UNDP Design Thinking Toolkit for Country Country Learning

Design Thinking for Country to Country Learning A Human-Centred Approach

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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

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

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Table of Contents

Phase 1: ALIGN 11Getting Buy-in 12Articulating Motivations 12Identify & Agree on the Challenge 13How To: Identify a Problem Area 14Creating a Working Group 15Creating a Changemaker Team 16Overview of Roles 17

Phase 2: UNDERSTAND 18 Why Research Your Own Context? 19Context & Analysis 20Field Research 21Tools for Understanding Stakeholders & Users 22Synthesising Your Findings 23Refining (or Re-defining) Your Design Challenge 24How To: Do a Root Cause Analysis 25

Phase 3: TRANSLATE 26Identifying Opportunities for Change 27Selecting a Learning Partner 28Getting Inspiration From Another Context 29How To: Conduct a Study Visit 30Taking it Home 31Making Inspirations Useful 32

Phase 4: DEVELOP 33Developing Ideas into Testable Prototypes 34Role Play/Experience Prototypes & Functional Prototypes 35Best Practices for Prototyping & Gathering Feedback 36Refining Ideas & Implementation 37

ANNEX 40Overview of Responsibilities 41Template Project Timeline 42Planning Your Study Visit 43Study Visit Workshop 45Strategy: The Prototype Workshop 46

Glossary 53References 54

About this Toolkit 5Design Thinking for Country-Country Learning: A Human-Centred Approach 7

Putting this Toolkit to Work 8Scenarios of Use 9

FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES 38

ABOUT THIS TOOLKIT

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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.

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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

Understandthe problem

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Design Thinking for Country-Country Learning: A Human-Centred Approach

Translatebased on inspirationskey stakeholders

Align

Developprototypes and test them

PUTTING THE TOOLKIT TO WORK

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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

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Photo: Prioritisation of solutions. Bangladesh workshop, China-Bangladesh South-South Project on Urban Solutions

Scenarios of UseThe 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

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wish to share

country partner not identified

Blank Slate

Model Answer

Keen Student

Match Made

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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

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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

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Phase 1: ALIGNalignment 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

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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

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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.

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Step 1

Step 2

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 OfficeDevelopment

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

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TIP ideal challenge/problem area

Step 3

See next page for How To Identify a Problem Area.

HOW TO: IDENTIFY A PROBLEM AREAAsk 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


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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

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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

CREATING A CHANGEMAKER TEAMThis 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


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Step 5

See next page for overview of roles for Working Group and Changemaker Team.

OVERVIEW OF ROLESThe 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.

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• Obtain research insights • Arrive at a refined/reframed design challenge

Phase 2: UNDERSTANDgetting a deeper understanding of the problem you are tackling

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WHY RESEARCH YOUR OWN CONTEXT?

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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

CONTEXT ANALYSIS

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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.

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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.


http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/democratic-governance/oslo_governance_centre/Institutional_and_Context_Analysis_Guidance_Note.html

FIELD RESEARCHFor 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


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Step 3

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.


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?

http://www.servicedesigntools.org/tools/8

http://diytoolkit.org/tools/personas-2/

http://diytoolkit.org/tools/people-connections-map/

SYNTHESISE YOUR FINDINGSIn 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.


• 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.

http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/idea-creation-tools/overview/affinity.html

REFINING (OR RE-DEFINING) YOUR CHALLENGEHaving 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.


Source: Community Brief on neighbourhood transformation, Zeroth Labs.

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See “How To: Identify A Problem Area” on page 17 for guidelines to reflecting on your challenge.

Step 5

HOW TO: DO A ROOT CAUSE ANALYSISFor 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.


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Source: Echoing Green

TIPRCA 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

Phase 3: TRANSLATEgetting inspiration and generating ideas around your challenge

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• Brainstorm ideas • Get inspirations from a different context • Select ideas for prototyping

IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHANGEThe 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

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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


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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

GETTING INSPIRATION FROM ANOTHER CONTEXTKey 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.


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• 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

MODULAR APPLICATIONIf 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 VISITStudy 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 theexperience

• 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.


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See Annex for guide to “Planning your Study Visit”.

TAKING IT HOMEMaking 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


31Photo: Identifying ideas for transfer in Beijing, China-Bangladesh South-South Project on Urban Solutions

Step 4

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.


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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.

Phase 4: DEVELOPbuilding concepts into prototypes and testing them

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• 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

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

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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

Photo: Makeweekend Road Safety, Tandemic


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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

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


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

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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


Step 2

REFINING IDEAS & IMPLEMENTATIONGoals • 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.


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Step 3

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FUTURE OPPORTUNITIESPhoto: Gazipur Councillor with local residents (right), China-Bangladesh South-South Project on Urban Solutions

FUTURE OPPORTUNITIESStrengthening 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.

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ANNEX

• Overview of Responsibilities

• Template Project Timeline

• Planning Your Study Visit

• Developing an Information Gathering Guide

• Conducting a Prototyping Workshop

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OVERVIEW OF RESPONSIBILITIESAlign 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.


