Digest from #RSD2 of Jonathan Veale @JAVeale talk with @playthink on sketchnote on Civil Service Systemic Design at Relating Systems Thinking and Design 2 at AHO Oslo School of Design and Architecture
This digest was created in real-time during the meeting, based on the speaker’s presentation(s) and comments from the audience. The content should not be viewed as an official transcript of the meeting, but only as an interpretation by a single individual. Lapses, grammatical errors, and typing mistakes may not have been corrected. Questions about content should be directed to the originator. The digest has been made available for purposes of scholarship by David Ing.
Jonathan Veale is a futurist/strategic designer in Edmonton for the Alberta Public Service
This talk was approved for public release
There might be an emerging practice for systemic design in government
Helsinki Design Lab
Mindlab
Have been prototyping this
3.5 people
Working with government at strategic level
Own expertise is in strategic design
Here today, as a private citizen, although endorsed by government to be here
Had worked in SLab at OCAD U.
Will talk in a limited sense on the case study, as can impact policy
Aerial photo of Canada, with Alberta
Alberta is larger than France, and it’s not even the biggest province
Alberta was settled from the south and the east
Mindset: known as cowboy country, love beef
Being a frontier, edge of a system
Incorporated as a province in 1905
Geographically diverse space
Colonial history, U.S. occupied south until English came
Economic, large oil fields, in oil sands
Have had some recent shocks to systems
Wonder: maybe need to think contextually about the system
Dan Hill: Dar Matter and Trojan Hostrses: A strategid Design Vocabulary
Written while in Helsinki
Government is too important to fail
This is a different tribe
Civil Servant Systemic Designer
Entrusted with the public interest
Practices within the architecture of the government
Housed within a ministry, as don’t have other way of organizing in Alberta
Have talked about silos in government
Still have silos, but trying to ensure they’re permeable
Have create pods, like a pod of whales that move together
Work in the ministry of energy, working with environment and natural resources
Rules: can talk to anyone in government, can call a deputy minister
Have worked on:
Childcare
Leadership succession
Climate change, in respect of economics and urban development
Stewardship:
The place where we take decisions, based on public interest
A destination
What do we do?
Centricity with users, citizens
Strategic designers talking about stewardship as modes of behaviour
Hard to separate in head
Create
Capture
Deliver
Towards public interest
Stewardship isn’t just the model, but the quality of the model
Bring an innovation focus to the civil service
Multiple tensions
Where will be place ourselves within the system?
Add an extra line of legitimacy and credibility
From Mindlab in Copenhagen, need to provide deliverables to give legitimacy and credibility
If can work within positivist monist design of government, and can be constructivist, then can work in government
Rarely look at level of individuals
Value: government is siloed by theme or classification, but also in modes of behaviour
Some people who frame
Some who plan
Some who execute
Thus, siloing
As systemic designer, can bridge silos and make them permeable
Government not known for being material
Challenge to make it tangible to people
Hard to understand complexity and complicatedness
Scale is hard to work with
Problem space with people, and the tangible abstract
People
Positivist culture doesn’t necessarily value participatory or intuitive methodology, e.g. engineers don’t naturally think this way
Success to bridge this?
Citizen-centric methods are rare, but opportune: ethics of citizen-centric research, where government has power, but don’t go for research ethics approval
Building trust has to be central
Problem space
Sometimes spend a lot of time in Creating Value space, as hard to understand, difficult to bridge to execution
Artifacts
Straegy and policy seem intangible, government services are tangible
Intervention is more top-down: Cook, Steinberg and Boyer at Helsinki Design Lab with a project as a way of breaking down the problem space; government typically works top-down, so advancing projects is new
Case study, have done 15 projects over 2 years
How might we improve the state of trust relations between citizens, government, and petroleum industry?
