This article is written by Alexander Lau, Principal Design Lead at the Innovation Lab under the Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore. Alexander is a civil servant by day and a designer for life.

When I first heard of an opening for a design thinking practitioner at the Public Service Division of Singapore’s Prime Minister’s Office, I was both curious and surprised.

I had no idea of what the role was about and was not sure how I would fit in. I have designed security and transportation related products that millions of people encounter in Singapore daily, designed lifestyle brands, redesigned how to teach Design Thinking to students and adults, but I had never designed public policy. However, throughout my 20+ years of professional design practice, I have always been keen to push the boundaries of design, and apply it to as many different fields as I can. I took it as a challenge, plunged in with both eyes closed, applied to the job and became a civil servant.

Six years later, here I am, still in the Public Service and leading a small Innovation Lab. While I may have a formal leadership role within my Lab, a lot of my work in driving innovation across public service involves informal leadership – such as sending ideas to other leaders, facilitating conversions amongst stakeholders, doing small projects to demonstrate or even getting external/international validation to emphasise a point.

By engaging and involving different agency experts, facilitating conversations amongst them, and guiding them to bring end-users’ voice into the discussions, we help agencies see beyond their own silos and find common objectives

During the past six years, I have learned a lot about public service, and about how to make design and innovation relevant. I take this opportunity to share what I have learned, and hope that it may be useful for anyone working in public service innovation, or considering entering this space.

Upon reflection, I find that my work is full of paradoxes, or in Organisation Development speak – Polarities. A lot of energy is spent managing these polarities, but it is also the successful navigation of these polarities that result in our best work. I would like to share five polarities that we commonly deal with:

1. We are small but our projects deliver big impact

Despite being a small team of six people, we get involved in large national-level inter-agency projects.

Our key focus is on transforming public services to be seamless, connected and user-friendly for anyone interacting with government, while being resource efficient and effective. Unlike in private design consultancy practice, where the designer makes all the decisions on the project direction, the key to working on inter-agency projects is to have the humility to recognise that the design lead is only a facilitator, or at best, a process coach.

By engaging and involving different agency experts, facilitating conversations amongst them, and guiding them to bring end-users’ voice into the discussions, we help agencies see beyond their own silos and find common objectives. To overcome resistance to change, helping agency teams empathise with their end-users’ plight first hand is more impactful than any reports or other modes of communication.

We then work with them to sort through process, system or policy duplication or overlaps, to arrive at new solutions that exploit technology, simplify work or create new value. We can remain as a small unit by always looking to help agency experts reframe and buy-in to the right problem to tackle, pass on such skills to them, and letting them own and develop the solutions to deliver impact. The key is not to retain the skills within our unit, but to coach others so that the impact can be exponential.

2. We are experts, but we need to co-create and collaborate

We have dealt with external consultants who claim to have design thinking or innovation expertise, but most of them have never worked on projects from concept through to delivery. Their recommendations tend to be broad ideas that lack details for effective implementation.

Our team, on the other hand, consists of experienced designers and innovators who have delivered on real projects. However, while we may have design process expertise, in large and complex government projects, it is crucial to engage and collaborate with various stakeholders to get their buy-in. We rely heavily on co-creating with agency partners and citizens, to ensure that the solutions are well-considered, holistic and have the support of all involved. We are honest about our own limitations and we seek out partners strategically to collaborate with them.

3. We dive into details, but we do not lose sight of the larger system

We start every project by investigating the needs of the citizen, as well as the frontline officer who interacts with the citizen.

By immersing ourselves in the details, the project team uncover opportunities to address unmet needs. We dive into service delivery touchpoints and backend interactions amongst staff to dream up better solutions. We move with agility to deliver proof of concepts that can be tested quickly with citizens.

Having a curious and open mindset is key to being able to learn and connect quickly across different topics and projects

However, if we are not careful, we can be seduced by the speed of delivery of small solutions and lose sight of the larger system. Small solutions, if left uncoordinated, can create more confusion to end users. We keep zooming in and out of projects to see the overall systems view, and how different smaller solutions may fit in or interact with one another. We propose standards or protocols, and we facilitate conversations to bring different parts of the system together. Diving into details help us get to the root of the issue. Developing a systemic approach ensures that solutions are replicable, coordinated, scalable and future-ready.

4. We steer clear of administrative tasks, but we stay deeply connected with the overall transformation agenda

We are still considered a bit of an outlier in the public service as our roles do not fit neatly into traditional boxes.

We spend most of our time coaching projects, and we seldom get involved in iterative staffing or policy papers. However, it is crucial to stay connected to the overall agenda, so that the project outcomes are aligned to policy directions. It is also important to learn from all the projects and capture our point-of-view on how future projects can be conducted more effectively. Having a curious and open mindset is key to being able to learn and connect quickly across different topics and projects.

5. We use a simple process, but our challenges are complex

In order to encourage widespread uptake of our innovation process, we have designed it to be as simple as possible.

We removed all jargon and theoretical elements and simply blended a few key methods together. We explain succinctly the key reasons and objectives behind each activity or step. We believe that if you cannot explain what you do to an eighty-year old grandmother, the process is probably too complicated or complex. We apply this simple process to all our complex challenges, breaking them down into elements, then reconfiguring and rebuilding them into simpler and more effective solutions.

We have gotten a fair bit of traction in trying to get our public service to be more innovative, but we are only at the beginning of our journey. There will be lots more to learn, and many more challenges to overcome. However, if we continue to approach them with the right design mindset — where we empathise and collaborate with stakeholders, and we experiment with divergent ideas — we will be able to move towards better solutions for all. — Alexander Lau

(Picture credit: Unsplash)