Design approaches are increasingly being employed by governments worldwide to address public service and policy issues. This book explores the evolution of these design practices within the context of local government, shedding light on the value they can create and how they become stabilized in six local government organizations. @en

In recent years, governments have increasingly pursued innovation by embed-ding design into their organizations. One particularly common approach to em-bedding design in government organization is to establish public sector innova-tion labs. These labs are described as contributors and facilitators of innovation in policymaking processes; however, less light has been shed on the role of in-house designers (including these labs) in fostering and managing the changes made by design practices within government organizations. In the current study, design management has been used as a theoretical lens to study the strategic activities of in-house designers in a Dutch municipality to embed design within the organization. The findings show the importance of strategic activity by in-house designers to foster design practice and resulting organizational changes and the need for participation of more organizational members in this activity. We conclude with setting an agenda for more research and practices on strategic activities to foster design practices and organizational changes in government.@en

Knowledge on how design practices evolve and become part of the daily practices of public organisations is still lacking. Prior to embarking on this research, we asked ourselves how this phenomenon should be studied in the context of public organisations. In the complex system of an organisation, practices are in constant flux, making it difficult to understand how a practice evolves based on certain factors such as leadership, legitimacy, or organisational culture. Adopting an alternative approach, including ‘time’ as an analytic element, we attempted to understand the evolution of design practices through a sequence of relevant past events. In a series of case studies of local government, we collected data through publicly available organisational documents related to design practices and visualised these data in a timeline. With the results, we constructed a narrative on how design practices have evolved over time in these organisations. This paper describes one case study at Kent County Council in the UK showing how this document-based, process-oriented research approach allowed us to capture the evolution of design practices in a public organisation over a 12-year period within a short research time and with greater objectivity. In conclusion, we argue that this longitudinal research method can be a new approach for researchers conducting studies on design practices within public organisations.@en

Design is today suggested as an alternative way of working in government contexts. Manydeveloped nations are trying to embed design in their public organizations. Yet recent studies have shown that design is not easily permeating into everyday practice of public organizations. This research therefore aims to understand what the current practice of design-embedding in government is like and its limitations by interviewing six experts in the design for government field. The research findings reveal that the changes created by the current design-embedding practice in government are not being actively sustained or amplified. Based on an understanding of organisations as complex systems, we suggest a further practice of design-embedding in which designers steward and stimulate design-led change energy within public organizations. This study shows that embedding design capability in professional organizations is more about design-led organizational change than passing on a design skillset to the organizational members.@en