2. 2
Want to improve
public service design?
This toolkit can help you…
• Surface new information and development opportunities for a client government
• Ensure your project is stakeholder-owned and demand-driven
• Facilitate collaboration between individuals, institutions, cities, countries, and others
• Catalyse innovative development work that addresses unmet needs from a human-centred perspective
• Identify a challenge through more robust problem definition
• Play an effective role as a broker for learning exchange between countries and other partners
Photo: Reception desk at Gazipur City Corporation, China-Bangladesh South-South Project on Urban Solutions
3. This toolkit is a product UNDP’s Bangkok Regional Hub and part of a broader initiative on Design Thinking for Country to Country learning. Taimur Khilji, Programme
Specialist, UNDP conceived and provided overall strategic guidance toward this initiative. The lead authors of this toolkit are Bernise Ang, Shaun Koh and Sandra
Duifhuizen from Zeroth Labs, and Kal Joffres from Tandemic.
This toolkit benefitted greatly from substantive inputs and comments from Zoe Zhang, Ashekur Rahman, Francisco Santos- Padron, Sarah Reed, Raphaelle
Roffo, Patrick Duong, Ramya Gopalan, Nan Collins, and Maria Chen. In addition, the valuable feedback from participants of the UNDP regional co-creation and roll-out
workshop on the present toolkit was key to ensuring the relevance of this publication to UNDP Country Offices.
Special thanks goes Joseph D’Cruz, Team Leader, Inclusive Growth Team for his leadership.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
3
4. 4
Table of Contents
Phase 1: ALIGN 11
Getting Buy-in 12
Articulating Motivations 12
Identify & Agree on the Challenge 13
How To: Identify a Problem Area 14
Creating a Working Group 15
Creating a Changemaker Team 16
Overview of Roles 17
Phase 2: UNDERSTAND 18
Why Research Your Own Context? 19
Context & Analysis 20
Field Research 21
Tools for Understanding Stakeholders & Users 22
Synthesising Your Findings 23
Refining (or Re-defining) Your Design Challenge 24
How To: Do a Root Cause Analysis 25
Phase 3: TRANSLATE 26
Identifying Opportunities for Change 27
Selecting a Learning Partner 28
Getting Inspiration From Another Context 29
How To: Conduct a Study Visit 30
Taking it Home 31
Making Inspirations Useful 32
Phase 4: DEVELOP 33
Developing Ideas into Testable Prototypes 34
Role Play/Experience Prototypes & Functional Prototypes 35
Best Practices for Prototyping & Gathering Feedback 36
Refining Ideas & Implementation 37
ANNEX 40
Overview of Responsibilities 41
Template Project Timeline 42
Planning Your Study Visit 43
Study Visit Workshop 45
Strategy: The Prototype Workshop 46
Glossary 53
References 54
About this Toolkit 5
Design Thinking for Country-Country Learning: A Human-
Centred Approach
7
Putting this Toolkit to Work 8
Scenarios of Use 9
FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES 38
5. ABOUT THIS TOOLKIT
5
This toolkit provides a structured process for anyone
who wishes to design and implement a South-South
learning exchange (SSLE) using an approach called
design thinking, also known as human-centred design.
While it be used by anyone doing work in learning
exchange, it is created for brokers of learning
exchange: those who facilitate engagements between
knowledge seekers and providers.
This guide takes a systematic approach to South-South exchange by deconstructing
the learning process into four simple phases and providing tools and techniques to help
you be an effective knowledge broker.
As an approach, design thinking is a way of problem-solving and creating solutions
based on user needs, in particular unmet needs. Building those kinds of ideas requires
developing a deep understanding of the people we are building for, and continuously
testing those ideas against our assumptions.
As such, this toolkit:
• Identifies opportunities for, and suggests, how design thinking might inspire SSLEs
that lead to greater human development outcomes
• Provides specific guidance on how to carry out a SSLE using the design thinking
approach, with a full process articulated within
• Also provides guidance for modular use, ie. in particular scenarios, on specific
elements where design thinking may be useful
THIS TOOLKIT IS A PROTOTYPE
This toolkit was developed based on the experience
of one specific project — the China-Bangladesh
South-South Project on Urban Solutions, 2014 —
on the (re)design of public services. In recognising
that South-South cooperation takes myriad forms on
a spectrum, this is not a complete guide for how to
do South-South exchanges effectively. It will require
several more projects and case studies to shape
and develop a methodology that is robust and can
apply to more categories of South-South work.
DESIGN THINKING IS NOT FOR EVERYTHING
In the same vein, design thinking may not apply
wholesale to all South-South exchanges. We see
that design thinking can be a powerful method for
projects related to products or services — so far.
The application of design thinking to other domains
remains in need of much testing. We advocate,
however, that the human-centred perspective,
anchored in the people you wish to serve, is useful
as a principle in development work generally.
Therefore, we encourage the exploration of this
aspect of design thinking in instances where it may
be applied, including as a philosophy.
MASTERY TAKES PRACTICE
As with any type of practice — in addition to
mindset — design thinking as a skill is one that is
developed with experience. With greater experience
comes the dexterity and judgment to determine
when a good tool is best applied, as well as how to
apply it.
6. 6
THIS TOOLKIT IS
FOR YOU
• You're working on a development
challenge with a user/citizen -facing
dimension (eg. a service, product, etc) and
you would like to find out how others have
tackled similar problems
• You're working on a complex challenge
and you would like to develop some ideas
on how to address it through local
knowledge, including from users/citizens
• You have some ideas for potential
solutions to a complex challenge and you
want to find out which ones best address
the problem and should be prototyped
This toolkit can be used in a variety of
scenarios (see “Scenarios of Use” on page
9). The approach and the steps we have
described here do not necessarily need to
be used in their entirety, or in the order
articulated. Feel free to modify the approach,
or use it modularly, to best suit your
purposes as long as you retain the core
principles of:
• Being human-centred by developing
empathy for your users
• Using prototyping and iteration to test the
validity of ideas behind your solutions,
and to improve on them.
TOOLKIT TAKES YOU
TO PROTOTYPE
The strength of the design thinking is in the
innovation process of arriving at concepts
and solutions which better meet your users’
needs. The end point of the process in this
toolkit: prototypes. You will end up with a
number of prototypes, which your team can
choose from and decide which one/s to
implement. (We suggest that a medium level
of fidelity of prototypes will allow you to
better understand and visualise the kind of
solution you may go on to implement.)
Therefore, after the process articulated in this
toolkit, the next step is the actual
implementation of your solutions. Be sure to
plan and budget accordingly for it, whether
you are implementing with in-house
resources or externally with consultants or
other partners.
What’s really
interesting about
design thinking is
the notion of
prototyping. You
are experimenting,
and actively
learning, which
gives you more
insight on who
you’re building
solutions for.
Taimur Khilji, Policy Specialist, Inequality and MDGs, UNDP
Bangkok Regional Hub
7. Understand
the problem
7
Design Thinking for Country-Country Learning:
A Human-Centred Approach
Translatebased on inspirationskey stakeholders
Align
Develop
prototypes and test them
8. PUTTING THE TOOLKIT TO WORK
8
If your team isn’t already familiar with design thinking, there are two
general formats you might use to carry through your project:
Approach Pros Cons
Small mixed team comprising
client staff and full-time
consultants over 3-4 months
Potentially higher
quality results +
strong capacity
building for client in
design thinking
More costly
Small team of client staff, with
support of a consultant in key
phases, and workshops with
larger staff team
Capacity building for
client in design thinking;
builds broad buy-in
Some risk on outcome.
Use when staff have
particular skills related
to design thinking
2
1
Photo: Prioritisation of solutions. Bangladesh workshop, China-Bangladesh South-South Project on Urban Solutions
9. Scenarios of Use
The following Scenarios of Use help to outline four possible ways to use this toolkit for South-
South learning exchanges. These depend on whether the government you work with (or “host
government”) wishes to learn, or share, and whether a partner country has been identified.
wish to learn
country partner
identified
2
3
1
4
wish to share
country partner
not identified
Blank Slate
Model Answer
Keen Student
Match Made
9
10. 1 The Blank Slate
This mode of use offers the widest opportunity for UNDP to demonstrate
its value as a go-to partner in constructing a learning engagement from
the ground up. It enables a deeper, more nuanced understanding and
problem definition of a complex challenge or issue. With more variables to
play with, more tools and engagement modalities can be examined, and
more stakeholders in the landscape can become participants in the
process.
Use when you:
• Have 10-16 weeks to design and plan the exchange prior to delivery
• Have the resources to allocate on thinking through a multi-faceted
challenge
• Need to engage many actors in the process, such as informal
communities, different levels of government, service providers, etc
Pull out and use:
• All sections of the Toolkit, allowing the nature and scope of the
Challenge to determine the appropriate timeframes for each Phase.
The Model Answer
This scenario involves arriving at a good understanding of the context of
your host government, as well as the challenge/s they have successfully
tackled. It may require some sensitivity in stakeholder management, as an
approach that is fixed on a particular intervention may occlude the
learning partner from meeting real, unmet needs.
Use when you:
• Have access to a host government who is willing to share information
on the nature of the problem your host government has tackled, and
on their solution development journey.
• Can engage fellow UNDP COs to leverage their existing knowledge on
their respective host governments and local contexts, or otherwise
have access to such information. This will help you identify suitable
country partner/s that your host government can share with.
Pull out and use:
• UNDERSTAND — for context of the knowledge-providing country
4
The Keen Student
In this scenario, depending on time resources available, there is room to
explore learning country partners who would maximise learning value for
your host government. If for diplomatic or other reasons you must go
ahead with a particular country partner, that need not stop you from arriving
at a level of understanding of the particular issue area that enables you to
identify optimum learning partner/s to work with.
