From Service Design Network Conference, June 2016 How does design contribute to growth and prosperity? Drawing on experience of over fifteen years of measuring the impact of design for government, this talk looks at the pitfalls and potential for successfully demonstrating design’s value to the wider world. From design in healthcare to designing employment support services, project by project it explores practical ways that design has needed to deploy increasingly rigorous ways to measure its impact. Using a range of recent examples where the Lab has successfully blended design tools with data science to build robust evidence for decision-makers. It contains the latest insights on productivity and efficiency. It also shows how the Policy Lab has been using speculative design and critical design techniques to develop prototypes for new policies. Reflecting on how design thinking can be used as a process to aid decision-making combining lean analytics, user insights and real time prototypes. Finally it asks how design can be used as a powerful tool for moving from predictive analytics towards prescriptive analytics.

1. Measuring the value
of design – the
pitfalls and potential
June 2016

2. Design =
Purposeful
Creativity

3. Design Council

4. Inside the box
thinking

5. Impact
20%
80%
Implementation phase
Design phase

6. Mind the
Gap

7. The act of selling design
alters it….
Mat Hunter

8. It would be nice if all of the data which
sociologists require could be enumerated
because then we could run them through
IBM machines and draw charts as the
economists do. However, not everything
that can be counted counts, and not
everything that counts can be counted.
Bruce Cameron 1963
Flickr: Osamu Kaneko

9. Designing Value
Added-value reflation

11. The most innovative
companies in the world*
share one thing in common.
They use design.

12. March 2004

13. March 2014

14. Flickr: Pedro Szekely

15. A service is any activity of
benefit that one party can offer
to another that is essentially
intangible & doesn't result in
the ownership of anything.
Its production may or may not
be tied to a physical product.
Philip Kotler

16. Image: Design Council

17. Design Economy
Leading or lagging indicator?

18. [2013]
Design Museum

19. Dr Andrea Siodmok, FRSA
Design Museum

20. Design Bugs Out

21. Policy Lab

24. Wisdom from
data & design
A case in point

25. Diagnose
Reframing
questions based
on data gaps
Making the case
to scale
DeliverDiscover
Mixing big data
with thick data
Generating data
ideas
Develop
Using data earlier in the process

26. Future of an Ageing population
How can we turn 200,000 words of dense
evidence into compelling material to
generate ideas?
Policy Lab, GO-Science, Data Design & Hugo Yoshikawa

28. Future of an Ageing population
How can we turn 200,000 words of
dense evidence into compelling material
to generate ideas?
Policy Lab, GO-Science, Data Design & Hugo Yoshikawa

29. Health & Work
How can we support people to manage
their health conditions and stay in work?
people of working age
who have a health or
disability condition who
are out of work
4.7 million
people who are on
Employment Support
Allowance or other
incapacity benefits
2.5 million
190,000
flow onto ESA
each month
62,500
flow off
3.8 million total
out of work benefits
£15
billion/
year

30. Health & Work
How can we support people to manage
their health conditions and stay in work?
Policy Lab, DH/DWPUscreates & Mastodon C

31. Health & Work
How can we support people to manage
their health conditions and stay in work?

32. Two segments of people
saying they were on
health benefits also said
that their health was fairly
good showing health is
not the only thing we need
to deal with

33. Homelessness
How can we prevent people from
becoming or staying homeless?
Policy Lab, DCLG, ASI & RCA

34. Police digitisation
How can we improve police support for
victims of crime in a digital age?
Policy Lab, Home Office, Uscreates & RCA

36. Delivering Impact
Demonstrating longer term benefits

38. The 3 big Ds
Design
Digital
Data

39. New models: bigger
problems. Applying
design, digital and
data to deliver
greater productivity
and efficiency.

41. In order to: [Main objective]
We must: [What?]
By: [How?]
Using: [Assets]
For: [Who for?]
In partnership with: [Who with?]
Team (Led by): [Who by?]
Policy [Alignment]
That will deliver: [Outputs]
Experienced as: [Outtakes (know, think, feel)]
The affect will be that: [Intermediate outcomes]
The result will be that: [Outcomes]
Long term affect will be: [Impact]
Success will be when: [Measure (KPI)] ROI / SROI
By when? [Timings]
Indicative cost? [Budget]
Time

43. Markets and
competition
Organisation
design and
workforce
Service re-design
and alternative
delivery
mechanisms
Technology,
Data and
Targeting
Hard budget
constraints &
spending flexibility

44. Markets & Competition
e.g. Intelligent outsourcing
Service re-design &
alternative delivery
mechanisms
e.g. co-design
Technology,
Data & Targeting
e.g. channel shift
Organisation design
& Workforce
e.g. shared services
Hard budget constraints + spending flexibility
Market level
Platform/data
level
Systems level
Service level

45. Front-line service integration
Empowering users: Co-production & co-design
Prevention/ early intervention
Reconfiguring services
Effective use of ICT
Channel shift
Effective use of data
Technological advances
Policy innovation
Platform innovationThere is no efficiency ‘silver
bullet.’ There are many levers
that need to be pulled to
improve efficiency.

46. Policy Lab UK
Read more openpolicy.blog.gov.uk
On twitter @PolicyLabUK
Get in touch direct
policylab@cabinetoffice.gov.uk