• 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.


• 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.

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2-8 weeks +getting buy-in 4-7 weeks 4-9 weeks 3-4 weeks +refining

TEMPLATE PROJECT TIMELINE

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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

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


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.


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TIP

DEVELOPING AN INFORMATION GATHERING GUIDEGoals • 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.

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PARTICIPANTS COLLECTING WHAT’S MOST RELEVANT

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 WORKSHOPGoals • 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


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.


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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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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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Source: User Type Chart, Tandemic Design Thinking Toolkit (2014)

Best practices for interviews


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 agreementTake 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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http://bit.ly/verbalconsent

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.

CateringWe 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 breakingWe 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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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 usersWe 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


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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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


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

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

South-South Learning Exchange (SSLE): An engagement between governments, organisations, and individuals among countries in the South through which expertise, resources and/or technology are shared and adapted12. In many cases, learning takes place from one country to another only, ie. one-directional. However, exchanges can also take place between several learning partners across any type of domain. Public Service Design: The design or re-design of public services, and their delivery, with the aim to improve quality of service, and the interface between provider and user. Front-office and back-office processes of the services are evaluated and improved according to the needs of clients and the capacity of service providers. Design Thinking: An approach that uses empathy for the users of services or products to uncover insights that enable the development of innovative solutions that better serve their users. The design thinking approach can be thought of as having five components: discover insights from the field, define the problem, reframe the status quo, prototype, and test. Human-centred Design: Synonymous, in the context of this toolkit, with "design thinking”. Prototype: A representation of an idea in a tangible form; this may be a drawing, constructed object, role play, or any other form that enables an idea to be manifested. A prototype is used to test a potential solution’s usability and/or desirability among users. Organisations have prototyped everything from new service application forms to mobile apps and policies. Knowledge-seeking Country: A country participating in a SSLE that seeks to learn from expertise, resources and/or technology found in another country or set of countries. Knowledge-providing Country: A country participating in the SSLE that shares their expertise, resources and/or technology with knowledge-seeking country or countries. Client Government / Host Government: A government whom UNDP is serving, in this context, through a particular SSLE. A client government may be from a knowledge-seeking or knowledge-providing country. Client Staff: Individuals employed by a client government. Client staff may come from more than one agency within the client government. Working Challenge: An articulated challenge or problem area that the SSLE is structured around, which is subject to change in the course of the South-South learning process. Changemaker Team: A small team that plans, coordinates and executes a project, in the context of this toolkit. Each member of the changemaker team has defined responsibilities, and can contribute through their expertise, position of influence, level of access to resources, and/or ability to commit their time and capacity to component/s or full length of the exchange. Working Group: A group that encompasses the changemaker team as well as a wider team of people whose involvement in the project will depend dynamically to what is needed at various points in the project. The group will consist of various individuals, experts, and stakeholder representatives. STEEPD Analysis: A framework for context analysis that addresses the social, political, technological, economic, environmental, political and demographic aspects of a particular context. May be used with, or replaced by, UNDP’s Institutional & Context Analysis (ICA) guidance note. Users/Constituents: The individuals or organisations being served, who will engage with or utilise the products or services arising from the SSLE. Stakeholders: Any individual, organisation or entity that has an interest in or is affected by the learning exchange and any products or services that arise from it. Root Cause Analysis: A common method or technique used to deepen understanding of a problem or challenge by identifying its symptoms and elucidating its root causes.

Affinity Map: A tool used to analyse research findings through the consolidation and clustering of ideas and concepts, by their relative similarity, into themes. Journey Map: An oriented graph that shows the step-by-step journey and experience of a user through the different touch points that characterise his/her interaction with a service or product. Personas: Personas are generalised characters or profiles — typical as well as atypical/extreme — that encompass the various needs, desires, challenges and behaviour patterns among real & potential users. Empathy Map: A tool that is used to uncover and analyse the desires and needs of users and other stakeholders of a product or service. These needs may be emotional, social, or psychological in nature. ‘How Might We’ Questions: Concise, open-ended questions that are created to deconstruct a problem more specifically into its various dimensions or components, and consequently used as prompts to generate ideas. In this toolkit, they are used to provide a research framework for gathering inspiration during a SSLE. Study Visit / Study Tour: A visit in which a knowledge-seeking country travels to a knowledge-providing country and learns from expertise, resource and/or technology inspirations that may trigger ideas for a solution back home, or that may lead the knowledge-seeking country to see their problem differently or more clearly. Peer Dialogue: A facilitated meeting/conversation, or series thereof, in which peers with similar contexts and challenges exchange information on their knowledge and experience. Learning Jam: A facilitated discussion in which representatives from knowledge-providing and knowledge-seeking countries uncover each party's existing knowledge on selected topics, then create actionable items based on this uncovered knowledge. Expert Visit: A visit from specialist/s (technical or otherwise) of a knowledge-providing country to a knowledge-seeking country to evaluate the status quo of a product/set of practices/processes/system/policy, provide feedback, and/or assist in developing improvement plans. Knowledge Exhibit: A face-to-face event in which knowledge-providing countries/organisations showcase and provide information on their solutions to challenges that knowledge-seeking countries are looking to address. Inspiration: Services, products, behaviours, comments, phenomena, systems / ways of doing things in a knowledge-providing country from which the knowledge-seeking country gains inspiration. Experiential Learning: A process of ‘learning by doing’ or learning that involves the learner interacting with the material in question, as opposed to merely passively absorbing information. Brainstorm: A session in which the changemaker team focuses on generating many ideas at one time, as a form of problem-solving for a challenge or brief or question/s. Role Play/Experience Prototype: A prototype for which participants play different characters in the provision of a service, and act out the entire process (or part thereof) of the experience. Functional Prototype: A working prototype to test the feasibility of a product or service. The prototype is distilled to its core function only, and is created without any additional features, bells or whistles. Rapid Prototyping: A process in which rough prototypes are created that can be used to generate user feedback over a few hours or at most a few days. This contrasts with pilots of development interventions lasting several months or more than a year. Design Sprint: Self-contained cycles of the design thinking process that focus on a particular challenge being tackled. These are brief and typically last 1-2 weeks, hence the use of the word “sprint”.

