Archives: Projects

Description.

L.I.V.E. – A Living Lab created by 3 cities to Co-Create Digital Urban Services with Citizens

L.I.V.E. is the acronym for “Lab pour Imaginer la Ville Ensemble” (Lab to Imagine the City Together). The Living Lab approach is a methodology to co-design “user-friendly digital (public) services” with inhabitants and to imagine the “Smart and inclusive City”. L.I.V.E. was a political initiative of the mayors of 3 medium-sized cities in the Lille Metropolitan Area (North of France), composed of 95 municipalities with independent administrations, except some common services supported by the Lille European Metropole (MEL) administration. From a geopolitical point of view, L.I.V.E. was an innovative project that encouraged public officials of three municipalities to share their practices and to create digital urban services for and with citizens. Doing so, L.I.V.E. was a political innovation because municipalities are not used to share experiences with other municipalities. It was also a social innovation because the social profile of citizens in the three cities is very different: Marcq-en-Baroeul (a upper-class city with business and financial services) “against” – politically speaking – two declining industrial cities, Tourcoing and Roubaix (a working-class city with a high proportion of foreign-born population and high unemployment rate). So a Living Lab approach was chosen to go beyond the traditional political, administrative and social divide between the three contiguous cities. The project was launched and tested in 2017 then operationalized in 2018-2019, supported by the MEL within the framework of ERDF funds. But in the end of 2019, L.I.V.E was still a «work in progress».

Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

The key stakeholders included policymakers and public agents from the three municipalities as well as agents of the Lille European Metropole (MEL) to check the coordination between the policies and the scales of service implementation. Private stakeholders were associated according to the themes of the workshops (real estate companies, car parks managers, craftsmen, local shops,…). Local service designers or digital startups were associated to the Living Lab to help public agents and citizens during the design sessions or the prototyping of new digital services. They participated to the knowledge transfer and to co-creation practices for digital transformation. Beneficiaries were twofold: citizens and public agents. L.I.V.E. addressed citizens in order to invent new digital services that were solutions for “real needs” in the city (local e-commerce, car parks, digital application for leisure, co-working spaces, connected urban furniture…). But the Living Lab addressed public agents too for them to better understand the “real needs of citizens”, to share new knowledge and competencies about open data and social media and to create new public policies in the three cities.

Co-creation process

The co-creation process was divided into two stages: an experimental phase in 2017 and a structuration phase in 2018 and 2019. During the experimental phase, inhabitants were invited to discuss about their needs: 30 to 70 inhabitants per workshop “played the game” to imagine what types of digital tools could be created through a Living Lab to “imagine a better city together”. During the structuration phase, there were less inhabitants per workshop and sometimes only public agents and stakeholders according to the themes of the sessions, even if incentives to participation was diffused through websites and social networks. Co-creation process was considered by public managers and stakeholders as a “pleasant way of working” to solve problems by an innovative methodology. There were no dedicated place for the Living Lab but workshops were alternatively organised in one of the local community in respect of a “political equilibrium”. Agents of each collectivity were invited to share their different competencies with the help of designers specialised in design thinking or service design. Some startups were invited to prototype some digital solutions according to the ideas of inhabitants and stakeholders, and only some of these solutions were tested with inhabitants.

Digital Transformation Process

The digital transformation process concerned two types of users. On the one hand, citizens were the main target of the Living Lab project: L.I.V.E was a method to imagine a “better life” in the city thanks to new digital services, not created by American firms (GAFAM) or by Parisian Startups but co-created with citizens and local Startups to meet what they called “real needs” of citizens. On the other, public agents of the three implied cities were the secondary target: in place of digital services imagined by IT public services in a Top Down approach, the L.I.V.E. project was a methodology to help public agents to better understand the “real needs” of citizens or public agents following a bottom up approach. It was also a methodology to transform IT public departments of the municipalities, that have no skills about open data, social media or API tools.

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

As the experience lasted less than three years, it was too short to obtain significant results in term of new digital public services or even private digital tools for inhabitants. The main outcomes could be political as three mayors accepted to work with citizens and allowed their public agents for sharing time and local data. COVID-19 was a barrier to finalise some projects during the consolidation phase of the program. Value creation was less in the domain of public cost savings, neither in the creation of new digital public services than in a change of mindset and the discovery of service design and design thinking with inhabitants and stakeholders.

Challenges & Bottlenecks

A first challenge was the participation of inhabitants. If they were mobilised during the experimental phase, in 2017, to discuss about their needs, it was more difficult in the structuration phase of the Living Lab (2018-2019): citizens had not always time to participate to all the co-creative workshops, in particular if they were organised in the afternoon. A second challenge was institutional even if elected people were at the origin of the Living Lab project. Each local community constitutes the territorial and administrative framework for public services to inhabitants. So co-creation of new public services could face to administrative or legal barriers. Organising workshops from place to place without any dedicated building to the Living Lab was a way to mobilise inhabitants but was finally a barrier for mixing the population of the three cities. If, on the contrary, geographical mobility was not a problem for public agents and stakeholders, some public managers consider that a dedicated place for the Living Lab could be a “symbol of the political will” to work together and could be a lever for attracting potential (private) investors. Bottlenecks are linked to administrative traditions. Design workshops are important to identify real needs, to imagine new scenarios, to test prototypes and to identify irritants with inhabitants. But public managers consider that it is difficult: 1) to make “quick and dirty” with public procurement; 2) to «co-manage» new services with users. If validation of new policies is the role of elected people, production of digital services is the role of IT service Directorates of the local collectivities. Usual routines of service production and delivery are the main attribute of IT Directorates: if they agree with the role of users in the co-design phase, they are not ready for co-production and co-delivery with inhabitants.