Use when you:
• Have the latitude to conduct local research to understand the problem
your host government is facing
• Can engage fellow UNDP COs to leverage their existing knowledge on
their respective host governments and local contexts, or otherwise have
access to such information.
Pull out and use:
• UNDERSTAND
• TRANSLATE
• You can also use DEVELOP if the resulting solution is something that
can be prototyped, eg. a product or a service.
Match Made
If this scenario applies to you, your priority is to manage the risk of
unexpected negative consequences that may occur when a solution is
taken from one context and replicated in another without sufficient
understanding of the knowledge-seeking country. Your role is also to arrive
at a sufficiently strong understanding of the solution/s your host
government has implemented, so that you are able to break down solutions
into potentially useable elements that a knowledge-seeking country can
draw inspiration from.
Use when you:
• Have access to a host government who is willing to share information
on the nature of the problem your host government has tackled, and on
their solution development journey.
• Have access to local research of your CO counterpart in the knowledge-
seeking country, or otherwise able to obtain local context
Pull out and use:
• UNDERSTAND — for both knowledge -providing and -seeking countries
2
3
10
11. Phase 1: ALIGN
alignment of key stakeholders around a challenge
GOALS • IN THIS PHASE YOU WILL:
• Identify a problem area or working challenge
• Get an agreement from key decision-makers on a
working challenge for the project
• Have roles defined for members of changemaker team
• Establish a project timeline (with some room for
flexibility)
• Obtain necessary approvals for project to proceed
11
12. GETTING BUY-IN
Creating buy-in from key decision-makers is
key. Many development interventions have
failed as a result of misaligned expectations
and/or incentives in projects or initiatives.
There are at least 3 possible ways of creating
buy-in from the leadership of potential SSLEs:
1. Showing opportunities or successes. Successes from counterparts
are a powerful motivator for change. These may be shown through a
well-documented portfolio of case studies, or presentations delivered by
those familiar with the cases. The focus of these cases should be on the
impact of the project, and the broad approach on how the success was
achieved, rather than the technical details of project execution.
2. Building relationships with potential SSLE partners. Relationships
with trust as well as open, frank communications among the individuals
who make the leadership of organisations and governments are a factor
for partnerships being created. What role might in-person forums and
meetings play in fostering these relationships? Also, consider the nature
of the interactions you seek to create. What combination of formal/
informal, as well as structured/unstructured sessions, would help you
achieve the rapport you wish to create?
3. Take them there. Where resources allow, have decision-makers from
the political or leadership of the receiving country take part in a study visit
designed to generate buy-in for some of the ideas about what might be
adopted back home, and ultimately for the notion around a SSLE project.
You can also create buy-in on the part of the providing country by
conducting an expert visit to the receiving country. NB. This would be a
different study visit than the one for working level individuals who would
be part of the executing team implementing the solution/s back home.
ARTICULATING
MOTIVATIONS
Once you have buy-in or interest from a
government client on a potential SSLE, the next
step is to understand the motivations of the key
stakeholders involved. Primarily this refers to the
prospective client, and the UNDP team brokering
the SSLE. Some steps you can do to achieve
this:
1. Clarity on your development agenda. Different CO teams have different
development agendas for the respective countries where they are based.
Get the clarity you need on the development goal which the potential SSLE
may contribute to. This will guide your conversation with the prospective
client.
2. Clarity on client’s development (and any other) agenda. Before any
multi-stakeholder dialogues, it’s important to create the space for a frank
discussion about a prospective client’s motivations for an SSLE project.
Some questions to consider when you conduct such discussion(s):
• What are the client’s goals for an engagement? Is there a development
goal which the client has a mandate to achieve?
• What are the possible political motivations for an engagement? If any,
to what extent are they divergent/convergent to your team’s
development agenda?
• What other development financiers might the prospective client have
relationships with? With whom would it make the most sense for them
to partner with?
• Does the potential client really want this? Would they be motivated
enough to provide the time, access to key relationships, staff and
other resources for the project to be successful?
Phase 1
align stakeholders
12
As referenced in “The Model Answer” in Scenarios of Use (page
10), it may be helpful to develop some sensitivity as a UNDP
country team towards a potential client who may be particularly
keen on a certain intervention. Starting with a fixed solution from
the outset may affect the opportunity to identify real unmet needs.
Plan a budget based on the relevant phases you
are employing. Get the necessary approvals.
TIP
TIP
Step
1
Step
2
13. After the motivation for the prospective SSLE has been established, the project itself needs to
be determined. What challenge or problem area will the SSLE be structured around? These
steps may help identify a working challenge to initiate the SSLE:
1. Start with the challenges faced by the client. Any government may
likely face multiple challenges at any one time. These may be around a
policy area, a service, an organisational issue, or others. Set up a session
where you can work with the client to understand the various challenges
they currently face. Then, work with the client to rank them in order of
importance. Finally, with this list, identify one critical issue which aligns with
both their development goal, and yours.
2. Set project parameters. Identify some parameters: timeframe,
geographical coverage, topic/domain/thematic area. This will help you in
structuring the SSLE.
3. Get an agreement. You do not need to define all the project specifications
at this point. In the ideal case, you and the client have a specific challenge
which is framed in terms of the needs of the citizens being served.
However, the minimum you need at this point is a MOU that identifies the
working challenge or problem area which the project will be structured
around. This challenge should be something that is developed by both your
team and the client, together.
Challenges
faced by client
Development agenda
of UNDP Country Office
Development
agenda of client
It is important to convey to the client that the “challenge” is
something that may be changed as the project progresses and new
information is learnt. The end game is ultimately to achieve a
development goal. The way an issue is framed is key to the project
outcome, so there should be space to allow for robust problem
definition to frame the challenge of the project.
IDENTIFY & AGREE ON THE CHALLENGE
13
Phase 1
align stakeholders
TIP ideal challenge/
problem area
Step
3
See next page for How To Identify a Problem Area.
14. HOW TO: IDENTIFY A PROBLEM AREA
Ask any government official about what problems they are dealing with and the response
is likely to be larger than the scope that any one single project can solve. However, for
project success, it is important that a challenge scope has focus. Here are some
guidelines for identifying the challenge, which forms the basis of the project:
1. Focus on a specific user group or community your government
partner serves. This may need to be a subset of the total population
served by your government partner, to begin with. Once small victories
have been achieved, buy-in can be created for larger projects, which can
be scaled for broader impact.
2. Make sure the challenge is addressing a problem. The nature of
design thinking is best harnessed by a problem to find solutions to, rather
than as a fixed idea that is pre-determined as a solution.
3. Allow for exploration of multiple solutions. This allows for the
possibility of new interventions to emerge. This is particularly helpful in
situations that are stagnant or intractable.
4. Ensure feasibility within timeframe. Check that the scope of the
project - both in topic area and in geographical latitude - is not too
extensive for the timeframe determined by your team.
Allow for changes in the timeframe to reflect new learnings as the
project progresses. As part of the project involves investigation to
better understand a problem, flexibility in timeframe will allow the
project to benefit from these lessons as they emerge.
Photo: Problem identification. HOME project on foreign domestic workers in Singapore, Zeroth Labs. 14
Phase 1
align stakeholders
TIP
15. The working group comprises a spectrum of stakeholders related to the challenge,
retaining the benefit of the diversity of perspectives. Create a working group that
encompasses the changemaker team and a wider team of people whose involvement in the
project will respond dynamically to what is needed at various points in the project.
CREATING A WORKING GROUP
15
Phase 1
align stakeholders
Spectrum of Stakeholders
Example of individuals to include in your working group could include:
• Government Officials not directly involved with the project
• Heads of Departments and other staff from your service centre
• NGO representatives
• Country Officers from host countries
• Experts in design, architecture, urban planning
• IT specialist(s)
• Other Local Experts
Modalities of Engagement
Determine how the working group will be engaged.
• Will the WG interact digitally or in person?
• How often will they meet?
• Will they share project updates, discuss/resolve arising issues?
• What is the decision-making mandate between the Changemaker
Team (see next page) and the wider WG?
Changemaker
Team
Working Group
Other relevant
stakeholders
Step
4
16. CREATING A CHANGEMAKER TEAM
This is the design team that will be executing
the project. The small size and defined
responsibilities of the changemaker team
engenders agility, ownership and action.
Developing a set of criteria may be helpful to determine who should be on this
team. Here are some questions that may guide you in doing so:
• Who has knowledge and expertise in the subject matter or problem area?
• Who are the decision makers or sponsors who will be key?
• Who will be using or delivering this solution in the future?
• Who has the energy and could be a champion to make this project a
success?
• Who has knowledge of the user perspective, or has access to it?
Ideally, this would be a small team (approx 3-6 pax), and should include people from different functions
(eg. customer service, HR, operations, etc) as well as different perspectives (eg. service provider,
service user, etc). You can draw from the wider working group, or just from the executing organisation.
Teams are also most effective when the
roles of team members are clear and
intentional. Some examples of roles for a
changemaker team:
Project organiser: managing team schedules, ensuring team is
progressing on time
Documenter: capturing the project’s development through notes,
photos, post-its, etc
Fixer: finding users, experts, experiences and other resources for the
team’s work
Designer: resource person familiar with the design process, able to
guide the team in each stage of project, and in the transitions from one
stage to the next
Photo: Changemaker team and roles. Under The Hood Project on neighbourhood transformation, Zeroth Labs. 16
user perspective
+ documenter
social services
+ fixer
UNDP
(convenor/partner)
education
+ organiser
gov agency
(client)
tech
+ design
Phase 1
align stakeholders
TIP
Step
5
See next page for overview of roles for
Working Group and Changemaker Team.
17. OVERVIEW OF ROLES
The success of the South-South learning exchange largely depends on having the right
participants, teams and organisations take ownership for the appropriate tasks at the
appropriate phase. Below are some of the main roles described.
