Design

A new “design academy” soon to be launched by the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science’s BizLab unit will offer training to other agencies on a fee-for-service basis.

Public sector Innovation Month 2017 officially kicked off this morning and is once again chock full of events. They’re mainly in Canberra but a few are taking place in Melbourne and Perth.

Reduced risk and an increased chance of success … sounds good right? So what actually happens when public sector organisations adopt design approaches? TACSI share the lessons they learned through their work with governments across the country.

APS service design leaders believe agile teams and user-centred design can certainly enhance policy evaluation, which will probably lead to better policy outcomes. They are comparing themselves to the private sector, but as always, the structure of government poses challenges.

CASE STUDY: There are many approaches to people-centred policymaking. Experts in data analytics, behavioural insights and design thinking joined the NZ Ministry of Justice in a workshop to showcase the synergies between the methods, and the benefits for policy advice.

The Department of Human Services hopes marketing will provide another opportunity for a fresh start, updating its physical shopfront fit-outs and making use of “the latest digital trends” to create “unique digital and online experiences” for the public.

Design is a word that has really taken off in the UK’s Cabinet Office, particularly its Policy Lab, but has yet to take hold in Australia. Oxford fellow Dr Lucy Kimbell, who recently finished a secondment to the Policy Lab, blogged about the shift in how design was viewed in the UK government.

One of the United States government’s principal innovation leaders is in Australia to share her thoughts on human-centred design and rapid prototyping with local public servants.

An open development model is helping government agencies bring new applications rapidly to their citizens.