Transferability & Replicability

The L.I.V.E. project is not at a stage of transferability. The scale of replicability could be the transferability of design processes from a public service to another public service in the framework of the three municipalities. Nevertheless, the aim was to diffuse to “other cities” new practices experimented through the Living Lab, because the project was co-financed by European funds and had to promote the results at a larger scale. But the end of the financial support and because of COVID-19, experimentations were stopped: the last news on Facebook or Twitter was posted in June 2020. Impossible to find any other information about “L.I.V.E” or “www.imaginezlaville.live/” on the Net in 2021. Transferability and replicability seem so to be largely compromised. Nevertheless, the Living Lab approach is still applied through a place dedicated to public service design in the building of the MEL. In 2020, Lille Metropole was also the World Capital of Design to improve public policies through a Living Lab approach at the scale of 90 local communities and more than 1.2 millions inhabitants, when L.I.V.E. project concerned 3 local collectivities and 250.000 inhabitants.

Success Factors

For local public managers, a criteria of success would be better public services thanks to Open data. L.I.V.E was an opportunity to test in real life with inhabitants some solutions and tools usually developed by Startups. Local collectivities can use data of their internal professional services in order to create new piloting tools before a larger openness of public data. For local authorities, data can lead to a revolution in public services and “doing together” with inhabitants and stakeholders “makes sense because nobody knows everything”.

Lessons learned

L.I.V.E. was imagined in the context of the digital transformation of public policies and local administrations. How to improve the relationship between citizens, elected people and public agents? How to switch from existing ICT tools (websites of municipalities) to online public services? The originality of the L.I.V.E. project is that workshops were organised in 2017 with the inhabitants to define the themes to explore and invent “the City of Tomorrow together”. The Living Lab workshops in 2018-2019 were planned to work on the priorities previously defined by citizens in 2017: family recreation, car parking, co-working, local trade, data for local collectivities, connected urban furniture, nature in the city, digital at school. Even if the project lasted for only three years, conditioned by the funding, the important outcome is not new digital services (still at a stage of “work in progress”) but the change of cultural mindset for public agents and inhabitants. Nevertheless, elected representatives have to take final decisions for public policies but co-creation of services through Living Lab methodology is difficult to integrate in a traditional political process. So, for transforming public services and public policies through co-creation with citizens and users, it is often “necessary to go under the radars”, working in small groups to encourage co-design. Then administrative managers have to list the priority projects to be proposed for a political validation.

The transparency programme Di@vgeia

The enhancement of democratic processes is becoming a crucial priority for many countries across Europe. Within this framework the Di@vgeia programme aims at increasing civic participation in the democratic process along with opening up public institutions to the civil society by making it more transparent and accountable for its actions. The Di@vgeia programme makes use of ICT tools such as an online platform where both central and local public administrations could upload documents and processes in order to enable citizens and businesses the get access to them in an easy and user friendly way. The commitment and vision of the central government has been crucial for the successful development and implementation of the initiative. Several benefits have been achieved by the platform, both in terms of cost savings on reduced paper-prints along with more non-monetized aspects related to the aforementioned enhancement of the democratic process.

Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

The Di@vgeia Programme was initiated by MAREG (Ministry of Administrative Reform and e-Government) following the approval of the Law 3861/2010 by the Greek Government. The Programme forces all government institutions to upload their acts and decisions on the Internet with a specific focus on issues related to national security and sensitive personal data. Di@vgeia can be considered as an open government best practice and has been presented to many European and international conferences, receiving very positive feedback. In Greece it is considered a model for the design of future e-Government interventions, both at an organizational and a technological level. In June 2014, the Di@vgeia II portal has been implemented and launched with renovated communication and participatory tools, in order to enable a greater user interaction and engagement. The beneficiaries of the Programme are all Greek citizens and business who need to exercise their constitutional right to be informed, as well as all public servants who need to use public acts and decisions on a daily basis as part of their work. In particular, thanks to extensive amount of public users Di@vgeia can be regarded as the most extensively and widely used public application. A dynamic human network of project task forces (more than 4.000 people) has been activated nationwide during the implementation phase of the platform, to share strong authority to coordinate and educate their associates, as well as to communicate the merits of the Programme. The network has contributed to the rapid spread of the new values of transparency, responsibility, accountability, participation and collaboration.

Co-creation process

A total of 12 staff members worked for four years on the design, implementation, support and additional development of the system. More specifically the design phase lasted for 2 months to which followed the adoption by the Greek Parliament of the Law 3861/2010. The development phase lasted for 2 more months leading to 1 month of testing and 1 month of pilot phase. Finally, the system entered into the production phase. Different production paths were followed by the different authorities involved. More specifically:
    • Ministries: 4 months after the enforcement of the law
    • Overall Public Sector and other independent authorities: 1 months after Ministries
    • Regional and Local Authorities: 6 months after Ministries.
Several additional initiatives were also launched in order to support the uptake of the system. An education programme lasting 9 months was held across the different regions targeting legal, administrative and technical issues using the platform. Moreover, different social media were also chosen as preferred channels for publicizing the materials posted online on the Di@vgeia website. Moreover, in 2014 the above mentioned Di@vgeia II portal was also launched.

Digital Transformation Process

The Di@vgeia Programme works by obliging public institutions to publish acts and decisions online with each document digitally signed and linked to an Internet Uploading Number (IUN), which certifies that the decision has been uploaded on the Portal. The technological implementation model of the platform has been based on an agile strategy with “open content” and “open architecture” that enable citizens and other private actors to generate their own applications and services via the program’s open content API. The whole platform has been developed in-house by the Greek Research & Technology Network via an open source software. The system is supported by existing ICT infrastructures already owned by the public sector. It is also worth to mention that besides the ICT components the system can be also perceived as including relevant legal frameworks, operational processes and other technological instruments. In 2014 the MAREG decided to launch a new and updated version of the portal, named Di@vgeia II which enhances: user inclusion especially for those with disabilities, search via new portal search-mechanisms, new online communication channels.

