Service Design
Feb.2017 - May. 2017
14 weeks group project with Eeva Lehto, Laura Domingo, Maya PillaI, Yiding Zhang
my Role in team
In this collaborative project, I was responsible for research (interviewing clients, preparing and facilitating workshops and analyzing research outcomes) and design (generating ideas, building concepts and most of the visual design)
project Introduction
Aalto University Design for Government course and Finnish ministries launched a collaboration project - Civil Servant 2.0: Future work of civil servants to envision and develop design concepts that develop the next generation of civil servants and their work. The project was commissioned by representatives from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.
How does the work of the civil servant at the Today, we have both a critical moment and an appropriate window of opportunity – during Suomi100, Finland’s centenary year – to look back and forward to how civil servant work must be transformed. cross-roads of designing policy-making and implementing it look now, how should it look in future? The Suomi100 theme of ‘togetherness’ raises a concrete question of what new kinds of working processes, environments, tools and experiences are necessary within the ministry and its stakeholders and citizens, as well as across multiple ministries.
project Process
Through the 14-week design process, our team worked to address the problems highlighted in our brief by utilizing three key frameworks: emphatic approaches to identify the needs of the client and stakeholders, systems thinking to analyze the wider context of policy-making, and behavioral insight to identify and create relevant solutions. These frameworks guided our work through research, analysis, development and delivery phases.
Research
To dig into the life of civil servants we started gathering insights from their current working life. In order to find out what are the things that need to be changed in the government and how civil servants should work in the future, we need to know how civil servants work now and what do they think and feel. This is why we interviewed 25 civil servants to gain understanding of their experiences. In addition, we held 2 co-creation workshops to get further insights and test our ideas.
Co-Creation Workshop 1- Atlas Game
In order to create a shared understanding of the clients' needs and goals behind the project, we used the ATLAS game to bring stakeholders and us together. There were three client representatives from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment took part in the game.
Through the workshop, we gained initial perspectives of clients' needs while also revealing about hierarchy, power relations and different ideas for the civil servants’ future work.
Co-Creation Workshop 2- Process Mapping
As the research moved along, we realized there are different kinds of civil servants with different levels of experience and different backgrounds. The different levels included experienced employees, decision makers, and new employees. We organized our second workshop for getting the understanding of the decision-making process in Finnish Government and how different ministries collaborate together.
Analysis
The research process allowed us to conduct a broad inquiry and collect large amounts of data related to the topic, then we utilized two analysis methods, Affinity Diagram and Systems Modeling, to build an understanding of the data and find possible design opportunities. After analyzing all data we got we were able to summarize three key insight which are presented in the Key Insights section.
Affinity Diagram 1,2
During the analysis process, we created two affinity diagrams after each co-creation workshops to build a joint understanding. We dissected quotes, information and ideas from workshops and interviews into individual pieces of data and then organized them into different clusters or grouped similar ideas together.
System Modelling
In addition to Affinity Diagrams, we created several systems models to better understand the larger context of the civil servant. Systems models allowed us to review the Finnish Government from different aspects to help us identify the joint part where we can focus on. We also create our initial two personas Passive change supporter & Active change maker to describe typical existing civil servants' work motivations and expectations, and the relationship between each other.
Development
After analyzing the data we got from research session, we got enough information to dive right into developing concepts. At this point, our team ideated more ideas, developed our personas further and revisited our data to evaluate some of our initial ideas for the proposal based on how well they solve the issues we have found in our research. We also organized the third co-creation workshop to test our initial two concepts with our clients, based on the outcomes, we were able to propose our final solution.
Co-creation Workshop 3- Evaluation Workshop
In the workshop, our aim was to evaluate two initial concepts, a talent pool, and a job exchange program, on a scale of how well they solve the challenge and whether they fit in the client organization. The better a solution fits with the client organization and the better it solves the problem, the higher priority the solution idea gets.
The workshop had two sessions. At first, we describe two scenarios with prepared two storyboards. During the workshop, we presented concepts to our clients to get their initial reactions, for example, challenges, limitations and benefits of our concepts. We then provided empty storyboards to let them create their vision based on what we talked before.
Key Insights
During our process, we uncovered three key insights:
There are some civil servants advocating for more collaborative and agile ways of working, but it's a small group
From interviews and workshops, we could see that there are already civil servants who are very passionate about developing the working methods of civil servants, but we learned that it’s a relatively small group that is actively working on this. One interviewee even described these people as “lone wolves” which describes quite well how small this group is and also maybe how they see themselves.
