@benholliday #govdesign
Design is everything that
your product does. It’s also the
service around your product.
How it’s sold, distributed and
supported
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@benholliday #govdesign
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Making things digital
≠ making digital things
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@benholliday #govdesign
Making things digital is
employing the culture,
mindset, practices, processes,
skills and technologies of the
internet era
Tom Loosemore (adapted)
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@benholliday #govdesign
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Digital is something you are,
not something you do
Janet Hughes - bit.ly/digital-org
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@benholliday #govdesign
PURPOSE
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@benholliday #govdesign
Everything we do is about
changing lives by providing
security, extending opportunity
and giving people in our
society the support they need
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@benholliday #govdesign
This is the real challenge:
An organisation that delivers
services organising itself
around the needs
of its users
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@benholliday #govdesign
TEAMS
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@benholliday #govdesign
Any creative process
needs clarity and focus
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@benholliday #govdesign
…creativity isn’t about
making additions; it’s
about making
subtractions. Ideas need
honing, simplifying and
focussing
Will Gompertz
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@benholliday #govdesign
Design team of 40+ people
specialising in service design,
interaction design, content
design and front end
development
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@benholliday #govdesign
Building a design community
benholliday.com/building-a-design-community
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@benholliday #govdesign
1. Make sure everyone can talk
to each other
2. Give everyone the opportunity
to meet face-to-face
3. Encourage everyone to work
in the open
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@benholliday #govdesign
Everyone should be able to
talk about their work.
This gives visibility to everything
that we’re working on, and
encourages collaboration
benholliday.com/building-a-design-community
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@benholliday #govdesign
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LEADERSHIP
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@benholliday #govdesign
Does your organisation
have design leadership?
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@benholliday #govdesign
The only way for you
to lead is by example
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@benholliday #govdesign
Design leadership, the secret to
getting things done:
being pragmatic (you can’t win
every battle today), and
optimistic (everything is worth
fighting for)
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@benholliday #govdesign
CULTURE
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@benholliday #govdesign
Culture is everything we do,
how we do it, our intentions,
and how we work together to
make it happen
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Culture is the result of
collective, small, actions
@benholliday #govdesign
Be deliberate with
your language
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The goal should be to remove
anything, including language,
that creates barriers when
working on a public service
benholliday.com/the-problem-with-customer
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We call it user research not user
testing. We test our design, our
words and our ideas. We don’t
test our users
Leisa Reichelt
userresearch.blog.gov.uk/its-user-research-
not-user-testing
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@benholliday #govdesign
FOCUS
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If we’re not
communicating well with
each other, it’s unlikely
we’re communicating
well with people using
our services
Melanie Cannon
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@benholliday #govdesign
Start with ‘why’.
Everything we work on
gets started for a
reason.
Then move on to ‘who’,
‘what’ and ‘how’
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@benholliday #govdesign
MISTAKES
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@benholliday #govdesign
Take small risks
every day
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The greatest enemy of
success is the attempt to
fortify against failure
Ed Catmull (co-founder Pixar)
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@benholliday #govdesign
Ways to manage failure:
• prioritise rituals of doing
• experiment more
• shorten the feedback loop
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Design at its best frames the
unusual and celebrates
diversity. Its mistakes make it
human. It’s made up of complex
emotions
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@benholliday #govdesign
Cows on the path.
Not just paving the cow paths
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@benholliday #govdesign
COLLABORATION
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@benholliday #govdesign
If you care about design
then don’t worry about
who gets the credit
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@benholliday #govdesign
What’s your campfire, or what
draws people together in
your organisation?
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@benholliday #govdesign
…move from ‘everyone wants
to solve the problem’ to
‘everyone wants the problem
to be solved’
benholliday.com/everyone-wants-to-
solve-the-problem
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@benholliday #govdesign
JOY
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@benholliday #govdesign
Design has a
unique opportunity
to bring joy into the
world.
The question is
always ‘why not’?
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@benholliday #govdesign
Joy is always
found in the detail
of application and
experience
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Enjoy the size of the problem
benholliday.com/learning-to-enjoy-the-size-of-the-problem
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@benholliday #govdesign
…the more seriously we take
things the more ridged or
unimaginative our work can
become
benholliday.com/learning-to-enjoy-the-
size-of-the-problem
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@benholliday #govdesign
YOU
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Finding your edge gives you a focus.
It makes everything more real
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@benholliday #govdesign
We do our best work when we
have something to lose (even if
it’s just our reputation).
This means accountability for
outcomes and learning to work
through failure
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@benholliday #govdesign
You earn the extreme
moments of optimism from the
daily struggles we all fight our
way through
Bruce Springsteen