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

Different types of needs have been addressed by the introduction of the programme. More specifically, among the most relevant it can be accounted:

Citizens’ engagement:

The Di@vgeia database enable citizens and businesses to get access to a wide range of information. In addition, taking into consideration that the Greek crisis has been determined, among other things, by the non-transparent relationship between the citizens and the state, the Di@vgeia Programme enabled high standards of transparency within all levels of Greek public administration. This initiative has a deep impact on the way officials handle their executive power. The radical transparency that the Di@vgeia Programme introduces reduces corruption by exposing it more easily when it takes place, since any citizen and every interested party enjoy the widest possible access to questionable acts. Furthermore, its open architecture allows for the dissemination ad re-use of Publics sector information: indeed, a number of applications have been built by citizens and private companies on various platforms upon the transparency open data access tool.

Maladministration control:

The Di@vgeia portal is a great tool for monitoring and control, used also by Greek Controlling Bodies for checking cases of illegality and maladministration in the public sector. The Controllers working for the Inspectors-Controllers Body for Public Administration (I.C.B.P.A.) have access to reports from the Di@vgeia portal in order to monitor legality and good administration in public legal entities. The programme entails several objectives and goals. Among the most relevant it can be accounted:
  • The safeguard of transparent government actions and decisions
  • Eliminating corruption by exposing it more easily when it takes place
  • Monitoring of legality and good administration
  • Enhancing and modernizing existing publication systems of administrative acts and decisions
  • Reinforcing Greek citizens’ constitutional rights, such as the participation in the Information Society
  • Enhance accessibility and comprehension of administrative acts for citizens
  • Enable the possibility to provide open data to citizens and businesses for analysis and potential use.

Challenges & Bottlenecks

One of the major barriers concerning the adoption of the system is related to change management and to the need to push all the different public bodies to actively participate in the successful development and deployment of the platform. The public administration is often characterized by a conservative organizational culture adverse to radical changes. Therefore, the adoption of a system which forced public institutions to open up their documents to the general audience proved to be especially difficult.

Transferability & Replicability

The system is now used by all government institutions (5029 Public Authorities, March 2021). Initially, no investment costs were sustained for the development, implementation and support of the system. Everything was sustained thanks to the internal resources of the public administration. Some relevant costs were spent for the second phase of the programme, Di@vgeia II platform, amounting to a total of € 1,700,000 for the design, implementation and production phase (including both the software and hardware components).

Success Factors

The following are considered as the key success factors of this open government inititiative:
Openness
The openness dimension is defined by the readily available information and data on the portal that can be accessed by every citizen or institution.
Collaboration
The collaboration dimension is defined by active participation of citizens in monitoring the publications of documents and acts along with the possibility to report potential maladministration issues.
ICT-enabled Innovation
The technology dimension is characterised by the online platform of Di@vgeia along with its implementation Di@vgeia.

Lessons learned

The Di@vgeia portal represents a successful case of ICT technologies used for enhancing the participation of citizens and all the relevant stakeholder to the democratic life of a country. Moreover, the service can be also regarded as a valuable example of transparency and accountability in a country affected by chronic problems of lack of transparency between public institutions and the civil society. The international recognitions received by the service support also its value as a leading Open eGovernment Service at European level. A key success factor of the service is related to the will from the political entities to deeply change the culture inside the Greek public administration by opening it up to citizens and therefore making it more transparent and responsible. Another key success factor is also represented by the open data functionalities of the programme which enable citizens along with businesses to get access to a wide range of data and develop applications on various platforms. Finally, the significant reductions in terms of costs achieved can be also regarded as another key success factor of the Di@vgeia programme. Several lessons have been learned as a result of the development and implementation of the service. Among the most relevant it can be accounted:
  • Necessity of change management in the public administration context
  • Importance of communication
  • Importance of listening to both public servants and citizens
  • The necessity for a clear vision and strategy from central Greek governing institutions
  • Importance of using the talent and dedication of employees along with providing full autonomy to the project team.

Center of Digital Innovation

The “Center of Digital Innovation” (CDI) aims to provide coordination and facilitation services to the digital economy and innovation ecosystem in Greece. CDI is positioned between the Ministry of Digital Governance and the Ministry of Development and Investments, connecting and supporting a network of Digital Innovation Hubs and acting as the public interface in a Quadruple Helix Model bringing together academia, the start-up community, the public and the private sector in order to accelerate digital innovation and digital transformation.
More specifically, CDI focuses on two axes:

A. Digital Innovation of the Public Sector, via supporting Open Innovation initiatives that connect public authorities, corporations, small businesses, start-ups and the research/academic space to come up with digital innovations that none alone can do by themselves and encouraging networking and collaboration among all the stakeholders.

B. Digital Transformation of the Economy, via facilitating the development and monitoring of the Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) network; securing access of startups and mid-caps to technology-testing, financing advice, market intelligence and networking opportunities; and supporting the early adoption of digital technologies to make Greek businesses more competitive and productive and grow the country’s economy.

Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

In the context of digital transformation of Greek economy, the main stakeholders and beneficiaries can be categorized in the following groups:
  • Public sector: This stakeholder group includes policy makers and regulators who are active in the digital ecosystem, along with others such as international organizations and members of civil society.
  • Financial actors: This category includes the range of investors that support enterprises and different stages of the startup life cycle, from prototyping for start-ups to initial public offering (IPO) for more mature companies.
    • Academia: Academic actors include primary, secondary and tertiary institutions, as well as research institutions and training centers. Academic institutions support the ecosystem by conducting primary research, helping to build the capacity of human capital, and encouraging the development of young innovators.
  • Private sector: The private sector refers to large, mature corporations, established SMEs, and groups such as chambers of commerce that represent the interests of the private sector.
  • Entrepreneurial support networks: These are the organizations within the ecosystem, such as digital innovation hubs, incubators, accelerators, and associations, which support entrepreneurs. They impact the ecosystem by providing guidance, inspiration, open spaces and digital tools to support local start-ups, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs in their digitalization efforts.