Low trust in natural resources segment
Tried scenario mapping, rich pictures, gigamapping
Focus on creating, framing the problem
Compared to other civil servants, wanted to bridge, address the problematic situation, connect with people who make rules
Had a conference: Unfinished Futures
An executive summary, poster session where people could engage and modify, then breakouts
e.g. if you are responsible for climate change, then how to do that
Then did again, with younger civil servants, as colloquium
Now replicated across government
Posters, etc.
Now speaking the same language on the issue, can’t yet solve it, but we know what the problem is
How did we do this?
3 designers, paired with similar teams across the government
Co-led this, as ministries across pods
People at the bottom level are cooperating, then the senior officials are also collaborating
Deputy minister said need to come present what is going
8 broad lessons for thinking about future in government
1. Visualization
In government, make decisions by pushing briefing notes
One page, 12 point Arial font, have to concise
Take to deputy, he says yes or no
We need to work with leadership team, building models with them
Tried video briefing notes, those don’t work
When can delegate into paper, that works
2. Need depth as well as context
Systemic thinkers are hard on people thinking deep and narrow
Need to find a systemic way
3. Ability to network and work across government
If in department when can do that, it’s great
Find the people closest to the problem
4. Systemic futures and systemic design as methodologies
5. Champions guide on projects
Say should challenge, they generate ideas
Practical to move culture
6. Being honest and open about cultural differences
Engineers, MBAs
7. Literacy in systems thinking
Works for public, too
Wide, but not much depth, e.g. gigamapping
8. Must be humble leader, cultivate innovation
Some outstanding questions
[questions]
Material?
Now working on energy literacy
Typical way would have been to create policy, and then send money
Instead, have created a project
Direction, more to partner with design community to design material interventions, if they work, then can spread out
e.g. public spaces, interacting with government
Struggle with whether it’s material enough
Learnings from providing visual briefings
Hugely successful on lower part of iceberg, on shift of mindshifts
Worked visually
Scanned all of the documents, they put them on wall, let executives cluster them
They found that there are assumption that may or may not be valid
Exercise points out that there’s a blind side
From deputy’s point of view, what’s wrong with the briefing note? If saw wall, would it be easier to read on one sheet of paper?
On deep mindset, visual works better
On an event that needs a decision now, then the text works better
Haven’t tried to change documents for an event
[Abstract of talk from http://futurecultures.blogspot.ca/2013/09/abstract-civil-servant-systemic.html]
Abstract: Government decisions manifest within the landscape and can greatly affect change within their jurisdiction and beyond. A perfect example would be decisions about regional energy policy. A government’s views about the production, transportation and consumption of energy within their geography notably impacts land development, resource extraction, economic investment, urban design, transportation, climate change, economic competitiveness and the social mix of a region . Energy policy decisions are foundational to complex predicaments, including energy insecurity, poverty, food and water security and social strife. Notable examples abound but this complexity manifests at the human scale towards whole systems and the spaces in-between.
Until relatively recently, government policy development, insofar as it was systemic, relied upon hard systems methodology which began with a knowable problem and converged on a solution . This linear and monistic approach brought depth but lacked context of the wider societal, technological, economic, ecological and political system. In simpler times, and in the absence of complex systems methodologies, this approach was the best option for policy development. Consistent with this view, governments organized themselves around discrete policy silos, each bringing an expert depth to their thematic responsibility. This is opportune where increasing specialization leads to new knowledge, but challenged where context is needed to avoid unintended consequences . Complexity as it is now, calls upon government to navigate policy predicaments with a new architecture – one that brings both depth and context for rigorous policy.
This paper examines the emerging context of the civil servant – one entrusted with the public interest by duty and responsibility – who practices within the architecture of government, deploying systemic design methodologies towards the complex predicaments that societies faces. Governments are responding to complexity in policy decisions – design consultants are retained; government staff are trained in designerly ways; and, experienced-designers are employed on in-house consulting teams. These models have the effect of increasing the profile of design practice within government. The model of the Department of Energy in Alberta, Canada is examined with a view towards articulating this emerging context for systemic design practice. The case of a trans-ministry design team applying systemic design methodology around a shared strategic concern is presented.
