Good For: Build consensus
The Shift Surrey guide provides an overview of Surrey's design approach to date, including a summary of projects and suggestions for building an internal community of practice inside government. At the end of the guide, there are several typical design tools, tips and tricks learned through Surrey's experience and suggestions for related design resources.
The Hackers’ Kit supports different types of discussions around project and program design. It's aim is to normalise innovation in a large organization by embedding new practices in key project management business processes. Worked on and tested with over 25 project teams in the United Nations Development Programme, the toolkit is intended for an international development context but could be applied to any large organisation with a desire to innovate.
It includes a wall map of the process,…
This resource distills the United Nations Development Programme's experience and lessons with running Social Innovation Camps into a "how-to" manual for others. The publisher intends it to broaden a project's results, attract donors, find new partners, source new perspectives on an issue, and/or place beneficiaries at the centre of project design. The resource was created within an international development and social innovation context but can be adapted for public sector use.
It is available…
The Government Innovators Network is a collection of ideas and examples of government innovation for policymakers, policy advisors, and practitioners. It contains news, articles, reports, descriptions of award-winning innovative programs, and events as well as online communities of practice. The publisher's goal is to stimulate new ideas and bring people and ideas together around innovations in government for the purpose of stimulating discourse on the principles and practices of innovation and…
An collection of communication tools used in service design processes that deal with complex systems, organised by design activities, representations, recipients, and contents. The website is the result of the research activity done by Roberta Tassi during her graduation thesis investigating the relation between communication design and service design, starting from the observation of the existing practices in the field of service design.
Each tool contains a description, how-to instructions,…
The United Kingdom government's design principles and examples of how they have been used. Each principle includes links to articles with additional explanation and reflections.
1. Start with user needs
2. Do less
3. Design with data
4. Do the hard work to make it simple
5. Iterate. Then iterate again
6. This is for everyone
7. Understand context
8. Build digital services, not websites
9. Be consistent, not uniform
10. Make things open: it makes things better
A collection of code, tools, and case studies to help United States federal agencies adopt the Open Data Policy and unlock the potential of government data.
This project is meant to be a living document, so that collaboration in the open data ecosystem is fostered, and the continual update of technology pieces that affect update can happen at a more rapid pace. Edits to the content may be made by anyone.
It could provide other governments with examples and starter content for its own open data…
This resource includes a variety of tools and techniques, enabling government entities to develop initiatives and come up with innovative solutions to enhance the efficiency of the government sector, and improve the services provided by the government to individuals and entities.
This is a collection of methods and activities, based on Hyper Island’s core methodology, for creative collaboration and realising potential in teams or organisations. It’s a collection of methods and activities, based on Hyper Island’s core methodology and is focused on Learning-by-doing (or Experiential Learning), Reflection (or Reflective Practice), and workshop or group facilitation. It includes Hyper Island tools as well as tools from others.
The Collective Action Toolkit (2nd edition) is a set of activities and methods that enables groups of people anywhere to organize, collaborate, and create solutions for problems affecting their community.
It guides users through methods according to six action areas, with suggested pathways from one method to the next. For each method, step-by-step instructions are given, in addition to the time, roles, and materials needed. Some methods include canvasses to guide activity.
The toolkit is…