Co-creation process

Digital transformation is ultimately the outcome of the collective efforts of diverse stakeholders sharing a common vision for the transformation of their territory. Different key stakeholders must assume a very active and productive role, through constructive interaction. They must have an active involvement and participation in the design, implementation and assessment of policies, actions and relative initiatives targeting the enhancement of the digital economy ecosystem. The state should work with the local government, social partners, chambers, various business associations, universities, the startup community, training organizations, financing institutions, major ICT sector players (including mobile network operators, hardware manufacturers, and services companies), as well as other players having a significant role in the society, in building the enabling environment for the digital economy ecosystem to flourish in.

Digital Transformation Process

The mission of the CDI is to foster digital innovation and accelerate the digital transformation of the Greek economy, by coordinating joint efforts of all involved stakeholders and leveraging world best practices and tools, as well as the Greek research and entrepreneurial potential. Primary objectives:
  • Foster digital innovation and promote the digital transformation of the public sector through Open Innovation initiatives that bring together the public sector with the start-up and innovation community, research and academia, and the private sector
  • Accelerate the digital transformation of the Greek economy via leveraging the full potential of Digital Innovation Hubs (DIH) to ensure that every company, small or large, high-tech or not, can grasp the digital opportunities
  • Coordinate efforts of all involved stakeholders towards digital innovation, supporting the setup of a Greek ecosystem and cultivating a digital innovation mindset

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

Open Innovation, being ecosystem centric, can support digital transformation through innovation by encouraging the cross-sectoral interconnectedness of the main stakeholders (government, industry, academia and civil participants). Bringing together technology and know-how from all involved stakeholders, educating all involved parties in new technologies and cultivating a culture of co-operation and co-creation, open innovation can facilitate new technological developments, while enabling rapid research and development that can greatly benefit both the public sector and the economy as a whole. Moreover, in order to reinforce Greece’s competitiveness in digital technologies, the country must ensure that every business -whichever the sector, wherever the location, whatever the size- can draw the full benefits of digital innovation. DIHs, as one-stop-shops where companies –especially SMEs, startups and mid-caps– can get help to improve their business, production processes, products and services by means of digital technology, can play a key role in supporting companies become more competitive through digital innovation. The Center of Digital Innovation can significantly contribute to the digital empowerment of the country as a government agency that coordinates government interventions to accelerate digital innovation and digital transformation of the economy. Last but not least, the center will seek to promote a Digital Innovation mindset to startups, public entities and the general public, as well as promote and accelerate the creation of the Greek innovation ecosystem and its connection to the global one.

Challenges & Bottlenecks

A key challenge is the effectiveness of the governance scheme. The CDI as a public body, with inter-ministerial characteristics, will be in close collaboration with stakeholders that provide supporting services to the digital economy ecosystem. In particular, it will be aligned with key stakeholders, which shape the majority of initiatives regarding digital economy growth.

Transferability & Replicability

The implementation model of the CDI may be adapted and used by other Governments, Regions, or Local Governments in order to support Open Innovation initiatives that connect the public sector with startups, corporations and small businesses, the research/academic space, and the innovation community as well as for supporting the early adoption of digital technologies to make businesses more competitive and productive.

Success Factors

CDI aims to pursue active involvement of all involved stakeholders in its activities and decisions. At the same time, through the Center stakeholders will be assisted to meet strategic needs. Through the CDI, government and public organizations as well as large corporations will be assisted to develop an open innovation culture internally and engage directly with outsiders, to improve processes and develop differentiated products. To help organizations cultivate an open innovation mentality internally, CDI will support inter-organizational programs with a focus on the public sector, in which employees will be invited to submit their ideas in complex problems of the organization and turn them into real services/products. This could significantly help further engage their employees and unlock the innovation potential in their organization. In addition, CDI will support, disseminate and coordinate the organization of innovation contests, hackathons and open innovation programs for the public and at national level, involving public stakeholders, the industry, the academic/research community as well as the start-up community.

Lessons learned

The Greek Government has highlighted the need to achieve a successful transition to digital services and change the production model in Greece, in which the emerging innovation ecosystem of new enterprises and startups is expected to play a critical role.Although several initiatives are currently in place in Greece to support the digital economy, the digital economy support ecosystem in Greece is quite fragmented and there is a definite need for coordination. The participation and coordination of all involved stakeholders and the identification and implementation of best practices and key initiatives -such as the Digital Innovation Hubs and the Open Innovation -initiatives mentioned above- could significantly accelerate the Digital Economy transformation in Greece. The implementation model for the CDI is based on Open Innovation 2.0, a key EU policy to support Digital Single Market strategy. It is based on a Quadruple Helix Model where government, industry, academia and civil participants work together to co-create the future and drive structural changes far beyond the scope of what any one organization or person could do alone. This model enables organizations to access new talent and reduce research costs, spreads risks and brings innovations to market more quickly. Additionally, it enables researchers, small companies and start-ups to test their technologies in real world settings, adjust them according to market needs, and get (first) customers.