UNDP Country Officer /
Project Manager
The UNDP Country Officer or Project Manager takes on the facilitator/
convening role. They can help promote and suggest South-South
learning at forums, conferences and other events, and will be
responsible for connecting knowledge-seeking countries with
knowledge-providing countries. They will act as a guide for the
changemaker team throughout the entire project, maintain an overview
of progress through documentation, and provide assistance on the
process where needed. They are also responsible for ensuring that the
project starts well and for initiating the set up of the changemaker team.
They should therefore, be prepared to be heavily involved during the
Align phase.
Changemaker Team
The changemaker team will be formed during the Align phase, and from
thereon, will be responsible for the design, coordination, documentation
and overall execution of the exchange. They will take the project
forward, and may act as facilitators, running workshops, conferences,
and study visits. They may also decide to outsource certain tasks to
consultants or to the UNDP representative, for roles that require outside
expertise, for example. Finally, they will be responsible for monitoring
and evaluating the progress of the results after the exchange has been
finalised.
Working Group
The working group will also be selected during the Align phase. Their
involvement in each activity and phase thereafter will depend on when
their expertise or position of influence is needed. This in itself will vary
from project to project as the conditions in each South-South learning
exchange will vary. For example, if the project focus was on re-
designing a service centre, selected users, heads of department for
current service centres, urban planners and IT experts might be part of
the working group. Users and heads of departments might only be
involved during workshops, interviews and for testing prototypes. IT
experts and urban planners may only be involved during research and
prototyping phases.
See Annex for overview of responsibilities for each role in each phase.
17
Phase 1
align stakeholders
18. GOALS • IN THIS PHASE YOU WILL:
• Obtain research insights
• Arrive at a refined/reframed design challenge
Phase 2: UNDERSTAND
getting a deeper understanding of the problem you are tackling
18
19. WHY RESEARCH YOUR OWN CONTEXT?
19
Conducting thorough and relevant research is
important to developing in-depth understanding about
the context your challenge is embedded in, and to
understanding the problem from the point of view of
your users and other stakeholders. Looking at
challenges from the user perspective requires us to
make sure we are solving a problem that is worth
solving – for both those who will receive the service
and the service provider.
PRELIMINARY RESEARCH
• Before setting out to collect new information, it might be useful to surface and
document the changemaker team’s in-house knowledge on the status quo of the
design challenge and other relevant areas of information. By conducting a ‘What
do we know’ session, you can identify gaps in the team’s knowledge, as well as
areas that will require further research.
• You may also already begin to conduct some more general and background
research to help orient your team and fill any gaps in knowledge about the local
context. The main method to be used for information collection here is desk
research.
HOW TO:
RUN A “WHAT DO WE KNOW" SESSION
1. First, on post-Its, write down what you
already know about the Design Challenge,
including:
• Political, socio-cultural and historical
landscape the challenge is embedded
in
• Current solution(s) and scope, if
applicable
• What do people need
• What technologies can help in this
challenge
• What solutions/ideas are being tried in
other sectors (e.g. private sector)
• Stakeholders involved (map these out)
2. Where is the team’s knowledge strongest?
Where is it the weakest?
3. Write down what you don’t know but need
to learn more about. Where are the
biggest needs for research?
Source: Adapted from IDEO’s HCD Toolkit1
Step
1
Phase 2
understand the problem
20. CONTEXT ANALYSIS
20
Here we reference two tools that may be useful in getting a grasp of the context you wish to
understand. There are many others out there and we encourage you to explore more.
During this phase, utilise your network and access to existing resources as much as possible. Try to collect
as much information as you can prior to visits through these networks and internal resources, especially
documents that include information on numerical data, system processes and organisational structure.
TIP
STEEPD: A framework for context analysis
There are several tools you can use for context analysis. The most common of these is known
as the PEST analysis. We find that a variation of this is potentially more relevant to the context
of development work, known as STEEPD. This framework addresses the social, technological,
economic, environmental, political/regulatory and demographic aspects of a context. The
categories are as presented in the framework below.
Source: STEEPD Framework, Zeroth Labs
Step
2
Institutional & Context
Analysis (ICA)
This is a guidance note produced by UNDP as “… a
resource that helps UNDP staff understand the political and
institutional context in which they operate in a way that is
suited to the needs and mandate of the organisation. It
offers practical guidance to UNDP Country Offices on how
to use ICA to assess the enabling environment.”2
Available here.
Phase 2
understand the problem
21. FIELD RESEARCH
For your actual field research, your team should prioritise
their focus on understanding stakeholders and
understanding user/constituent behaviour. Other objectives
include investigating and mapping out current services/
processes that exist (status quo), and observing problems
from the service provider perspective. Interviews with users
and stakeholders, site visits and workshop sessions are all
research activities that may take place during this phase.
Preparing for your field research
1. Choosing Stakeholders. Using the preliminary stakeholder map that your team produced
in your ‘What Do We Know session, you might already have a better idea of the
organisations and institutions relevant to your design challenge. Start scheduling meetings
and interviews with the stakeholders that you would like to visit, interview and understand
better. Also, speak with organisations and institutions that can point out stakeholders you
might have missed. You will very likely only start to discover other stakeholders you need to
visit and interview as you go along.
2. Selecting Users. It is useful to find a good mix of average users and people who represent
the extremes. By including people from the entire spectrum, you can uncover different kinds
of behaviours, needs and struggles with the current solutions being applied in the area of the
design challenge. To help your team identify participants to individually interview, it might be
useful to set up a group session to start with3.
3. Research Schedule & Objectives. Develop a research schedule and identify the objectives
for each research activity. In the case of interviews, you may choose to write a list of topics
or questions to help guide your interviews.
Below are some useful tools/
methods that you may choose
to utilise during your research
phase. How you decide to
collect information will depend
on your needs and constraints.
• In-Context Observation
• Interviews
• Stakeholder Analysis
• Workshop
• Expert visit
• Journey Map
• Personas
• Empathy Map
• Shadowing
Phase 2
understand the problem
21
Step
3
22. TOOLS FOR UNDERSTANDING
STAKEHOLDERS & USERS
Interview Guide
Interviews are fundamental to most design research, since they enable a deep
and rich view into the behaviours, reasoning, and lives of people. If possible,
arrange to meet the participant at his/her home or workplace, so you can see
them in context4. Before conducting an interview, you will want to develop a semi-
structured Interview Guide. The semi-structured interview will provide you with
enough structure to keep the interview focused, but enough flexibility to enable
deep engagement with participants. To help you get started, below you will find
an approach to creating an interview guide, adapted from IDEO’s HCD toolkit5.
Approach
3. Move the post-its around to sort the questions into a logical flow based on the
sequencing of: START SPECIFIC, GO BROAD then PROBE DEEP.
Phase 2
understand the problem
Journey Map
To really gain understanding of the user perspective, and the user experience in relation to current
services or products, consider creating a journey map while on your site visits. A Journey Map is
an oriented graph that takes you through the journey of a user through the different touch points
that characterise his/her interaction with the service6
. It is a visual step-by-step description of their
entire product/service experience, from start to finish. For more information on journey mapping
and for examples, see the Service Design Tools website.
Personas
Developing personas will allow you to get an overview of the typical and extreme users that
currently engage with or will engage with the services or product. Personas are generalised
characters that encompass the various needs, desires, challenges and behaviour patterns among
your real and potential users. You could gather data for creating personas in several ways: while
conducting interviews with service delivery officers or with users themselves, through a small
workshop session, through observation, and meeting users at the service delivery site. Nesta’s
Development Impact & You Toolkit has a sample worksheet for field use7
.
Stakeholder Analysis
After conducting site visits and interviewing various stakeholders, it might be useful to re-visit your
stakeholder map and continue with your stakeholder analysis. In addition to completing the map
you can also identify each stakeholder’s power, influence and interest. Identify who the most
important stakeholders are, so you can discuss what their motivations and priorities are. You can
record this analysis on the stakeholder map. Nesta’s Development Impact & You Toolkit has a
sample worksheet for field use8
.
Photo: Group Interview with local translator. WTO project on behavioural insights for sanitation in rural Cambodia, Zeroth Labs.
22
1. Begin by generating
ideas on the themes and
topics you would like to
cover during the
interviews. For example:
• Services provided
• Stakeholders
• Information Sources
2. Use post-its to note down questions
that address these themes/topics. For
‘services provided’ one might ask:
• What services does your organisation
provide?
• Which services are the highest in
demand, and why?
23. SYNTHESISE YOUR FINDINGS
In this step, your team will synthesise all of the information you have been collecting
during the field research phase. You may find it useful to already start doing this while the
field research is being conducted. An Affinity Map can help your team consolidate all of
your findings and cluster data and ideas into themes.
Phase 2
understand the problem
• Write down all of
your key findings on
post-its together with
your team (1 finding
per post-it) and paste
them onto a wall or
foam core board.
• Cluster your findings
into themes and
write-down the
theme of each
cluster in a separate
colour.
• Write down any key
takeaways that might
emerge from the
download session
and place them next
to the corresponding
themes.
• Create a separate
area or use a
separate foam core
board for extracting
any challenges.
Cluster all challenges
here.
Photo: Research synthesis. NEA project on environmental behaviour change for community development, Zeroth Labs. 23
Approach
Step
4
For more information on how to construct an affinity map, see the ASQ website9.
24. REFINING (OR RE-DEFINING) YOUR CHALLENGE
Having consolidated your research findings, you will have developed a good understanding of what
the challenges and needs are for the relevant constituents, service providers and other stakeholders.
It is at this point that your team should reflect on the design challenge to see if it is still applicable and
refine or re-define it if necessary.
Allow for changes in the timeframe to reflect new learnings as the
project progresses. As part of the project involves investigation to
better understand a problem, flexibility in timeframe will allow the
project to benefit from these lessons as they emerge.
