Abstract
Design has permeated several areas of public service and administration as a driver for transformational change. For design to live up to its potential, laying the groundwork and creating the preconditions for successful collaboration is essential. This paper reports preliminary insights from an ongoing design- driven development project involving 13 pilot municipalities as well as more than 20 connected public, third sector and special interest organisations. The aim of this work is to address the following questions: What are the challenges faced by public sector organisations in facilitating a national multi- level design driven project for public service transformation? How can the set-up of nationally coordinated design-driven projects be improved? Preliminary insights reveal that clearer role definitions, stronger stakeholder engagement strategies, and sustained support mechanisms are essential for translating service design from theory into transformative practice. This shifts the conversation from how to apply design to how to prepare systems for design.
Keywords
Service design; Design for policy; Public sector; Transformation
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.903
Citation
Rodrigues, V.,and Holmli, S.(2025) Disseminating design for transformation in the public sector, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.903
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 7 - Service Design for Public Services and Policies
Disseminating design for transformation in the public sector
Design has permeated several areas of public service and administration as a driver for transformational change. For design to live up to its potential, laying the groundwork and creating the preconditions for successful collaboration is essential. This paper reports preliminary insights from an ongoing design- driven development project involving 13 pilot municipalities as well as more than 20 connected public, third sector and special interest organisations. The aim of this work is to address the following questions: What are the challenges faced by public sector organisations in facilitating a national multi- level design driven project for public service transformation? How can the set-up of nationally coordinated design-driven projects be improved? Preliminary insights reveal that clearer role definitions, stronger stakeholder engagement strategies, and sustained support mechanisms are essential for translating service design from theory into transformative practice. This shifts the conversation from how to apply design to how to prepare systems for design.