Verschwörhaus

The Verschwörhaus was founded by the mayor of the city of Ulm. Its goal is to provide a space for the civil society where they can develop technological prototypes, experiment with digital tools and engage in voluntary work. For example, the Verschwörhaus is equipped with laser cutters, 3d-printers and woodworking tools. Therefore, the Verschwörhaus resembles a fablab.
The Verschwörhaus is funded by the city administration and a local initiative called initative.ulm.digital, that aims to facilitate the digitalization of the city. Both organizations, the city administration as well as initiative.ulm.digital provide staff and funding for the equipment of the Verschwörhaus.
There are two employees working at the Verschwörhaus in part time. The first is the head of the Verschwörhaus, that supports the activities the volunteers plan and serves as connection between the Verschwörhaus and the city administration. The second employee is responsible for operational tasks.
The Verschwörhaus is formally connected to the organizational structure of the city of Ulm, however, the volunteers working at the Verschwörhaus are free in deciding their goals and activities. To achieve the overarching goal of facilitating voluntary work by the local civil society, the employees at the Verschwörhaus engage in several activities. First, they host events, where the residents of the city can come by and play around with the various tools that are available at the Verschwörhaus. Second they host larger events as, for example, hackathons. Third, there are also ongoing projects, as some volunteers got together to design and create a circuit board that can be used to facilitate an Internet of Things.

Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

There are two main stakeholders, that facilitate the activities of the Verschwörhaus. The first stakeholder group are the city administration and the initiative initative.ulm.digital that founded the Verschwörhaus and are responsible for the operational tasks surrounding the living lab. They provide the resources for the volunteers so that they can focus on the various projects and events happening at the Verschwörhaus. The initiative.ulm.digital consists of different local corporations. Therefore, the Verschwörhaus also has ties to private sector organizations. The second group of stakeholders are the volunteers that organize and host the events. They can freely decide what they want to do and through their efforts they bring the lab to life. Most of the volunteers working there have a background in the STEM fields and therefore provide technological knowledge and experience and share it with citizens that lack this kind of knowledge. The main beneficiaries of the Verschwörhaus are the members of the civil society as the Verschwörhaus is an opportunity for individuals to work with tools that are expensive or take a lot of space, for example, most people do not have laser-cutters at home. Individual citizens can experiment with these tool and get help by volunteers, who explain them how the tools work. Furthermore, also young people benefit from the Verschwörhaus, as it hosts events that are targeted to young people.

Co-creation process

The co-creation processes taking place at the Verschwörhaus are diverse, as the volunteers that participate there are independent and pursue projects as they like. Because of this, the co-creation processes are characterized by a diverse set of actors and at the end, a prototype of a technological tool or product is presented. For example, some volunteers planned and developed a cheap circuit board, that can be used by students, individual citizens or the volunteers themselves to experiment with sensors or establish an Internet of Things. In this project the volunteers had the initial idea and came to one of the employees of the city administration to pitch it. The employee of the city administration procured the materials so that the volunteers could construct the circuit board. The volunteers then independently developed the circuit board. The funding was also partly provided by the initative.ulm.digital so it was possible for the volunteers to develop several prototypes. This example of co-creation shows that co-creation happens independently in the Verschwörhaus and is driven by the work of the volunteers. The role of the city administration is to facilitate this process and to solve problems.

Digital Transformation Process

At the Verschwörhaus facilitating the digital transformation of the public administration and civil society is not an explicit goal, however a lot of activities are targeted at developing digital tools or facilitating the digital infrastructure. Furthermore, the focus on digital transformation is also mirrored in the type of stakeholders of the Verschwörhaus, as the initiative.ulm.digital was founded to facilitate the digitalization of the city of Ulm. The digitalization is mainly driven by the outcomes the Verschwörhaus produces (as for example, the circuit board) or the events, where individual citizens learn about technology. Furthermore, the Verschwörhaus also helps public servants from the city of Ulm to digitize processes, as the head of the Verschwörhaus invites them to the living lab and hosts design-thinking workshops for them.  

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

There are several benefits, that arise from the Verschwörhaus’ activities. For example, digital technologies become more accessible. Public servants and individual citizens can come to the Verschwörhaus and play around with tools and technologies as circuit boards. Especially the creation of prototypes leads to an enhanced understanding of technologies. Therefore, the public servants learn about different technologies and open up their minds about digitization. However, the impacts the Verschwörhaus has is partly dependent on how the prototypes can be scaled-up. As the Verschwörhaus is seen as an experimental space, it is questionable if an upscaling can be realized through the work of volunteers. For the civil society the benefits are that they have a space with advanced technological equipment to experiment with technology. Furthermore, knowledge-transfer is enabled, as the volunteers explain individual citizens how they can use the tools properly. The benefits for the volunteers working at the Verschwörhaus are the generation of knowledge and networks. For example, one motivation for the volunteers to create a circuit board was to learn how a circuit board is created. So they took the opportunity to learn more about technology themselves. Networks are generated, because the Verschwörhaus creates the opportunity for volunteers to meet like-minded people and share the knowledge and experience they have.  

Challenges & Bottlenecks

Even though the Verschwörhaus is independent in pursuing projects and setting goals, there are some legal barriers that inhibit the progress of some projects. For example, if the Verschwörhaus needs additional material resources (as, for example a circuit board) they have to follow the rules for procurement of the city of Ulm. Therefore, procuring new materials takes time which slows down project progress. The second barrier is the lack of staff, as there are only two employees of the city administration that work primarily at the Verschwörhaus. Therefore, the Verschwörhaus in not able to host as many events as they like, as the employees are present at these events and their work schedule does not allow for events on every day of the week. This limits the possibilities of the Verschwörhaus, as it is open only at a few days of the week for citizens to come there and work with the different tools. The third barrier is that the communication between the Verschwörhaus and the city administration is flawed sometimes. Reason is, that the volunteers working there, have a different mindset and educational background. Therefore, it is hard for the volunteers to justify what they do and why they need those expensive resources as the decision-makers at the administration lack technical knowledge to understand exactly what the projects are aiming at. This challenge is partly resolved through the efforts of the head of the Verschwörhaus, who is working part time at the Verschwörhaus. He serves as transmission between the volunteers at the Verschwörhaus and the city administration because he has a STEM-background as well but also knows the organizational structure and culture of the city administration.