Phase 2
understand the problem
Source: Community Brief on neighbourhood transformation, Zeroth Labs.
24
TIP
See “How To: Identify A Problem Area” on page 17 for guidelines to reflecting on your challenge.
Step
5
25. HOW TO: DO A ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS
For an intervention to create systemic change, a systems-level view of the problem is needed.
A common technique to deepen understanding from obvious symptoms to its underlying
factors is Root Cause Analysis (RCA). Below is an example.
RCA is community and situation specific. The same issues may exist in
many different communities but for very different reasons. Sometimes,
answering the first “why?” may lead to a similar answer for two different
communities; however, once you move beyond the first level of underlying
cause, you may discover that the root cause in Community A is very
different from that in Community B.
Phase 2
understand the problem
25
Source: Echoing Green
TIP
RCA is one tool for understanding factors and forces in your challenge area. Its
advantage is that it is a quick way of surfacing key factors in a given challenge,
while its disadvantage is that it may represent an issue in an overly simplistic way.
We suggest that RCA is most effective when adequate research on context has
been done. This can be achieved using tools such as the STEEPD framework, ICA
(both referenced on page 20) and other political economy analysis tools.
TIP
26. Phase 3: TRANSLATE
getting inspiration and generating ideas around your challenge
26
GOALS • IN THIS PHASE YOU WILL:
• Brainstorm ideas
• Get inspirations from a different context
• Select ideas for prototyping
27. IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHANGE
The design challenge you have just reframed/revisited serves as the “North Star” for the project.
However, what makes brainstorming powerful is translating insights into questions that spark many
ideas. We call these “How Might We” (HMW) questions, or opportunity areas. They serve as
brainstorm prompts to generate better ideas10.
• Are focused enough to give some constraints, but not too narrow that
it already implies a certain solution
• Are broad enough to provide a sense of possibility, but not too broad
(like “end poverty”) that there is no frame of reference to brainstorm off
of.
Example: How might we design a service that serves a high volume of
users?
Having developed your HMW questions, you may choose to set up a
brainstorming session, one of the best ways to generate many ideas at
one time. Choose three of your best HMW questions for your brainstorm
session.
Brainstorming sessions can be seen as a special type
of meeting. When setting one up, consider inviting
people outside of your changemaker team, who may
contribute knowledge from other specialisations. Also,
consider space, timing, and supplies.
Phase 3
inspiration & translation
Brainstorming
27
Useful HMWs: Some rules to guide your team during brainstorming11:
• Defer judgment: No idea is too silly or outrageous. You want
quantity at this point!
• Think outside the box: Try to encourage wild, creative ideas.
• Build on each other’s ideas: do not hesitate to use someone
else’s idea to think of an improved version.
• Stay on topic: Use your HMWs to keep the group focused.
Also, try to avoid multiple conversations at a time
• Be visual wherever possible: Draw! This engages both the
logical and creative sides of the brain.
Photo: Brainstorming. NVPC project for philanthropy professionals on tackling low-income F&B workers, Zeroth Labs.
TIP
Step
1
28. Phase 3
inspiration & translation
28
The selection of an appropriate learning partner is dependent on 2 key
factors, and the interaction between them:
1. Understanding of context in both countries
2. Knowledge of the challenge being tackled in both countries
Specifically, the extent of similarity in context as well as in challenge are
helpful determinants on how to work with a potential learning partner.
likeness in challenge
likeness in context
solution most easily
replicated/adapted
risk of unintended
consequences; reconsider
choice of learning partner
spend time understanding
context in both home and
inspiration source
explore analogous situations
in inspiration source to take
advantage of similarity in context
SELECTING A LEARNING PARTNER
The value of a SSLE rests on the usefulness of the
knowledge shared. However, without the right
learning partner, this is difficult to achieve.
Criteria for selecting an ideal
learning partner
• Have had relevant experience in addressing similar development
challenges
• Have similarities in cultural, historical, economic, political and/or
institutional context
• Willingness to provide access to relevant information and to
stakeholders and government representatives
• Available resources for the planning and implementation of a
SSLE in the proposed timeframe
• Express commitment in an agreement, with clear responsibilities
set out
• Understanding of potential logistical issues such as translation
needs
• Have experience in presenting knowledge and projects and
understanding what is useful for knowledge transfer (ideal, but not
absolutely necessary)
Leverage the UNDP network
As a UNDP CO team member, one of your most valuable assets is
the CO network you are a part of. Use the knowledge of your
counterparts in a potential learning partner country to learn about:
• Context of that country / area — see STEEPD framework on
page 20, or use other tools as appropriate
• Relevant stakeholder relationships
• Institutional dynamics and processes that may facilitate (or hinder)
an exchange
Step
2
29. GETTING INSPIRATION FROM ANOTHER CONTEXT
Key to South-South learning is the context from which the
knowledge is gained. There are several possible different
strategies to deploy to get inspiration from another context.
Begin selecting one or more strategies at this point.
Phase 3
inspiration & translation
29
• Study visit
• Peer
dialogue
• Workshop
• Learning jam
• Expert visit
• Knowledge
exhibit
Photo: Site visit in Beijing with Bangladeshi officials, China-Bangladesh South-South Project on Urban Solutions
Step
3
30. MODULAR APPLICATION
If the resources are available, it is also possible to
enlarge a working level study visit by running a
parallel study tour for the management as well. This
would still be best run after problem definition. The
value of adding a parallel management workshop
would not be for buy-in for the project, as it would
already be underway, but to increase buy-in for the
approach or method of the project.
HOW TO: CONDUCT A STUDY VISIT
Study visits are a potentially rich source of information.
One of the key challenges is drawing out specific, detailed,
and actionable information. This section will guide you
through planning and executing a successful study visit.
Purpose: To discover inspirations that may trigger ideas for a solution back home, or that may
lead you to see your problem differently.
Inspirations may come in the form of
Be clear what your purpose is, and
who you are designing a study visit
for. This also impacts when the study
visit is best conducted.
For leadership. A study tour for decision-makers can be
helpful for creating political buy-in for a project and its
methods. The timing for this would be most useful early on in
the project timeline. Leadership level visits may have a greater
focus on presentations; they may not be as interested in doing
the detailed information gathering required for important
operational or tactical learning.
For working level staff. A study visit for staff is useful in
helping them gain a detailed and operational understanding of
the workings of the approaches used in the visited country.
Many of the learnings may be operational, which people at the
working level are best-suited to capture and analyse. The
timing for this visit is best after investigation in their home
context, as their insights would provide a stronger research
framework to explore another context.
definition of scope
curation of
information
design of the
experience
• services
• products
• behaviours
• comments
• phenomena
• systems / ways of doing something
A model on experiential learning for study visits
The model illustrated here is a way
of approaching experiential learning.
Here, it is applied to the study visit
format by breaking down its
structure into 3 core dimensions:
scope, information, experience.
This may help you in planning a visit
according to these pillars, so that
each of these may be addressed to
achieve a rich, useful, & productive
study visit.
Source: Framework for experiential learning, Zeroth Labs.
Phase 3
inspiration & translation
30
See Annex for guide to “Planning your Study Visit”.
31. TAKING IT HOME
Making inspirations useful for your context is what SSLE is about.
Whether you conducted a study visit or peer dialogue, the task now
is to identify which inspirations/solutions might work for your challenge.
Goals & Output
Some inspirations or solutions may seem directly portable to your home context, and
some may not. We encourage learning about what works based on understanding the
problem rather than replicating the solution:
• How does this service address the problem in its context?
• What does this behaviour or phenomenon tell me about the problem in this context?
• What does it tell me about the problem I’m looking to address?
Goals: Identify which ideas from another country might be adopted into your solution
Output:
• An analysis of how another country’s solution was designed to address specific kinds
of challenges
• A list of aspects of solutions that might be applicable to your challenge classified by
how likely they are transferable
Phase 3
inspiration & translation
31Photo: Identifying ideas for transfer in Beijing, China-Bangladesh South-South Project on Urban Solutions
Step
4
32. Best practices for making inspirations useful
Common Mistake Best Practice
Not looking at the dimensions of a solution that matter most. For example, in reproducing
Silicon Valley in Malaysia, the Malaysian government copied the design and landscaping of
Palo Alto without considering other important factors like, how difficult it was to get to work
from home. Malaysia’s Multimedia Supercorridor ultimately struggled because commute
times were long and property prices did not make it hospitable to entrepreneurs.
Look at the solution from different angles – physical design, human
relations, social factors – and identify which of these are essential to the
solution working.
Making an exact copy.
Use the research on context in receiving country as the basis for thinking
about how to translate solution from provider country. This means
examining the solution in how it addresses the problems in its own context,
to generate ways in which solution could be “adapted” to receiving country
Dismissing ideas that are not likely transferrable.
An idea may still be useful even if it cannot be applied to the same problem
you face at home. Instead, take the idea as an inspiration and ask yourself
whether something like this might be applicable to another problem.
Phase 3
inspiration & translation
32
Approach
We look at components of the solution rather than a unified whole. A solution has many different
components. Some of these components or ideas might be relevant to our own country context. Some of
them may not be. We look beyond the whole solution to the different pieces – customer service, application
processing, queue management, etc – to understand it during the study visit.
We tie the solution to the kinds of problems it was designed to solve. Each component of that solution
has been designed to address certain local issues. Are these local issues similar in your country or are they
different?
You understand the challenge you are trying to address. Now, you are looking for ideas for solutions — which
will speak to your challenge. We look at aspects of a problem from other countries to understand whether
their solution components might work for your challenge.
Not all of the solution components will work. The process of picking the components that speak to your
challenge, and discarding the ones that do not, is what makes your solution unique for your host government.
