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Created by the Public Governance Directorate

This website was created by the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI), part of the OECD Public Governance Directorate (GOV).

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Validation that this is an official OECD website can be found on the Innovative Government page of the corporate OECD website.

Toolkit

The Service Design Playbook

This resource describes a comprehensive method for the BC Public Service (BCPS) to design services for British Columbians, although it is also applicable to other governments. The Playbook is intended to help ensure public service designers have the necessary tools and corporate support to make change. It includes an overview of service design, a discussion of when and how to use it, as well as detailed guidance and tools for the various methods used in service design. The methods are organised…
Toolkit

Stanford d.school Tools for Taking Action

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This is a curated collection of 30+ resources from Stanford d.school classes and workshops, including activities, tools, and how-to guides. They are intended for anyone who wants to become more familiar with design thinking or unlocking creative thinking in whatever challenge being tackled. Some are full-fledged workshops that for guiding others through. Other resources are short worksheet-based activities.
Toolkit

The Social Design Methods Menu

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The toolkit provides an approach and methods those looking for a new way to tackle social and policy issues by making services more valuable to customers and users, easier to use, with fewer resources wasted on implementing the right ideas in the wrong way (or on the wrong ideas entirely). This approach involves spending time understanding people’s experiences and resources on their own terms, taking methodical steps to analyse and address these with their active participation, and pushing for…
Toolkit

A Rough Guide to the Shift Surrey Approach

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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.
Toolkit

Public Sector Innovation Toolkit

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Toolkit developed by the Australian central government, this resource offers 28 pieces of guidance, methods, or techniques for different stages of an organisational innovation lifecycle. The resource includes an Innovation Diagnostic to get a snapshot on which phase of the innovation cycle an agency might need to focus on.
The guide offers practical guidance to local government officials on how to build a culture and practice of innovation and give local leaders an action-oriented framework for breakthrough innovation. It lays out nine “Imperatives” towards this end, with concrete action steps for each to help cities get started, along with illustrative case studies.
Toolkit

Innovation Labs: A Do-It-Yourself Guide

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This document gives you the information you need to create your own lab. This could be a UNICEF lab—or could simply be a space of creativity that is aimed at solving significant global problems through the application of dedicated local resources. It provides background on labs, defining a lab's purpose, budget and scoping, and examples of different lab models (outreach/training, product development, service development, operational research, and content broadcasting). It also includes…
Toolkit

Design with Intent Toolkit

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A collection of design patterns, or ‘gambits’, for influencing user behaviour through design. It’s applicable across product, service, interaction and architectural design, aimed particularly at socially and environmentally beneficial behaviour change. The patterns are drawn from a range of disciplines, and are phrased as questions or provocations to enable the toolkit’s use as both a brainstorming tool and a guide for exploring the field of design for behaviour change. It includes…
Toolkit

Service Design Tools

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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,…
Toolkit

​Implementing Innovation: A User’s Manual for Open Government Programs

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A hands-on resource that provides practical advice, guidance, and an 8-phase process from concept development to implementation for building an open government program, with each step referencing principles, lessons learned, case studies, and a checklist for determining whether you are at the right phase. This resource complements Open Government Partnership Action Plans and and was developed as part of a year-long project with the Mexican government.