Task Type: Problem solving
This is a collection of tools for an Open Government Partnership communications team, including the OGP's tips on blogging, branding, talking points, press guide, etc.
While this is specifically created for Open Government Partnership partners, it it can be adapted for other public sector initiatives, services, or programs.
A community sourced set of best practices and principles to help incorporate human-centered design into a product development process.
The website contains dozens of methods organised by process, difficulty, time required, and outcomes. Each method contains an overview, detailed, steps, resources, and examples or cases.
The methods are framed in terms of private sector product or service development but can be adapted to a public sector context.
DemTools is a suite of free, open source software solutions developed by NDITech and distributed for supporting democracy building efforts around the world. The software includes contact management, issue tracking, crowdsourcing, election monitoring, open data, and petition development tools. These were built with the developing world in mind but can also be used in other contexts.
An associated DemTools Guide Book offers an overview of each of the suite of tools, including use cases, user…
Inclusive design is designing for the full range of human diversity in ability, language, income, culture, gender, age and other characteristics. This toolkit includes a series of cards to use early in a design process to help sketch, plan, prototype and design content, interactions and processes. It covers inclusive physical, audio, visual, and thought experiences. PDF and editable Word document available via the publisher's Github page.
The Toolkit helps government employees use crowdsourcing and citizen science in their work. It provides five basic process steps for planning, designing and carrying out a crowdsourcing or citizen science project. It also includes a case study library of this process in practice as well as citizen science-related resources (examples, background information, journal articles, tools).
These methods were developed for United States Government staff but could also be used by other governments and…
Lean Brand Creation is a structured method for lean creation of a new brand, and a strategic guideline for an existing brand in any brand, marketing & experience design work. It contains a set of 22 canvasses. It is intended for a marketing context but some techniques could be adapted for public services or for stakeholder engagement.
It is an offspring of Futurice’s Lean Service Creation, and can be used with the LSC toolkit or on its own.
“Scenes” is a tool and a method to create visual stories about products and services fast, collaboratively and iteratively. It is intended for leaders and professionals of all industries to shape their ideas and scenarios in the form of fun illustrative storyboards without the need of refined drawing skills. It uses storytelling instead of long functional specifications for new or redesigned services or concepts.
It contains free, downloadable and printable templates for professionals to…
A curated set of 18 canvases that walk you through the steps needed for creating services & products using the combined principles and methodologies of agile development, lean startup, and design thinking. The publisher's intent is for you to reach business objectives in an iterative and human-centric way. In adapting to a public sector context, "customers" may need to be re-framed as stakeholders or service users. GitHub source content available. Includes how-to videos.
This kit discusses the fundamentals of innovation - immersion (understanding the context), problem definition, ideation, prototyping and testing
This kit explains how to evaluate a public policy approach/initiative, through the lens of several methodologies, including theory of change, agile (agilismo), deep dives ("Inmersiones profundas"), adaptive planning and adaptive management.