Why this is useful
One of the greatest challenges of learning
from other countries is ensuring that the right
kinds of ideas are adopted from one country
to another. In some cases, whole solutions
are copied into another country regardless of
fit in the new country. In other cases, it
seems like nothing can be adopted. “Our
country is different,” participants said in the
China-Bangladesh South-South Project on
Urban Solutions. There is a need for a
framework to look at different ideas and
judge which ones might be best to adopt.
33. Phase 4: DEVELOP
building concepts into prototypes and testing them
33
GOALS • IN THIS PHASE YOU WILL:
• Translate ideas into testable prototypes that can be
used to get feedback from users
• Develop buy-in from a broader segment of staff in
the implementing organisation to adopt these new
solutions
34. Prototyping, big and small
Depending on your organisational goals, there are 2
general strategies you can take for the prototyping
phase:
Phase 4
develop prototypes
Strategy Pros Cons
Changemaker team builds
prototypes and develops
iterations. They make
recommendations on what
prototypes work and should
be implemented.
Higher quality
prototypes as
prototypers are
familiar with the
challenge
Fewer prototypes
Changemaker team
facilitates large group of staff
to build prototypes.
Greater diversity of
prototypes
Some risk on quality,
as not all context and
problem definition from
research will carry
through second-hand
Entrepreneurs say that no business plan lasts beyond first contact with customers. The same might be said
for government services and their initial blueprints. It is only through working closely with users and trying
out different ideas with them that we can move beyond ideas on paper to discover what might really work.
Prototyping is a quick way of turning ideas into something real and finding out whether it’s something that
users really want. Organisations have prototyped everything from new forms and new services for citizens
to mobile apps and policies. This phase is about using prototyping to test out your ideas.
DEVELOPING IDEAS INTO TESTABLE PROTOTYPES
34
Approach
Conduct a prototyping workshop with key staff in the implementing organisation,
users, and other stakeholders. A prototyping workshop is a useful approach to
building prototypes because it allows you to explore a diversity of prototypes at once
while building buy-in for the prototypes across several parties, especially the
implementing agency.
If you have a changemaker team skilled in design thinking, you can build prototypes
through the changemaker team rather than through a workshop. However, this
requires that your team have the ability to explore a wide diversity of prototypes.
This prototyping workshop is a full cycle of design thinking work, which includes user
research and interviews. You may be wondering why workshop participants are
doing user research and site visits in addition to the user research your changemaker
team has done. There are two reasons for this:
First, putting other people in the organisation in front of users and helping them see
for themselves the challenges they are facing is one of the most powerful approaches
to lay the foundation for making change in an organisation.
Second, it’s difficult for workshop participants to produce useful prototypes if they
don’t have a strong understanding of the users they are prototyping for.
See Annex for guide to “Running a Prototyping Workshop.”
Step
1
35. Photo: Makeweekend Road Safety, Tandemic
Phase 4
develop prototypes
35
FORMS OF PROTOTYPING
Role play / Experience prototype
• What is it? Participants play different characters in the provision of a service or a
process. A service can be role played with workshop participants or potential users
to get feedback.
• What is it used for? Test out a service journey or a process.
• What kinds of questions does it answer? What is it like to use this service?
What are some of the gaps or problems we may not have thought of when
creating this user journey or service experience? What do users find difficult or
confusing about using this service?
Example
A team of social entrepreneurs working on the challenge of helping the low-income
women start businesses wanted to test the idea of a service and toolkit to help these
women get started. They used service prototyping to understand whether the service
could help answer their concerns and whether they understood the content. The
prototype includes prototypes of materials for the low-income women as well as well
as a role-play of what the service might look like.
Functional Prototype
• What is it? A quick prototype to test the feasibility of a product or service. We
select the core function of the product or service, without any of features, bells or
whistles, and run a small test to see if it works.
• What is it used for? Functional prototypes are used to test whether the product
or service works and can generate the desired impact.
• What kinds of questions does it answer? Does this approach work? What kind
of impact does this have on our users?
Example
A team of citizens wanted to test whether a simple mirror system could be used to
help drivers see whether their tires are properly inflated without leaving the car. Over
the course of a workshop, they obtained a clothes hanger, two mirrors, and fasteners
to test different angles of placement with the mirrors with different sizes of cars. The
team found that a specific configuration could allow drivers of cars of different sizes to
check whether their tires were properly inflated.
Photo: Diego Rodriguez, IDEO
36. Gather Feedback
You may be testing your prototype first internally, with other
workshop participants or colleagues. However, the best
feedback is going to come from the people who might
actually be using your product or service. Numerous
stakeholders are also probably involved in the delivery of
the product or service and so you’ll want to gather
feedback from them as well.
• Be sure to explain to your users that you are testing
rough ideas
• Try getting feedback from users who are from a different
group or even region than the ones you did research in.
This is a great way of finding out if your solution might
apply to other groups
Common
Mistake
Best Practice
Only gathering
feedback from users
or potential users.
The front-line staff who are providing a service or those who may be
responsible for promoting that service may also have significant inputs
on how to make the project successful or can point out critical points
that may prevent it from moving forward. Aim to prototype with the key
stakeholders you would need to address to make this successful.
Best Practices for Gathering Feedback
36
Common
Mistake
Best Practice
Investing too much
time in developing
prototypes before
getting feedback.
The first prototypes for an idea are built in 45 mins to an hour. Impose constraints on the
amount of time you spend developing your prototype so that your team doesn’t invest
itself too much in one approach, increasing its attachment to a particular approach. Rough
prototypes also solicit better feedback from users. Prototypes that are too refined tend to
suggest to the users that the major aspects of the idea have already been cemented and
encourage users to provide more superficial feedback, such as the look of the product.
Building and
presenting only one
prototype to potential
users to get feedback.
Building and presenting only one prototype to potential users to get feedback.
Users provide the most honest feedback when they have several options to compare
between.
Best Practices for Prototyping
Photo: Rapid prototyping. Co-creation & roll-out workshop, China-Bangladesh South-South Project on Urban Solutions
Phase 4
develop prototypes
Step
2
37. REFINING IDEAS & IMPLEMENTATION
Goals
• Refine a rough prototype into a detailed plan for implementation through user research.
• Move your ideas to the implementation of a pilot
Output
• A plan for running design sprints with your team
Why this is useful
The prototypes you have after your first workshop or prototyping session are probably
quite raw. While the prototypes helped you answer some questions they have also
generated many more questions. The approach for taking these forward is called a
design sprint. Design sprints are self-contained cycles of the design thinking process
focused on a particular issue. You might spend anywhere between 2 and 6 months
refining your prototype. Over several months of developing your prototype, you may do
3-4 design sprints.
How it works
A design sprint will include four key phases, all of which have been described in this
toolkit:
1. Understand: spend time with stakeholders affected and develop an
understanding of how they address the challenge
2. Develop opportunities: synthesise the research results and identify
opportunities to do something better or differently
3. Develop ideas: brainstorm ideas relating to these different ideas
4. Prototype, collect feedback, and iterate: test new prototypes until your team
is satisfied that you developed concept/s that meet your users’ needs.
Your design sprints will involve doing research and prototyping with stakeholders who
you have previously made contact with, as well as new stakeholders.
At any point in time during your design sprints, you may find information could cause you
to reconsider your whole concept. That’s okay and to be expected in the design process.
The earlier you are challenged to pursue new paths, the more likely you will have a strong
product or service at the end of the project.
Appoint an advisory group
While we focus primarily on users and privilege stakeholder feedback, we find
it’s useful to have a set of external advisors to discuss our insights and research
findings with at least every two weeks. Your advisory group can include:
• A senior member of the organisation who oversees staff implementing the
initiative
• Researchers, such as anthropologists, who may be involved with the kinds
of people you are designing for
• Someone who had experience running design thinking sprints
• Someone outside your organisation who has experience implementing
change initiatives
Select your topic
Select a key aspect about your prototype you want to further develop and
refine. These are some examples of aspects you could strengthen through a
design sprint:
• Prototype distribution: focus on what it’s going to take to ensure that your
product or service gets to the people it needs to get to.
• Make improvements for a segment: you may be looking at how to better
design the service for a particular segment, such as mothers.
• Explore other opportunities: you might believe there are important
opportunities or “how might we” questions that need to be explored outside
of the workshop
Set your schedule
In an ideal situation, your Changemaker Team can be dedicated full time to the
design sprint. However, most organisations cannot dedicate staff full time for
several months to an initiative such as this.
Instead, you’ll want to look at dedicating a few days of your week to working on
the design sprint. For teams that are working part-time on the design project,
we suggest dedicating 3 days a week to sprinting.
Phase 4
develop prototypes
37
Step
3
39. FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES
Strengthening the Method
As the current toolkit is based on the experience of one South-South learning exchange, the
methodology within can only reliably be seen – in full design thinking spirit – as a “prototype”.
Thus there is an important opportunity to further test this approach with other countries,
governments and organisations in South-South learning, or any other type of knowledge
exchange. As UNDP’s experience in applying design thinking grows, it will increase its
institutional capacity to sense the limits of where the approach is useful in development
work. Through several other exchanges or cooperation projects, these lessons could then be
applied to further shape the methodology itself.
Integrating with Current Processes
Currently, the present toolkit shows how to use design thinking in South-South learning
exchange projects relating to public services. It does not take into account existing UNDP
protocol on programme design, budgeting, stakeholder management or other processes
that may be related to South-South cooperation. Effectively, this introduces a relatively
foreign approach (ie. design thinking) to internal stakeholders (ie. UNDP COs) bound by
internal processes. A future evolution of this methodology may undertake a more
comprehensive study of existing protocol, and show how to integrate the human-centred
principles of design thinking into them (including various aspects of intervention design for
South-South cooperation work), thereby mainstreaming these principles where applicable.