The case explores key questions about the Civil Servant Systemic Designer:
What is the cultural challenge of systemic design for government?
What is the role of the designer in this challenge?
What is the relationship of the designer within the business model?
Which professional qualities must the designer possess?
What are the implications for systemic design practice?
This paper is fundamentally about how systemic designers who live within the architecture of the government can best deliver value to the public they serve.
A Shared Stewardship Agenda
Conventional civil service, not unlike systemic design practice, centres on stewardship but the two disciplines advance the concept differently. This paper advances that the civil servant designer synthesises both. In the case of civil service, stewardship is an end state that aligns with the public interest . It is the ‘place’ where we take decisions to with an idealized objective to balance competing interests and offer advice in the best interest of society. Design nuances the scale of decisions by extending into human- or citizen centricity in decision-making . While systemic design has added that stewardship is active and about bridging the value chain – the careful and dutiful execution of modes of behaviour from problem conception to value delivery and necessary feedbacks . In this respect, systemic design brings an advanced and innovation focused agenda of stewardship to the governance space where ‘delivered value’ equates with credibility and social approval . For civil service, human centricity and the stewardship of ideas to fruition appears novel. From this vantage, practicing within the architecture of government might be the best place for some systemic designers, especially those particularly concerned about advancing stewardship as a mode of behaviour and gaining a civil servant’s eye for the public interest.
Reconciling the Cultural Tension
The civil servant systemic designer lives and breathes the culture of government; therefore, this experience might signal possible futures for this emerging context. The case study shows that the ultimate challenge for the civil servant systemic designer is cultural. The natural tension between the positivist and reductionist community, which dominates government, and the emerging context of constructivist and systemic design is explored. This paper argues that the way the systemic designer reconciles this tension is critical to the survival of the practice. With systemic design bringing urgently needed “rich picture” context to decisions , reconciliation enables a requisite depth of specialist knowledge to be deployed against defined problems. The civil servant systemic designer must avoid both the pathology of excessive depth and the pathology of contextual overabundance .
Case Study: Rich Picture of Systemic Design in the Government of Alberta
Beginning in early 2012, the Government of Alberta, led by the Department of Energy identified the need for innovation using systemic design methodology. The need for systemic context and integration within the Natural Resources and Environment cluster of ministries was observed. Newly retained systemic design and strategic foresight staff convened from across government to design a context-gaining approach to both pilot systemic design and strategic foresight methodologies and ameliorate the challenges of present-day natural resources development. The project is ongoing, with the first phase now complete. This case study examines the first phase of the project with a view towards describing the approach, methodology, and implications for systemic design practice. The scale of the project is noteworthy, with an internal team implementing a program that crossed nine departments and impacted +100 participants.
Lessons for Systemic Design Practice
Broad lessons for systemic design practice are discussed:
Visualization as practiced by designers is both a powerful integrative tool and cognitive shortcut to inform executive decision-makers. Visualization should strive to translate between traditional public sector language and the citizens we serve.
The civil servant systemic designer must develop fluency in articulating the platitudes and nuances of complex policy. In this respect, framing must strive for context as well as depth.
The civil servant systemic designer must seamlessly network and integrate across the public and private spheres. This includes finding the people closest to complex problems. Networking is one pathway to integration.
Systemic design and systemic futures studies are complementary methodologies. Both concern the anticipation and co-creation of the future. Both are concerned with robustness, resilience and adaptivity in designing solutions.
Systemic designers, as part of the minority culture within government, must cultivate and service the needs of executive champions. Champions articulate the story to outsiders and interpret cultural differences. They give the designer an inside perspective to the institution, while the designer helps the champion to see the institution from an outsider’s view.
The civil servant systemic designer must be honest and open about cultural differences and how these impact the delivery of work. This reduces unproductive conflict and supports productive collaboration.
Systemic designers are humble leaders, who cultivate innovation, transform the idea of value away from just efficiency, reframe risk in context to opportunity, reconnect stewardship with decision-making and build trusted citizen experiences at many scales.
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