UNDP Development Design Thinkers Part II: Becoming Design-Driven
UNDP Macedonia (@UNDPMK) is sitting with an important question this year as it works to achieve gains in the priority areas of unemployment, social inclusion, governance, environment, and equal rights. Namely:
What follows an investment in design thinking training for staff, if becoming a design-driven development practice is the goal?
UNDP Macedonia sees the link between design and innovation and is aware that having a design process (like the one pictured below) is not the same as having a design-driven development practice.
The team took a critical step toward the latter by studying design thinking in December 2014 (details here). Since then, staff have been doing the important work of applying what they learned (e.g., user research, insight analysis, problem framing) to real social challenges affecting Macedonian communities.
Example of a Human-Centered Design Process (Credit: Design Kit)
A next step is making the choice to become design-driven as an office - top to bottom(seniors executives to front line practitioners), side to side (across programme and operations), inside and out (staff as well as stakeholders). This is pioneer territory at UNDP, as none of its 135+ country offices has taken this step - yet!
What does design-driven look like? I'm imagining a country office team with steadily evolving design mindsets that strategically views development challenges as design challenges and systematically approaches said challenges with a design process - one that gathers development designers (i.e. UNDP programme and operations staff) and development experts (i.e. citizens and service users) with stakeholders (e.g. national and implementing partners) to collaboratively see and work differently on development.
Are UNDP country offices showing interest in this way of working? It appears that interest is growing, evidenced by a number of offices exploring the mindsets, modes, and methods of design thinking with staff and stakeholders and a few early adopters - like UNDP Uzbekistan (@UNDP_Uzbeskistan) - proposing the systematic use of a design process by their country office (see video below).
Emiliya Asadova & Bokhodir Ayupov, UNDP Uzbekistan
So, how to become design-driven? Here is some early thinking of mine based on my experience as a UNDP staffer and consultant and my exposure to emerging thinking in the social sector about doing development differently. What follows can certainly be improved upon, so please feel free to poke. It occurs to me that an initial 'road-map' to design-driven might offer these (interconnected) 'routes':
"We are development designers.”
(This route is about looking at ourselves differently.)"We find more of the same unacceptable in post-2015.”
(This route is about looking at programme & operations differently.)"We design our operating model around the user experience.”
(This route is also about looking at programme & operations differently.)"We actively spot the future.”
(This route is about looking at the world differently.)
I'll drill down into each of these routes in a follow-up post and suggest related capacity-building actions that I've been noodling.
In the meantime, comments are very welcome on the thinking shared thus far - especially in response to Emiliya and Bokhodir of Uzbekistan. Of note, both internal and external perspectives are sought in this conversation, so if you're external to UNDP and have experience with systematizing (or 'mainstreaming') a human-centered design process within an office in an international development (or any other) context, we'd be pleased to have you join UNDP d.School (h/t to our mentor, the inimitable Stanford d.School). UNDP d.School is an open community where Development Design Thinking is being explored by staff across the UN Common System with 'friends of' in pursuit of better development results.