City-to-City as a Form of
South-South?
As UNDP develops and refines its strategy on urban work,
as well as its strategy on South-South cooperation, it may
be strategic to consider the intersect of the two: city-to-city
collaboration. A framework for city-to-city cooperation may
provide guidance on project design that takes into account
development goals which are more specific to the urban
context, such as:
• Social inclusion in planning, spaces, and access to
services
• Economic equity across districts in the city
• A healthy environment
• Resilience to shocks
• Safety in a city’s neighbourhoods
• Others
There may be other opportunities to build upon this work,
and COs are encouraged to have intra- and inter- CO
discussions to generate and develop ideas further.
39
40. ANNEX
• Overview of Responsibilities
• Template Project Timeline
• Planning Your Study Visit
• Developing an Information Gathering Guide
• Conducting a Prototyping Workshop
40
41. OVERVIEW OF RESPONSIBILITIES
Align Understand Translate Develop
UNDP Country Officer / Project
Manager:
• Initiate the dialogue between the
knowledge-seeking country and
knowledge-providing country, if
partner(s) have already been chosen.
• Interview stakeholders and document
and understand their motivations
behind the project
• Facilitate any workshops or meetings in
which the challenge and goals of the
project are defined and aligned across
all parties involved.
• Together with knowledge-seeking
country representatives, set up the
changemaker team.
• Arrange for a design thinking workshop
to train changemaker team to use
design thinking methods (a consultant
could be outsourced for this).
Changemaker Team:
• The team will have only been formed
during this phase. The team could
include a consultant, if certain
expertise is required and not available
in-house.
Working Group:
• The group will have only been formed
during this phase.
UNDP Country Officer / Project
Manager:
• Guide the changemaker team through
all of the planning and research of this
phase.
• Connect the team to any documents,
organisations and networks that will
assist them in their research.
• Assist the team in facilitating the
workshop/session in which the
challenge is refined or re-defined.
Changemaker Team:
• Facilitate a ‘What Do We Know’
session.
• Plan and conduct research (or
outsource to consultant)
• Facilitate and participate in session in
which the challenge is evaluated and
re-(de)fined.
Working Group:
• Participate in interviews
• If deemed relevant, participate in the
session in which the challenge is
evaluated and re-(de)fined.
UNDP Country Officer / Project
Manager:
• If partner country/countries have not
yet been chosen, guide the
changemaker team through the
process of selection. Present them
with suggestions and connect them
with potential partner countries.
• Assist the team with the HMW and
brainstorming session(s), if necessary.
• Help team plan the study visit,
coordinate with partner countries and
relevant country officers on all logistics,
and accompany the team on the visit
(to guide/document the exchange).
Changemaker Team:
• Engage in selection process for
partner country/countries (if learning
partner not yet selected.)
• Conduct HMW & brainstorming session.
• Plan, coordinate, document and
participate in study visit or other
learning exchange method utilised.
Involve consultants, interpreters and
other resources in exchange where
needed.
• Identify which inspirations or solutions
might work for your challenge
Learning Partner:
• Prepare logistics, schedule, and
materials for meetings, workshop and
site visits.
UNDP Country Officer / Project
Manager:
• Guide the team through the steps and
assist where necessary.
• Participate in and assist in running and
documenting the prototyping phase/
workshop(s).
Changemaker Team:
• Prepare for prototyping sessions/
workshops. Select and invite
participants.
• Run prototyping sessions/workshop
• Refine a rough prototype into a
detailed plan for implementation
through user research/testing.
• Schedule and run design sprints, and
appoint an advisory team
• Create a plan for next steps, long-term
implementation and set up resources
for monitoring and evaluation.
Working Group:
• Participate in prototyping sessions/
workshops where deemed necessary
or appropriate.
• Act as a consultant for certain areas
of prototyping that require expert
advice.
41
42. 2-8 weeks +getting buy-in 4-7 weeks 4-9 weeks 3-4 weeks +refining
TEMPLATE PROJECT TIMELINE
42
Align Understand Translate Develop
(DT) t
GETTING BUY-IN:
2-8 weeks depending on the present
stage of engagement. For example, you
might take a month to plan a 3-4 day
initial visit to create buy-in, or potentially
2 months to convene a number of
countries who may be potential partners
for an exchange. Plan your budget for
the relevant phases and get approvals.
ARTICULATING MOTIVATIONS:
1 week to interview key stakeholders
one-on-one to understand their
respective context and incentives.
IDENTIFY AND AGREE ON
THE CHALLENGE:
Convene key stakeholders for the
alignment session to agree on a design
challenge or problem area. This could be a
½-1 day workshop/session.
PRELIMINARY RESEARCH & FIELD
RESEARCH PLANNING:
1-2 weeks prior to entering the field:
• conducting desk research
• planning and scheduling your
interviews and site visits
• mapping your team’s existing
knowledge creating an initial
stakeholder map
• planning research tools to use
• preparing your overall research plan
Adjust how far in advance you schedule
your meetings and interviews according
to your cultural context.
FIELD RESEARCH IN RECEIVING
COUNTRY:
2-4 weeks conducting interviews, going
on site visits, meeting stakeholders,
mapping user journeys, understanding
and articulating personas.
SYNTHESISING FINDINGS:
1 week to consolidate and synthesise
your findings. You may find that some
synthesis may have happened during the
course of research; this is normal
particularly with good documentation.
IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES FOR
CHANGE:
Start this phase by conducting a session
to develop How Might We..? prompts (or
“HMWs”) and brainstorm ideas that
address these HMWs. This could be a
½-day workshop/session.
CHOOSE YOUR IDEAL LEARNING
PARTNER/S (if applicable):
1 week researching potential learning
country partner/s:
• Desk research
• Reaching out to other COs
STUDY VISIT:
If you have decided to do a study visit,
begin your preparation and spend:
• 2-4 weeks planning for your visit
(scheduling meetings, preparing
workshop programs, receiving all
necessary preliminary information, etc).
• 1-2 weeks conducting field research
at your chosen location.
1 week is a good duration for the actual
study visit, but use your judgment.
BUILD RAPID PROTOTYPES FOR
TESTING:
During this step you will turn your ideas
into something testable and get
feedback from users. Focus on low-
fidelity prototypes that you can “mock-
up” quickly. These sessions may take
between 1-3 days.
SELECT PROTOTYPE/S FOR
ITERATION:
With the feedback from low-fidelity
testing, select a concept (or combine
multiple concepts) for low-mid fidelity
prototyping. This may take 4-5 days.
USER WALK-THROUGHS:
By now you would have richer feedback
on the concept you are building upon for
the solution. Build mid-fidelity iterations for
users to walk through your prototype. You
can hold a walk-through period of approx.
1 week, depending on number of users
and stakeholders you wish to engage at
this stage. You may need about 1 week to
identify and schedule users to come down.
RE(DE)FINING YOUR DESIGN
CHALLENGE:
Conduct this as a Changemaker Team
session in the last week of the phase.
TAKING IT HOME:
Run a session for your team to identify
which ideas from another country might
be adopted into your solution. If it is
surfaced that more information or
research is needed, plan accordingly.
Select 3-4 ideas for prototyping.
REFINING IDEAS:
Choose one or more ideas to further
iterate, and get to a medium level of fidelity
of prototype. This could take up to 4
weeks or longer. If a solution is chosen for
implementation, this will take place as a
follow-on phase. Plan budget accordingly.
CREATE A WORKING GROUP (WG)
AND CHANGEMAKER TEAM:
½ week to identify and engage
stakeholders for the wider WG.
½ week to identify and engage
individuals for the Changemaker Team.
TRAIN CHANGEMAKER TEAM:
Optional. 2-4 weeks to prepare for a 3-5
day design thinking (DT) training for
changemaker team, depending on whether
you run this in-house or engage consultants.
Don’t forget to include time for scheduling — in some cases this is what accounts for the biggest variance in project timeframes.
TIP
43. PLANNING YOUR STUDY VISIT
GoalsGoals
Plan a study visit that makes the best use of participants’ time in the visited
country
Output
A plan for your study visit
Approach
The first step is to get the answers to some key questions ahead of the study visit.
Collecting this information may require research, interviews, or an advance visit to
the destination country. Some of these questions might be:
1. What do participants want to learn about?
2. Who are the stakeholders at the destination country that might be involved in
this issue?
a) Government
b) NGOs
c) Citizen groups / CBOs
d) Business
3. Who are the people we need to hear from?
a) Context
b) Operations and history of solutions
c) Others
4. What are some of the potentially interesting solutions at the destination
country?
5. What kind of contextual knowledge is required to understand this?
a) Political
b) Economic
c) Social
d) Technological
Best practices for pre-visit research
Common Mistake Best Practice
Focusing narrowly on what
you want to find out without
seeing if there are other
useful learnings that might
not have come across.
Cast the net wide. In your visit planning research,
ask the people you speak with what they think
might be interesting or what they have learned as
they have developed their initiatives. You might
find they have useful approaches that weren’t
previously on your radar.
Having a one-way interaction
with the organisations you’re
learning from. You learn from
the organisations but they
don’t learn from your work.
Seek to give back. Find out about whether there
are things that your country might contribute back
to the organisations at the visited country. Are
there some key challenges they are tackling that
your country might be able to talk about?
People at the leadership level and people at the working level often have different
ideas about the challenges faced by the organisation and its service delivery.
When planning a study visit, consider the dynamics that may result if the bosses
are in the same room as the staff, particularly for hierarchical cultures.
Phase 3
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43
TIP
44. DEVELOPING AN INFORMATION
GATHERING GUIDE
Goals
• Clearly identify what your participants need to find out ahead of the study visit
• Provide focus to the study visits and interviews to ensure participants make the most out of their
study visit
Output
A series of questions to help understand important aspects of the products or services in the visit, as
well as lessons learned about implementing them
Approach
1. Through a series of meetings, gather different participants to the study visit and other stakeholders
to develop a list of questions they would like to have answered through the study visit.
