Designing for the Public Good

Much of my work at the World Bank has been centered around co-designing new programs, methodologies, strategies, processes and products that have public good effects

Job-to-be-done

Design solutions to complex problems that deliver social and economic value to local populations

my Role

I have used design thinking as a team member, project manager and program manager

Results

Numerous internal and external strategies, programs and processes  

About

I learned product design during my years in engineering. Since I joined the world of international development I have been applying design to non-physical artifacts likes processes and services. 

My visual agenda for the 2-day roadmap workshop
A roadmap slowly takes shape

Designing a roadmap for an organizational unit

Here is an example of a 2-day workshop I designed and facilitated to create a roadmap for the World Bank’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit.

The workshop participants hard at work solving problems with Legos

Co-designing with the public sector

I have had many opportunities to use design thinking when working with government clients on specific tasks. National or regional strategies lend themselves to design thinking because they are all about designing new versions of the future. Short term government programs also lend themselves well to design thinking. They are not unlike commercial services that aim to have a value proposition to a customer who needs to trade in time or money to access that service.

In this photo I can be seen on the screen co-facilitating a design session remotely with colleagues of mine and, public and private representatives. Our objective was to design a public program that would help businesses become more innovative.
Here's an example of persona archetypes I created after an empathy-building phase. The objective of this exercise was to design a public program that would leverage the experience and networks of people with expertise in business innovation.
After designing a rough concept for a business support program, we prototyped a part of our program. We found that even though all of our research interviews had indicated that businesses would not participate in or value the program, we found the contrary to be true.

Co-designing with the private sector

How might we ensure that low-income populations who are currently out of the reach of global markets have access to life-changing products and services? A program that I designed and led while at the World Bank, the Indonesia Green Innovation Pilot Program, uncovered 35 problems related to clean energy rural communities that could lead to large scale business opportunities. The most promising problems were developed into businesses concepts for new products and services, and were pitched to almost 300 businesses in Indonesia and worldwide. Two businesses were competitively selected to receive design and business support while they invest in these new market opportunities.

Members of one of the communities that we used as an open air design studio
One of the core barriers to propagating socially beneficial technologies such as water filters and clean cookstoves was found to be the customer's awareness and understanding of these technologies. Our design team worked with a local social business to develop, prototype and test new ways of communicating this information in rural areas of Indonesia.
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