches?
Generate & Refine Ideas
Role Playing
Open Space
Public Value Implementation Canvas
This tool is designed to support reflection and strategy refinement when working on complex projects across organizations/sectors/systems. An iterative tool, the Public Value Implementation Canvas helps teams align their purposes, develop shared language, and build a collective understanding of the public value being created.
Place It!
Place It! is participation-based urban planning design practice founded by urban planner James Rojas and his partner John Kemp. In Place It!, model-building workshops and on-site interactive models help engage the public in the planning and design process. The goal is to help humanize planning processes by building relationships and trust between systems and the people who use them.
World Cafe
Harvesting
Harvesting is the documentation of valuable information exchanged during gatherings. The ultimate goal is to capture the essence of the meeting, recollect significant details, recognize patterns, and derive meaningful conclusions. The meaning is then made visible and accessible to others within the relevant context, fostering a more informed and connected community of participants.
Triads
Pro Action Cafe
Cognitive Mapping
Cognitive mapping is any visual representation of a person’s (or a group’s) mental model for a given process or concept and may also take the form of mind maps or concept maps. There are no visual rules that they need to obey: there is no restriction on how the concepts and the relationships between them are visually represented. They are used to externalize knowledge, identify themes across different concepts and model thinking.
Affinity Clustering
Journaling
Prototype & Assess
Create & test what ‘can be’
Systematically investigate and develop low-cost, rapid techniques for testing the ideas
- What are short, simple trials of the potential ideas as prototypes?
- How can promising approaches be magnified and tried at a larger scale, adjusting based on what is learned?
Prototype & Assess
Logic Models
A logic model is a story or picture of how an effort or initiative is supposed to work. A logic model is similar to a road map, it shows the route traveled or steps taken to reach a certain destination. The process of developing the model brings together stakeholders to articulate the goals of the program and the values that support it, and to identify strategies and desired outcomes of the initiative.
Personas & User Groups
Personas and their plural form, user groups, serve as a tool to allow designers to focus on the individuals who will be accessing their product or service. Personas are not meant to be a single fiction of the user group’s experience, but rather a way to express their experiences in a rich and nuanced manner.
Role Playing
User Journey Map
A user journey map “is a visualization of the experiences people have when interacting with a product or service, so that each moment can be individually evaluated and improved” (Martin & Hanington, 2012:25). This helps place a product or service in a much larger context, in the real world and over time. This also helps the design team to identify what they know of the journey, and where knowledge gaps exist. It provides insight into areas to explore and further questions to be answered.
Public Value Implementation Canvas
This tool is designed to support reflection and strategy refinement when working on complex projects across organizations/sectors/systems. An iterative tool, the Public Value Implementation Canvas helps teams align their purposes, develop shared language, and build a collective understanding of the public value being created.
World Cafe
Place It!
Place It! is participation-based urban planning design practice founded by urban planner James Rojas and his partner John Kemp. In Place It!, model-building workshops and on-site interactive models help engage the public in the planning and design process. The goal is to help humanize planning processes by building relationships and trust between systems and the people who use them.
Harvesting
Harvesting is the documentation of valuable information exchanged during gatherings. The ultimate goal is to capture the essence of the meeting, recollect significant details, recognize patterns, and derive meaningful conclusions. The meaning is then made visible and accessible to others within the relevant context, fostering a more informed and connected community of participants.
Triads
Pro Action Cafe