2. Consolidate and categorise the questions into themes.
3. Distribute the full list of questions back to the participants of the study visit before they travel.
These are some of the key areas in which you may want to ask questions:
Area Example of Question
Users
What are the profiles of users? What are some of the extreme type of users? What
kinds of potential users is it not reaching it yet?
Design of the
product/service
Uncover the rationale for designing the product or service in particular ways.
Setting up &
launching
What were things that were tried but didn’t work? How has initiative changed to
respond to user needs or realities on the ground since launched?
Stakeholders
What kinds of stakeholders are there? What were relationships with them like
before launch of the product or service? How did they react?
Outreach and
marketing
What are the most effective channels to reach potential users? Why?
Context
What kind of socio-cultural, political, economic or other contextual factors played
an important role in making the product/service work?
Community
impact
How is impact measured? Which groups benefit the most? Which aspects of the
product or service create the greatest benefits and which the least?
Challenges
What are some of the biggest challenges the organisation or agency is looking to
address going forward?
Goals
• Ensure that participants get the right kind of information during the
study visit
• Ensure that key information is transmitted efficiently during the study
visit
Why this is useful
The challenge of the study visit is to learn as much as possible over a
short period of time. Staging helps ensure participants are getting the
right kind of information in an efficient way.
Approach
Alignment meetings or calls: ensure that that the things the
organisation you’re visiting wants to talk about are the things that you
want to learn about. Some countries have already set out priorities for
knowledge and technology transfer. Make sure the study visit focuses on
your needs rather than the knowledge transfer priorities of the visited
government.
Scouting: ahead of the study visit, an advance team does initial study
visits at a variety of potential locations for participants. This helps narrow
the list of potential meetings and visits down to the most impactful visits
for the leadership and working level tracks.
Prepare presenters to transfer the right kinds of information:
• Share goals: Share your research goals with the presenters/hosts and
information about the challenge you are looking to address.
• Services: For visits to an organisation providing a service, we find that
the best way to help participants understand how it works is to have
the presenter role play for participants and walk them through usage of
the service. This helps participants understand the user journey.
• Presentations: use the presentations guide below to help structure
presentations.
Presentations
Officials from various organisations will be making presentations
overviewing how their programmes and how their programmes work.
Ahead of the presentations, you’ll want to request that presentations
cover a specific set of topics.
44
PARTICIPANTS COLLECTING
WHAT’S MOST RELEVANT
45. Here’s an overview of the questions presentations should seek to answer:
What is your organisational context? If the organisation is a government agency,
where does it sit in terms of the structure of government? If the organisation is a non-
governmental organisation, who are the other stakeholders in place?
What is your scope of services? What is the whole scope of services the
organisation provides?
What are your target markets? What are the profiles of the intended users of your
services? What are the profiles of your most frequent users?
What are the problems that your service was designed to address?
How does someone come into contact with your service? Walk us through how
someone would find out about and use your service.
What is the context? What kind of socio-cultural, political, economic or other
contextual factors played an important role in making the product/service work?
What do you think are your biggest areas of success? What do you think are
biggest areas you need to improve? How are you measuring success?
STUDY VISIT
WORKSHOP
Goals
• Provide a structured process for participants to understand and analyse their
findings.
• Ensure that participants that participated in different study visits share their
research findings with each other
Why this is useful
Participants are exposed to a tremendous amount of information during a study
visit. Having a structured process to document salient points and share them on
site is essential to preserve the learnings and make them useable during the next
phases of the south-to-south framework.
Approach
Scouting: ahead of the study visit, an advance team does initial study visits at a
variety of potential locations for participants. This helps narrow the list of potential
meetings and visits down to the most impactful visits for the leadership and
working level tracks.
Prepare presenters to transfer the right kinds of information:
• Share goals: Share your research goals with the presenters/hosts and
information about the challenge you are looking to address.
• Services: For visits to an organisation providing a service, we find that the best
way to help participants understand how it works is to have the presenter role
play for participants and walk them through usage of the service. This helps
participants understand the user journey.
• Presentations: use the presentations guide below to help structure
presentations.
Presentations
Officials from various organisations will be making presentations overviewing how
their programmes and how their programmes work. Ahead of the presentations,
you’ll want to request that presentations cover a specific set of topics.
Best practices for staging
Common Mistake Best Practice
Not providing participants
with enough contextual
understanding of the
country.
Ensure that participants understand the structure of
government and the key stakeholders involved before
they start doing visits and interviews. If possible,
arrange for this to be presented by a party outside of
government such as an academic research institute.
Underestimating the
amount of required time
for planning and
scheduling the study visit.
Finding meeting times that work for multiple
government officials, schedule site visits, and obtaining
visas can take upwards of two months. Give yourself
ample time to prepare for the study visit.
Phase 3
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45
46. STRATEGY: THE PROTOTYPE WORKSHOP
Approach
Conduct a prototyping workshop with key staff in the implementing organisation,
users, and other stakeholders. A prototyping workshop is a useful approach to
building prototypes because it allows you to explore a diversity of prototypes at once
while building buy-in for the prototypes across several parties, especially the
implementing agency.
If you have a changemaker team skilled in practicing design thinking, you can build
prototypes through the changemaker team rather than through a workshop. However,
this requires that your team have the ability to explore a wide diversity of prototypes.
This prototyping workshop is a full cycle of design thinking work, which includes user
research and interviews. You may be wondering why workshop participants are doing
user research and site visits in addition to the user research your changemaker team
has done. There are two reasons for this:
First, putting other people in the organisation in front of users and helping them see for
themselves the challenges they are facing is one of the most powerful approaches to
lay the foundation for making change in an organisation.
Second, it’s difficult for workshop participants to produce useful prototypes if they
don’t have a strong understanding of the users they are prototyping for.
One: Develop your facilitation team
The prototyping and implementation workshop will involve facilitating a process based
on service design thinking. You will need a set of facilitators for the process who are
comfortable – if not trained – with the practice of design thinking.
Ideally, count one facilitator for every 5 participants. Have no less than one facilitator
for 20 people.
Need to develop your team to facilitate
service design initiatives?
• Bring in an external consultant to organise a service design thinking workshop
• Develop both your own team as well as client team’s design thinking skills
If your team is not yet proficient with service design thinking, you can develop your
team through a service design thinking train-the-facilitators workshop. We suggest
hosting a train-the-facilitators workshop with consultants less than 4 weeks ahead
of your Design to Prototyping workshop. This workshop should help develop both
the skills of your own team in facilitating the process as well as include key staff from
the client organisation to build their skills in pushing the process forward internally.
If strong local service design thinking facilitators aren’t already available locally, this is
an important investment in laying the groundwork for future design thinking
missions.
Selecting your facilitation team
Characteristic Rationale
Open to new ideas
and curious
One of the critical factors to building a successful corps of design
thinking facilitators is to identify people who would be open to the
process and who might become champions for it within the client
organisation.
Strong people and
communication skills
A key role of facilitators is to help translate the workshop
instructions into practical steps for the participants so their
communication skills are important.
English/local
language bilingual
If you are involving external (and particularly foreign) consultants to
support the process or train-the-facilitators, selecting bilingual is
essential to ensure good knowledge transfer. We’ve found that
conducting trainings through an interpreter to be less than ideal.
Not in a management
position involving the
service that’s being
redesigned
The role of management should be to sponsor and enable the
change process. Their role in a leadership position in the workshop
would lead to ideas to be too closely tailored to what staff think are
management expectations. In order for the workshop to function
successfully, we seek to leave hierarchical differences at the door.
Managers involved in the service that’s being redesigned take part
as regular participants in the workshop.
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47. Two: Select your workshop participants
Goal
Ensure you have key perspectives represented in your workshop
Why this is useful
The composition of your workshop participants plays a tremendous role in
determining the quality of the prototypes you develop. Do the participants in your
workshop come from a particular background, making them subject to
groupthink? Have you selected a set of participants that brings to the table a
variety of different perspectives on the problem?
Participant workshop checklist
Three: Prepare for your workshop
Goals
• Ensure you have scheduled with the necessary people (users, site visits) for your
workshop
• Ensure you have the necessary physical resources to run your workshop
(prototyping materials, venue)
Outputs
• Identify local services as potential sources of inspiration
• Identify or source users to interview
Approach
Your workshop will include spending time with potential users and it may include site
visits. The first step to take in preparing for your workshop is scheduling in the time
for site visits and user interviews. You can use the workshop structure in the next
section to decide on when you might want to schedule the meetings and site visits.
As in the user research phase, you’ll want to identify different types of users for
workshop participants to interview – particularly users at the extremes. You can use
the following user types chart on the next page to ensure that you’re making contact
with the key user types relevant for your workshop.
If you believe site visits might be useful, identify services that might have solved
similar problems in a different context. For example, if you are working on a one-stop
centre, you might consider how a restaurant organises its production for high
efficiency or how Apple’s Genius Bar reduces user journey time.
Participant Role Importance
Staff working within
the affected service
Staff – particularly front-end staff – have the most
direct experience with the issues and have the
most in-depth experience about the realities of
how a service works
Required
Managers working
with the affected
service
Managers need to take part in the discovery
experience and the idea development to buy into
the challenges users bring up and idea
development to push forward ideas
Required
Other staff that
make direct contact
with users of the
service, possibly
from other services
This approach works best when there are people
who can bring new perspectives to the table.