Transferability & Replicability

The activities of the Verschwörhaus are dependent on the work of a lot of volunteers that contribute time and resources in their leisure time. Therefore, the transferability of the concept of the Verschwörhaus is dependent on an active civil society that is willing to get involved in such a project. Here, the city of Ulm has a few advantages because some local firms are technological, innovative firms, and some of them collaborate already with the Verschwörhaus. Furthermore, in the civil society there are a lot of highly-educated people with a background in the STEM-fields that volunteer at the Verschwörhaus. This economic-political context might be rare, so if another city wants to adopt this concept, they should strategically think about if there are volunteers with fitting knowledge available that would volunteer. The second factor that is important for transferability is, that the decision-makers within the administration as well as the employees at the Verschwörhaus need to be careful not to demotivate the volunteers working there. In this case, the Verschwörhaus enjoys political support and the volunteers can freely decide which projects they want to pursue. However, for an administration this might by risky, as the absence of formal goals makes it hard to justify why a living lab might be necessary for the city.

Success Factors

There are several factors, that contribute to the success of the Verschwörhaus. The first factor is the physical space and equipment of the Verschwörhaus. The Verschwörhaus is located at the city centre and is easily reachable by bike and public transportation. Therefore, it is possible for a lot of citizens to come to the Verschwörhaus. Besides the different tools there is also a kitchen where the volunteers can meet and cook together, so the equipment of the Verschwörhaus also facilitates a sense of community. The second factor is the technological infrastructure, as the variety of tools enables the volunteers to create prototypes. Furthermore, they provide free Wi-Fi and server infrastructure so the volunteers can bring their own technical devices. The third success factor is the political support the Verschwörhaus enjoys from the mayor of the city. The mayor initiated the Verschwörhaus and enables that the Verschwörhaus can act independently. For example, the mayor convinced sceptics within the administration to take the financial risk without knowing the benefits the Verschwörhaus could produce beforehand. The fourth success factor is the freedom of action that the Verschwörhaus has, as they can set their goals independently without limits or requirements that have to be fulfilled. The employees of the Verschwörhaus support the volunteers and provide them feedback, without determining the goals of a project. The fifth success factor is the mindset of the volunteers and public servants working at the Verschwörhaus. The volunteers are crucial in this regard, because the Verschwörhaus is dependent on the input they provide, as they have specialized knowledge that public administrators do not possess. They are highly motivated, as they contribute time and effort to pursue the projects of the Verschwörhaus. The same applies to the head of the Verschwörhaus, as he is also motivated to work with volunteers as well as facilitates the co-creation processes within the Verschwörhaus and communicates the results back to the administration.

Lessons learned

This case study on the Verschwörhaus highlights the importance of political support, sufficient financial and material resources as well as the independence of the organization. To be successful, it is necessary to facilitate the voluntary effort that the Verschwörhaus is dependent on. This happens through the ongoing support from the mayor as well as the operational support from the head of the Verschwörhaus. They have recognized that the volunteers need the best environment possible to work on the solutions and projects and that the task of the administration is to facilitate this environment. Especially important here, is that the collaboration between the administration and the Verschwörhaus still needs some adjustment, as the barriers that are described by the respondents refer to the lack of staff as well as the scepticism of decision-makers within the public administration of the city of Ulm. Therefore, if a lab is too independent from its founding organization, it might be the case, that it loses its legitimacy within the organization, as the benefits produced by the lab do not benefit the administration as well.

GovLab Arnsberg

GovLab Arnsberg is a living lab located at regional level and was founded in 2018 by the district president (Regierungspräsident). Main goal of GovLab Arnsberg is to facilitate user-centric design within the regional administration, to make the administration more efficient and enable them to make better decisions. Furthermore, the underlying problem of the regional administration is, that most of the services the regional administration delivers as well as the internal processes are not user-friendly.
The structure of GovLab Arnsberg is simple: it consists of three employees, one working full-time and the other two working part-time. Within the hierarchy of the regional administration, GovLab Arnsberg is located formally at the IT-department but reports its progress directly to the district president. This organizational set-up was chosen to speed-up the decision making process.
Concerning the funding of GovLab Arnsberg, it has no official budget and is funded through the budget of the IT department. However, the lack of funding did not hinder the employees at GovLab Arnsberg to carry out their small-scale projects.
As the goal of GovLab Arnsberg is to enhance the user-friendliness of the internal processes and services, the projects GovLab Arnsberg initiated aim at re-designing existing processes and services, through applying user-centric methods. The employees working at GovLab Arnsberg organise workshops and invite employees from the regional administration as well as service users outside the administration. Furthermore, they aim to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and information between public administrators that otherwise would not meet due to the hierarchical set up of the regional administration.

Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

The amount of stakeholders and beneficiaries of GovLab Arnsberg is small. The main stakeholder of GovLab Arnsberg is the regional president. As he initiated GovLab Arnsberg, he is particularly interested in its activities and success and offers the employees at GovLab Arnsberg continuous support. The other important stakeholder group within the administration of GovLab Arnsberg are the front-line employees that deliver the services. The employees of GovLab Arnsberg perceive them as experts and value the knowledge they incorporate into the co-creation process. Furthermore, to carry out their projects, the employees at GovLab Arnsberg collaborate with actors outside the regional administration. Those are civil society organizations, private firms and individual citizens. Those collaborations are vital for the success of GovLab Arnsberg’s projects. For example, one civil society association payed for a chatbot-software that was needed to develop a chatbot for the regional administration’s website. Besides the private firms and civil society organization, GovLab Arnsberg also tries to interact with living labs from private sector organizations to share knowledge and information, that enables the employees of GovLab Arnsberg to improve the processes of the living lab continuously.

