In the work with the Report, the ministry wanted to avoid working with an inside out perspective, but rather explore and co-create with the actual future users of the policy paper. Most importantly, they wanted to meet real needs where innovation actually happens - not perceived or assumed needs from the government’s point of view.
User centrism is the core of design methodology. A Report to the Storting has a great variety of users; politicians, bureaucrats and private and public sector actors. Therefore, the designers wanted to facilitate a process of developing the Report together with the different users.
The insight phase was facilitated along three lanes: Document and research review, mapping of today’s needs and strategic foresight to spot signals of challenges ahead.
Will be presented the first quarter of 2020
Using a variety of design methodology, such as idea workshops and building scenarios in co-creating workshops, the designers succeeded in expanding and enrich the understanding of the topic. The project works on different scales and levels of abstraction; From concrete end-user experience, to strategic documents.
Through the spring of 2019, the team will develop politics and suggestions for initiatives, and test them on the finished scenarios. In the second half of 2019, the work will be completed, and the Report will be presented to the Storting in the first quarter of 2020.
Rather than building the Report step by step, the Ministry and the designers started by framing the area of interest, and then pointed out promising areas for policy development.
Policy Design
This new way of working with a Report can be challenging for a Ministry, therefore establishing trust in the tools and methods through experience have been crucial. Today, the Ministry reports that it has gained insights it might have missed if they had followed a traditional process, and that the insights are both broad, wide and solid.
Building on the principles of Systems Oriented Design and Service Design, Policy Design is now taking shape as a new design discipline in Norway. The process of designing the Report to the Storting is the most comprehensive Norwegian Policy Design project to date.