People who are not directly involved in the service
can do that. They may also shine light on new
angles to understand users
Recommended
Users or citizen
representatives
Having user voices directly participating in the
workshop can help ensure that the user
perspective is available and represented
throughout the process
Recommended
CBO
representatives who
work with the users
These NGOs need not be related to the service
being redesigned. We are relying on them to shine
new light on the lives of the users and share new
perspectives
Recommended
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48. Source: User Type Chart, Tandemic Design Thinking Toolkit (2014)
Best practices for interviews
Common Mistake Best Practice
Summoning people to a government office or hotel during the design and
landscaping of Palo Alto without considering other important factors like how
difficult it was to get to workshop venue for interviews from work or from home.
Malaysia’s Multimedia Supercorridor ultimately struggled because commute
times were long and property prices did not make it hospitable to entrepreneurs.
Where possible, we suggest interviewing users in their homes. Interviewees are more likely to
provide honest feedback in their own homes or at a neutral third location than your offices. Avoid
having an audience for the interview because this can change the interviewee’s answers. An
audience can include other people in a public space or even a husband at home.
Skipping or rushing through providing consent and a confidentiality agreement
Take the time to explain the purpose of the confidentiality agreement and how it serves to
protect all parties involved, including the interviewee. This helps build trust between the
interviewee and the participant.
Interviewing participants in large groups.
Large groups can intimidate an interviewee. Set up your interviews so that there are no more
than four people interviewing a person. Have the group report quotes from the interviewee to
their larger team.
Using a consent and confidentiality form with groups that may not be literate Consider using the Verbal Consent Protocol: http://bit.ly/verbalconsent
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49. Workshop group formation
The optimal size for working groups during workshop is 4-5 participants. The
maximum size is 7 participants. You can choose to form the groups randomly at the
workshop or to plan the composition of groups. We recommend avoiding allowing
participants to choose to ensure that the groups have diversity. You’ll want to ensure
that groups are mixed in terms of the organisational rank of participants as well their
origin (department, internal/external participant, or even geography).
One exception to this might be workshop participants who represent users. If you are
particularly concerned that the voice of users might be dominated by other
participants in groups, you may decide to form groups primarily composed of users.
However, it is always preferable to have users representing the user voice across
many groups in the workshop and to ensure that their voice is heard through good
facilitation rather than to form user-dominated groups.
Resource Recommendation
Venue booking
Ensure that you have a flat space with movable
furniture. Auditoriums, which have an incline and
immobile furniture are not suitable for a workshop. You
will also want a great deal of wall space onto which
participants can put up post-it notes or flip chart sheets.
Catering
We suggest having coffee available at all times. A
workshop can be intense. Coffee can help counter a
post-lunch energy drop.
Flip charts,
markers, and/or
white boards
Ensure each participant group has one flip chart.
Projector &
projection screen
Ensure there is a projector and projection screen.
Prototyping
materials
See Appendix XX
Physical Resources for your Workshop
Four: Run Your Workshop
What happens Why it happens / our goals
Ice breaking
We need participants to get to know each other on a personal –
rather than professional – basis. As much as possible, we need
them to leave hierarchy at the door so open conversations can
happen and so people are taking part on a level playing field.
Introduce purpose of the
project
We want the participants to know why they are participating in
the workshop and why they should care about the outcomes.
Setting the
ground rules
In a collaborative process with participants, we set ground rules
for the workshop. Participants need to genuinely consent to
these rules to work. We post the rules in a place visible during
the whole workshop. These rule can include things such as:
• everyone’s ideas matter
• cell phones off
• an extra half an hour for lunch prayers
Agree on goals for the
week
We like to suggest some things participants might achieve by
the end of the week and get them to contribute some of their
own ideas about what they would like to achieve.
Review of learnings from
the study visit
We want to give participants a bit of history on the project and
ensure they understand the context of the study visit country
Reflections
On a day where there haven’t been significant workshop
activities, we don’t expect a great deal to be shared here.
However, we include this to start the reflection habit amongst
participants.
Day 1: Set the Scene
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50. What happens Why it happens / our goals
Introduction to
personas, journey
mapping, and
interviewing
These are the key frameworks and skills participants will use
during their user exploration. We want to prepare participants to
make the most out of their user exploration. Participants should
be able to use these frameworks to guide their interviewing,
note taking, and observation.
Interview users
We want participants to develop a deep understanding of the
lives, challenges, motivations, and journeys in solving their
problem through interviewing and observation. Ideally, multiple
teams are interviewing different types of users.
Service visits
(optional)
If there are specific services that you are looking to for
inspiration (e.g. how other one-stop centres are organised, how
Apple’s Genius Bar reduces user journey time, how a restaurant
organises its production for high efficiency), a parallel session
may be conducted where a team of participants visit the service
and observe.
Download research
insights and share
The design process involves collecting and making use of a
large amounts of information. We’ve found that the most
practical way of managing this information is by transferring
individual observations onto post-it notes, which we put up on
boards or large surfaces so we can gain a “whole picture” view
of the situation.
In this segment, participants will put together boards
showcasing the profile of a user and their user journey. These
boards are then presented to the other teams to so that teams
have learned from each others’ observations.
Reflection
This provides a checkpoint opportunity to gauge how
participants are learning, what types of content or activities they
are more interested in, and their level of engagement with the
programme so far. This is critical for you as facilitator to be
adaptive and make changes as needed, because in workshops,
it is imperative that their interest is maintained.
Day 2: Understand Users
What happens Why it happens / our goals
Identify key insights
and opportunities
Insights are observations that teams found surprising or
interesting and patterns they drew from the previous day’s
sharing. These insights can be around unmet needs or
This is one of the most critical – and difficult – stages of the
workshop. Finding good insights is important because insights
are the springboard for brainstorming. Generally, the more
unique and interesting the insight, the more productive the
brainstorming session.
Brainstorm
We get teams to choose several opportunities to do
brainstorms on. We want participants to develop as many
different ideas as possible in different areas here. The ideas can
be serious or silly. The goal here is quantity over quality so that
we can expand the creative possibilities.
Filter and select ideas
At this point, we get teams to start thinking about the quality of
their ideas through the lenses of feasibility and how much
positive impact there is on the user experience.
You may want to consider having a two-stage filtration process
here where teams first shortlist ideas and then get users to rank
ideas from both the participants and the study visit. The ranking
serves to narrow down what will be prototyped.
We recommend that each team pick at least two ideas that
would lead to different prototypes so they experience the
prototyping process several times.
Develop ideal journey
concepts
If you were building a house, this would be the equivalent of
putting the drawing on paper. Teams put down, step-by-step,
how someone would go through the new service they would
prototype.
Day 3: Develop Ideas
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51. What happens Why it happens / our goals
Introduction to
prototyping services
We want participants to understand several different approaches
they could apply to prototyping services. We also want them to
see how easy it can be prototype a service.
Build prototypes
Participants build at least two prototypes over a short period of
time. We do two prototypes and we do them over a short period
time because we don’t want participants to become too
invested in their ideas. We want the first prototypes to be quick
trials.
Iteration
Participants get feedback from other participants and/or users.
They go back to their prototypes and choose one to update.
Discussion and
consolidation
Feedback is shared across teams for the iterated prototypes. A
discussion is then hosted to talk about which prototypes might
be combined.
Day 4: Prototype and Test
What happens Why it happens / our goals
Prototype testing
Participants test their consolidated and higher fidelity prototype
internally and with potential users.
Iteration
Participants put finishing touches on their most updated version
of the prototype
Document prototype
The prototype is photographed, mapped, and steps are outlined
so that it can be presented to people outside the workshop and
the team can continue work on it after it has been taken apart.
In describing the prototype, we usually pair each of the
innovations in the prototype to a challenge described by users
Future planning
Participants identify the next steps that would be required to
take the project forward to implementation. This typically
involves identifying the required approvals, a timeline for
conducting a series of prototypes, setting roles, and requesting
resources.
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Day 5: Plan Forward
52. Five: Build rapid prototypes to test out
ideas
Goals
• Understand the questions that need to be answered before you move your idea
forward
• Turn your ideas into something testable
• Get feedback from users
Outputs
• Multiple prototypes of your ideas
• Feedback from users
Why is this useful
Rapid prototyping is different from pilot testing. Rapid prototyping is meant to create
rough prototypes that can be used to generate user feedback over a few days. We
take semi-baked ideas to potential users who understand what we are trying to do,
get feedback from them, change the prototype and take it back to them until users
and other key stakeholders are satisfied.
Prototyping may not be useful for all types of ideas. For example, if are you are trying
to find out whether bike lanes actually increase the safety of cyclists, you will need to
collect data over an extended period of time. This is more appropriate for a pilot.
However, if you are seeking to understand how bike lanes might influence traffic
patterns or parking habits, you might install temporary barriers on a road to simulate a
bike lane and collect data over a few days, and compare that to baseline
measurements.
Approach
Identify the questions you want to answer about your idea
Prototypes or models are experiments designed to answer particular questions. The
first step to translating your idea into a prototype is to list out questions you have
about your idea. For example, do you want to just test out what it might feel like to
use a new service you’re creating? Would volunteers be willing to help illiterate
citizens fill out forms? Does this service solve the user’s problem?
Select the type of prototype you’re going to build
There are several prototyping approaches available depending on how you want to
carry out your prototype.
Model
• What is it? A physical representation of the product or other physical object you
want to create.
• What is it used for? The model is used for prototyping products and other
physical objects.
• What kinds of questions does it answer? What would the product look like?
How does it feel to use? How can we improve the usability of the product?
How it’s been used
When IDEO set out to improve the usability of the Dissector System, a medical
device, one of the prototypes the team tested was a gun-shaped device using
materials they had at their workshop. They quickly assembled it and handed it to
doctors, who tried holding it in different positions and found the new shape to be an
improvement. While the initial prototype was rough, it helped answer the question of
whether this was a good design direction to pursue. More refined prototypes were
built until the product went to manufacturing.
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Five: Build rapid prototypes to test out ideas