Co-creation process

The co-creation process of GovLab Arnsberg consists of two parts: idea generation and idea development. The process of idea generation is designed in a bottom-up way, as public servants are invited to submit ideas. For example, they can contact the employees working at GovLab Arnsberg and describe processes that need to be re-designed. One respondent described, that they have received over 100 messages from public servants with ideas for processes that could be improved. Therefore, the process of idea generation is open, as every public servant can submit ideas. Besides the individual submission of project-ideas by public servants, the employees of GovLab Arnsberg also act proactively and look for processes or services that could be redesigned. The ideas submitted by the public servants or the GovLab employees themselves are turned into improvements through design-thinking workshops hosted by the employees of GovLab Arnsberg. The participants in these workshops are internal users, for example, frontline employees or external users that receive a service. The design-thinking process is split in two parts: in the first part, user research is conducted. The participants are asked to adopt a perspective of users to identify user needs and problems. From the information received, personas are developed that depict the needs of users. In the second part the participants create user journeys to analyse the process or service in question. From those user journeys a prototype is developed. The co-creation process is driven by the participants of the individual workshops. The role of the GovLab Arnsberg employees is to facilitate the workshops by moderating the discussions and providing resources.

Digital Transformation Process

In GovLab Arnsberg, the co-creation processes primarily aim at re-designing processes and services and the respondents did not mention that they are automatically digitized. However, the employees of GovLab Arnsberg are aware, that digitizing processes might help them to achieve the goals of being more efficient and effective. So, they opt for digital solutions when they can. For example, they developed a chatbot to improve the website of the regional administration. As one respondent described, the chatbot had several positive effects, as they enabled the administration to collect data on how users use the website and those additional data helped them to improve the website even more. However, those benefits of digitizing services and processes are small, as GovLab Arnsberg had, at the time of data collection, no plans to upscale the developed solutions to other agencies. Instead, the initial goal was to develop small-scale solutions that help to convince sceptics within the organization that GovLab Arnsberg can be valuable to the whole organization.

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

There are several results produced by GovLab Arnsberg. The first one are prototypes of re-designed processes and services. Those can be, for example, the chatbot that was described above. Besides the benefits of collecting data and improving the website as making it more user-friendly, the successful re-design of services and processes might also lead, in the long-term, to a change in the organizational culture. This is the case, because the employees of the regional administration changed their attitudes towards GovLab Arnsberg. In the beginning, they were skeptical and interest in the workshops offered by GovLab Arnsberg was low. This changed after the first projects of GovLab Arnsberg were successful. Besides a change in mindset of the frontline employees, also top-level employees changed their mindset about innovation practices in the regional administration. The change in mindset occurred, as GovLab Arnsberg demonstrated that developing (digital) solutions must not necessarily be costly but can be achieved with small changes in the administrative set up. However, the long-term impact of the initiation of GovLab Arnsberg cannot be assessed with the data collected, as GovLab Arnsberg was in an experimental stage at the time the data was collected. Instead of producing long-term solutions, they focused at experimenting with different methods.

Challenges & Bottlenecks

There are three main challenges of GovLab Arnsberg: legal challenges, the mindset of public servants as well as the skills of individual employees. The legal framework was a challenge for GovLab Arnsberg, as they limit the freedom and room for maneuver. For example, the implementation of the chatbot was hindered by the existing laws, as they could not use a cloud-based service which limited the amount of software to implement the chatbot. Furthermore, the laws limit the creativity at design-thinking workshops as the public servants were concerned to break laws when they were re-designing existing processes and services. Therefore, public servants are careful when thinking about the use of technology to implement new or re-designed services. The second challenge is the mindset of individual public servants. At the beginning, some public servants did not allow their employees to participate at design-thinking workshops as they did not see the advantages. This demonstrates that some public servants are risk-averse. The risk-aversion is also seen in the interpretation of the existing laws, described in the paragraph above. The third challenge is the skillset of the employees of the regional administration. Most of the employees receive extensive legal training in their education, so the main skill of public servants is to interpret laws. What is missing are skills to assess and evaluate technologies. This is problematic, as for the implementation of the prototypes developed within the design-thinking workshops the regional administration needs employees can implement those technologies at large scale.

Transferability & Replicability

As GovLab Arnsberg was only a year old at the time the data was collected, it was still in an experimental stage and scaling up the prototypes developed was not an initial goal. Therefore, there are only hints in the data on how the results of GovLab Arnsberg can be transferred to other contexts. However, the strategy of GovLab Arnsberg, that is to be successful on a small scale to convince sceptics and enhance the legitimacy of its actions might be also a strategy that works in other contexts, as the co-creation barriers described earlier are not unique and might be present (to varying extent) in other contexts.

Success Factors

There are three success factors that enabled GovLab Arnsberg to carry out their projects: political support, acting outside organizational hierarchies and provision of material resources. The political support GovLab Arnsberg has enables experimentation at GovLab Arnsberg. The regional president grants them the freedom to experiment with different ideas and make decisions independently. Furthermore, GovLab Arnsberg directly reports the progress to the regional president in regular meetings instead of writing reports. Furthermore, the regional president supports the activities of GovLab Arnsberg which legitimizes the projects of GovLab Arnsberg and makes them immune of criticism stemming from middle managers. The second success factor lies in the organizational arrangement GovLab Arnsberg is embedded in. Formally, GovLab Arnsberg is part of the IT department and from the budget of the IT departments the salaries of the employees are paid. However, the head of the IT department is not involved in the operational business and strategic alignment of GovLab Arnsberg. This leads to faster decision-making processes and contributes independence of GovLab Arnsberg, that is also stemming from the political support. The third success factor is the equipment that enables GovLab Arnsberg to carry out design-thinking workshops. Here, the goal was to provide a room that is visually and physically different from the other offices of the regional administration. For example, the employees bought furniture from Ikea instead of using the official procurement system. This influences the overall atmosphere of the lab and stimulated creative thinking.