There is a big group of people who feel like they wouldn’t gain anything from changing the way they work
Some civil servants described a division of themselves into those who advocate for change and to those who resist it and want to do things the way they are used to. We also heard some moving experiences of how some people feel that they have no power over how they work. For example we heard of some people being moved to an open office space that has no personal desks without considering the effects this will have on the quality of their work and their wellbeing. Considering this, it’s not very surprising that some civil servants feel that these changes are made just in order to save money.
A big part of civil servants’ work gets done through personal networks
Our third key insight is the importance of networks in civil servants’ work. From our interviews and workshops it was clear that having personal networks makes your work much easier and faster. There is an official way of doing things, and then there is the easy way which is that you know someone and call them and ask them to help you. But when asking how civil servants gained their personal networks the most common answer was: “I have been working here for a long time”. So currently networking happens through work tasks and working in different teams and departments grows your network. Moreover, the only way to currently become very efficient is to work in the government for many years.
All in all, we have established that complex issues cannot be solved with just one area of expertise. Instead we need to:
Increase skill recognition and skill development
Make collaborative and agile work methods beneficial to everyone
And we need to expand outside established networks
And Furthermore, we need to make these things a priority
Delivery
Proposal
Based on the identified key insights and to answer the needs for ministries to update their working methods, our proposal of new competencies for future civil servants is KYKY - a skill sharing and skill development program, which enables civil servants to share their skills and collaborate across ministries.
KYKY has five components:
Collaboration: It will help civil servants to establish networks, create trust and build more open working culture while learning from their colleagues.
Skill Recognition: It also helps civil servants to recognize their own skills and gives them a chance to utilize the skills which they don’t use in their work in daily basis. This also opens a possibility for colleagues to acknowledge each other’s skills. KYKY will also help civil servants to define better which skills are needed for each task and organize the work.
Personal Growth: It gives a chance to grow self-awareness through job variation, career development and with in-work opportunities to elaborate on the skills learned. Working for short periods with various people helps to gain perspective about what kind of roles other civil servants have in their ministries.
Allocated Time: In the KYKY program, all civil servants would have 10 % of their working hours allocated to flexible KYKY activities. These include: (1) Sharing your skills with your colleagues, helping them using your area of expertise. (2)Personal skill development: if one feels like their KYKY time is not used much you can use your KYKY hours to learning new skills by taking online courses or enrolling in certain workshops.
Skill Pool: In Skill Pool, civil servants can sign up their talents and also search for the required skills, exists on a digital platform. There are many existing digital tools available for collaboration, networking and skill sharing, but they remain unused or are not utilized well. That’s why KYKY aims to make the usage of such a already existing tool successful.
User Journey
Implementation Process
We suggest the following plan be used for implementing the KYKY program. We are now at the prototyping stage. By the next year the piloting could start from, for example the PMO from where those interested in volunteering their skills can sign up in the recommended digital tool. As part of KYKY, volunteers will be guided through a process of understanding and evaluating their own skill sets to decide what could be useful for others.
When the pilot has been run for a year, the next step would be future development of the KYKY program. The usage would need to be evaluated based on the certain success parameters:
How much was it used, does it improve efficiency and quality of work.
How has performance evaluation before and after KYKY does the work that need to be done get done, if 10% is used for KYKY activities, do other tasks suffer?
How has performance evaluation before and after KYKY does the work that need to be done get done, if 10% is used for KYKY activities, do other tasks suffer?
Based on the user survey for pilot participants to get feedback during the piloting process. By 2020 KYKY program can be scaled up to get more or even all ministries involved.
Conclusion
So to conclude, with Kyky we hope to have the following effects:
Personal skill development: it will help identify civil servants own skills which would help with them own career development.
Personal skill development: it will help identify civil servants own skills which would help with them own career development.
Increase collaboration and crack the silos: working with different people across ministries is bound to put some cracks into the current existing siloed structure.
Can be used by HR to fill skill gaps: HR of various departments can use the online tool that is part of the KYKY program to identify what skills are most in demand and hence actively look to hire more people like that or even look to hire skills that may not exist in the ministries at all!
KYKY increases competencies in personal and in organizational level which makes us achieve our goal: the multi-skilled civil servant. For better skills, get thrills with KYKY.