Glossary

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References

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1 IDEO HCD Toolkit - ‘What do we know?’ exercise IDEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,“Recognize Existing Knowledge”, in Human Centred Design Toolkit, 2nd Edition, pp.39. (2011). http://www.ideo.com/work/human-centered-design-toolkit/

2 UNDP - Institutional and Context Analysis Guidance Note Melim-McLeod, Claudia, et al., Institutional and Context Analysis Guidance Note, UNDP Bureau for Development Policy, Democratic Governance Group, Oslo (2012), http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/Democratic%20Governance/OGC/UNDP_Institutional%20and%20Context%20Analysis.pdf

3 IDEO HCD Toolkit - Description of identifying people to speak withIDEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,“Identify People to Speak With”, in Human Centred Design Toolkit, 2nd Edition, pp.40. (2011). http://www.ideo.com/work/human-centered-design-toolkit/4 IDEO HCD Toolkit - Individual interview method IDEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,“Choose Research Methods”, in Human Centred Design Toolkit, 2nd Edition, pp.42. (2011). http://www.ideo.com/work/human-centered-design-toolkit/

5 IDEO HCD Toolkit - Interview guide method IDEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,“Develop an Interview Approach”, in Human Centred Design Toolkit, 2nd Edition, pp.58-59. (2011). http://www.ideo.com/work/human-centered-design-toolkit/

6 Service Design Tools Website - Customer journey map definitionRoberta Tassi.”tool:Customer Journey Map”, Service Design Tools, last modified 2009, http://www.servicedesigntools.org/tools/8.

7 DIY Toolkit website - Personas worksheet Nesta, “Personas”, Development Impact & You: Practical Tools to Trigger & Support Social Innovation, accessed December 16, 2014, http://diytoolkit.org/tools/personas-2/

8 DIY Toolkit website - People & Connections Map worksheetNesta, “People & Connections Map”, Development Impact & You: Practical Tools to Trigger & Support Social Innovation, accessed February 26, 2015, http://diytoolkit.org/tools/people-connections-map/

9 ASQ website - Affinity Diagram Exercise “Affinity Diagram”, ASQ, accessed February 27, 2015, http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/idea-creation-tools/overview/affinity.html

10 IDEO HCD Toolkit - Description of creating opportunity areasIDEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, “Create Opportunity Areas”, in Human Centred Design Toolkit. 2nd Edition, pp.102, (2011). http://www.ideo.com/work/human-centered-design-toolkit/

11 IDEO Design Thinking for Libraries Toolkit - Brainstorm exercise IDEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,“Step 4: Generate Ideas”, in Design Thinking for Libraries: A Toolkit for Patron-Centred Design, 1st Edition, pp.60-62, (2015). http://www.designthinkingforlibraries.com/

12 UNDP SSC Website - South-South Learning Exchange definition “What Is South-South Cooperation?”, United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, last modified 2014, http://ssc.undp.org/content/ssc/about/what_is_ssc.html.

http://www.ideo.com/work/human-centered-design-toolkit/

http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/Democratic%20Governance/OGC/UNDP_Institutional%20and%20Context%20Analysis.pdf




http://www.servicedesigntools.org/tools/8

http://diytoolkit.org/tools/personas-2/

http://diytoolkit.org/tools/people-connections-map/

http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/idea-creation-tools/overview/affinity.html


http://www.designthinkingforlibraries.com/

http://ssc.undp.org/content/ssc/about/what_is_ssc.html

Taimur Khilji

Bernise Ang

Kal Joffres

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Documents

UNDP Design Thinking Toolkit for Country Country Learning