Towards better governance – The Design Thinking way

Key Takeaways

• Developing a mindset transformation for leadership in Public Service delivery.
• Leveraging human-centricity and future focused-approach of Design Thinking to unleash right brain out-of-box thinking.
• Driving empathy to identify unstated needs of users for an enhanced user experience.
• Applying Design principles for simplifying customer operational processes.

Highlights

• The one-day workshop was anchored for a state government’s e-governance agency by the core faculty of the School of Design Thinking.
• The IAS officer deputed to the agency and the CEO joined the workshop via Skype and elaborated on why Design Thinking matters in determining market leadership.
• They also stressed on the importance of thinking differently to become active agenda setters for end users.
• A delegation of 30 employees of the agency from various departments participated in the workshop.

About the client
The entity, as a State Nodal Agency, was formed to support and drive all e-governance initiatives of the state government. The agency implements various e-governance projects with the objective of making all government services, wherever feasible and accessible to the common man, into an efficient and transparent manner. Board members of the agency consist of the secretaries of the eleven Mission Mode Departments to guide in its e-governance activities and deliver the services to citizens.

As part of the e-governance initiative, a large part of government records, such as land ownership records, have been digitised. All major administrative offices, such as the local governance bodies and various government departments, have been computerised.

The state has harnessed Information Communication Technology continuously and continually evolves e-Governance. The services are delivered to the citizens through convenient and easily accessible delivery channels and web-enabled media, ensuring efficiency, transparency and reliability at affordable costs and to make all citizens an integral part of the ever growing knowledge society and accomplish quality living.

Purpose of the workshop

The purpose of the workshop was to bring a transformation change into the mindset of the participants & trigger them to visualizes themselves as “Catalysts of Leadership in Public Service Delivery” : thus aligning to the higher purpose of agency ; The better governance.

The agency wanted to leverage Design Thinking to achieve the intended goals and more importantly utilize the Human centric Design to keep “Customer First” to gain user insights.

Activity Details

As the primary step, a walkthrough of the Design Center was provided to kindle their thought process and to unearth their latent forces of the Design Mind. The participants used different tools of Design Thinking and had a hands-on experience on each of them. They were exposed to various interactive activities that facilitated this learning.

The visiting delegation also unearthed the role of various stakeholders in the end-to-end delivery process which helped them to arrive at a holistic view of the agency’s work. As part of the learning process they also understood the importance of creating a ‘Culture of Appreciation’ in teams to generate positive reinforcement.

The CEO of the agency joined the session via Skype and emphasized on the importance of Design Thinking in emerging as a market leader.

Impact of the workshop
The agency team was willing to explore the possibilities of going ahead with the implementation of small technical projects without going for outsourcing. They understood the capabilities lying within their employees which could be tapped rather than outsourced. They also expressed the value of Design Thinking workshops acting as an enabler for the same. The team took inspiration from the 8012 Design center and went ahead in implementing the writable walls in the commissioner office premise.