How do you solve the equation as a public sector leader? You're still expected to create welfare and public value, even when budgets are tight, complexity is high and there are changing expectations from citizens and politicians. A great strategic framework for navigating this context is "The New Synthesis", which identifies four focus areas that public sector leaders should work on to ensure public value creation.
Get an explanation of the four focus areas here
The third focus area in "The New Synthesis", emergence, is how wellbeing can be created together with others. The big questions for you as a leader are: How do I uncover citizens' and civil society's perspective on quality in welfare? How do I get citizens and civil society involved in developing new solutions to welfare challenges?
Here you will find ideas for just that with a short introduction to 10 tools for citizen involvement in welfare development, which can be used flexibly in a wide range of different contexts from large-scale co-creation processes to everyday innovation in specific citizen processes.
1. interview
What is it?
Interviews are used to gain in-depth knowledge of a group of citizens.
Why should you:
Provides insight into the entirety of the citizen's situation, everyday life and needs. The interview can be used for e.g. developing personas, mapping citizen journeys and citizen perceived quality.
How to:
- Identify and select relevant people for the interview target group.
- Identify the questions to be answered and create an interview guide.
- The interview is conducted as an informal conversation and notes are taken or a video/dictaphone is used for documentation
- After the interview, record the most important information, thoughts and conclusions
2. Observation
What is it?
Participant observation is useful for gaining deep insights into citizen behavior through participation in key situations and workflows.
Why should you:
Observation allows you to map citizens' actual behavior and experience of a given effort, and can show the difference between what citizens say and what they actually do
How to:
- Select respondents and prepare observational study
- The length of the study can vary from minutes to several days
- Documents along the way
3. The citizen journey
What is it?
The citizen journey is similar to process mapping, but is based on how the citizen experiences the workflow and provides a visual overview of specific contact points, people and situations in the citizen-oriented effort.
Why should you:
Thorough and early knowledge of the complete citizen experience provides valuable insights into unmet needs.
How to:
- Track movements on the journey through the system, e.g. with post-its. Create a timeline of the citizen's experience of a service and identify contact points and activities - interviews and participant observation can be used for this.
4. Photo diaries
What is it?
A photo diary provides visual images of a relevant section of the citizen's everyday life,
Why should you:
The diary forces us to put images and words to values that are associated with specific workflows and initiatives. It provides access to information that can ultimately provide knowledge and new perspectives on the municipality's efforts.
How to:
- Prepare question guide and/or diary format
- The citizen or community worker brings a camera with them throughout the day and takes pictures in situations where they receive/provide services or where they feel they are missing them.
- The images are put up, e.g. on a knowledge wall or as a supplement to the citizen journey and are included in the improvement work as input from the citizen's perspective.
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5. personas
What is it?
Personas are a tool for visualizing fictional groups of citizens and their everyday lives as ideal types.
Why should you:
Personas describe key similarities and differences between citizens and their needs. This makes it possible to target communication to different citizens and can strengthen employees' understanding of the citizens for whom initiatives are being developed.
How to:
- Research material describing different citizen profiles is collected (via interviews, participant observations or citizen journeys)
- Similarities and differences are highlighted. It is the differences that form the core of the development of the profiles. Usually 3-5 personas are sufficient.
6. Co-created ideas with citizens
What is it?
The goal is to generate as many ideas as possible in a session where many stakeholders with different perspectives are gathered.
Why should you:
Idea generation creates a solid foundation for ideas big and small to mature into final solutions. It allows you to activate the creative part of your brain and see beyond existing frameworks and barriers.
How to:
- Idea generation is done through a structured and facilitated brainstorming process.
- Make sure all ideas are captured, e.g. by taking notes and picking them up as you go, and discuss them briefly and systematically.
7. prototype development
What is it?
Simple prototypes allow ideas to be communicated so that feedback can be received before they are described or produced in a version with more detail.
Why should you:
Quickly testing concrete ideas before developing them further ensures that you don't work too much on ideas that don't work. It also allows for learning while reducing misunderstandings early on in the process.
How to:
- Based on ideas, themes and insights, prototype solutions. For example, build a prototype out of physical materials. This could be paper, glue, shapes or whatever else is in the room. Prototypes can also take the form of storyboards, citizen journeys, role-playing games and the like
8. prototype testing
What is it?
A prototype test provides the opportunity to test a specific initiative (prototype) before it is fully developed. The prototype is tested in a limited area - for example, by a single team or in relation to a defined target group. It is tested how the initiative works in practice and evaluated on an ongoing basis.
Why should you:
A prototype is practical, can be tested on a small scale in everyday life and implemented quickly. At the same time, it is a process where the learning outcome is great if you dare to test individual elements before the initiative is fully developed
How to:
- Identify the prototype (effort, solution) you want to test.
- Clarify which areas it makes the most sense to test the prototype in.
- Try out the prototype.
- Evaluate the prototype in relation to normal practice: What worked well? What needs to be adapted?
9. Testing and feedback session
What:
In test and feedback sessions, users are given the opportunity to provide feedback on e.g. improvement suggestions, prototypes, ideas or hypotheses
Why should you:
Feedback sessions provide insight into what citizens and possibly other stakeholders prefer.
How to:
- Define in advance what the feedback sessions should at least help clarify.
- Invite different citizens, businesses, stakeholders, employees from different departments as practice experts.
- Consider conducting both individual and group sessions or workshops.
10. Hypothesis testing and prioritization
What is it?
Hypothesis testing is a tool that examines the underlying assumptions about the need or impact behind an intervention.
Why should you:
Hypothesis testing ensures that all decisions are based on transparent and clearly defined hypotheses and assumptions. This also increases the credibility of the improvement work for citizens and helps the subsequent implementation of the efforts.
How to:
- Map the underlying hypotheses for each option
- Ensure all hypotheses are clearly and consistently stated
- Prioritize the hypotheses based on how uncertain you are about whether they are true and what effect the hypothesis has on the desired outcome.
- Include citizens and agree on the final prioritization to ensure inclusivity and relevance in decisions.