Lessons learned

From this case study, it becomes evident, that political support is crucial for the labs survival and success. Without the top-level support, GovLab Arnsberg would not have been able to carry out its activities independently. Furthermore, the top-level support enhances the legitimacy of the lab within the regional administration. This freedom is reflected also in the organizational set-up that grants the GovLab freedom from the rigid hierarchical structure that slows down decision-making processes. In addition, the analysis of GovLab Arnsberg has shown that most of the barriers that inhibit the co-creation processes within an administration are deeply ingrained in the regional administration. The organizational culture as well as the mindset and skills of individual employees challenged the co-creation activities of GovLab Arnsberg. However, the analysis has also shown, that those barriers can be overcome, if the initial projects are carried out successfully.

GovLab Austria

GovLab Austria was founded in 2016 by the chancellor’s office of the Austrians federal government and the Danube university Krems. In 2017 after a national election, the jurisdiction was moved from the chancellor’s office to the Bundesministerium für Öffentlichen Dienst und Sport (Federal Agency of Public Service and Sports (BMÖDS)).
GovLab Austria is receiving financial resources by their two founding partners the Danube University Krems and the BMÖDS. However, the budget of GovLab Austria is rather small with €75.000 (excluding costs for staff).
The initial goal of GovLab Austria is to facilitate innovation within the Austrian federal administration, through enabling the exchange of information and knowledge between different organizational units. To achieve this goal, the participants of GovLab Austria engage in three activities. First, they implement projects that aim at reorganizing existing services within the federal administration. Second, they offer training programs for administrators working at the federal government. Third, they organize events where public administrators meet each other and have the opportunity to exchange knowledge and ideas about public sector innovation projects.

Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

GovLab Austria has a three-fold organizational structures, consisting of three bodies: the executive office, the leading board and the sounding board. The executive office is responsible for operational tasks, as, for example, organizing events and training programs. The leading board, that consist of representatives from the BMÖDS and the Danube university Krems, is responsible for determining the goals and strategies to achieve these goals. Furthermore, they decide which projects are pursued and the distribution of financial resources. The sounding board is a network, that consists of experts coming from the public and private sector, as well as from non-profit organizations. They consult the leading board and the executive office on the planned activities. As the GovLab Austria is located at the federal level, their activities and goals are not targeted directly to services that are used by citizens. Rather, they strategically seek to facilitate the innovation activities of the whole federal administration. Therefore, the primary beneficiaries are public servants working at the different levels of government.

Co-creation process

In GovLab Austria, co-creation mostly happens through the inclusion of stakeholders in the idea generation processes and has a facilitating function as they want to enable other agencies to engage in co-creation. Therefore, the activities of GovLab Austria are characterized by a certain degree of openness. They invite a broad range of different stakeholders and interested public servants to their workshops and events. In those workshops and events, two kinds of co-creation activities are carried out: experimentation and collaborative discussion of ideas. Also, activities such as experimentation and prototyping are carried out, but not in a large scale. Instead, the respondents described a variety of prototyping methods they want to try out in the future in different projects initiated by GovLab Austria. The planning of projects and setting of goals was done in a deliberative fashion, where discussions are the main way how the collaboration was carried out. The climate that surrounded those discussions was described as constructive, where the single participants treated each other as equal partners even though they were coming from different organizational hierarchies. Furthermore, the general strategic direction of GovLab Austria is also determined through deliberation, as the members of the leading board and the sounding board meet twice a year to discuss the strategies and goals. The predominant focus on discussion as method of co-creation might result from the fact, that GovLab Austria is at a planning stage, that is characterized by experimentation and brainstorming. From the data collected, we were not able to determine how GovLab Austria wants to scale up those procedures and change to a more routinized course of action.

Digital Transformation Process

The goal of GovLab Austria is to facilitate innovation within the federal administration in general. This means, that the activities of GovLab Austria do not automatically serve the digital transformation of the Austrian government. However, digital transformation can still be possible through the activities of GovLab Austria as some of the projects they carry out aim at digitizing individual processes. Therefore, it is possible that there are spill over effects and the facilitation of innovation might lead also to a more digitized administration.

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

As GovLab Austria’s primary goal is to facilitate innovation within the federal administration of Austria, the outcomes created by GovLab Austria are targeting the federal administration itself. Furthermore, as GovLab Austria is, at the time of data collection, still at the planning stage rather than executing their projects, the outcomes that can be assessed through their activities are limited. However, the possibility for public servants to meet with other stakeholders, that have knowledge on innovation and public sector transformation generate value for the federal administration. Those values are a reduction organizational silos, enhanced intrinsic motivation of public servants, the creation of networks and access to information. For example, through participating in workshops, conducted by GovLab Austria, organizational silos are reduced, as public administrators have the chance to meet like-minded people from the federal administration, that they would not have met in their regular daily business. Those meetings facilitate the creation of networks and allow the public servants to share knowledge and information with others. In addition, the intrinsic motivation of public servants is increased, as they meet with people, that share the same attitude. This results in mutual inspiration and empowerment. Therefore, the founding of GovLab Austria results in benefits for the individual participants as well as the whole organization.

Challenges & Bottlenecks

There are several challenges that the participants as well as the employees of GovLab Austria are confronted with: limited financial resources, lack of support from top-level government officials and the organizational culture, as well as the mindset of public servants. The limited financial resources challenge co-creation in two ways: first, they inhibit the collaboration between the members of the sounding board and leading board, as, for example, GovLab Austria is not able to compensate the travel costs of the sounding board members. Second, they do not allow for extensive experimentation as testing solutions comprehensively can be costly. The lack of top-level support leads to a reduction of legitimacy and leverage, that GovLab Austria needs to influence the processes of other federal agencies in a long term. The lack of top-level support is illustrated best with the organizational re-location that happened one year after GovLab Austria was founded, when the new government decided to re-locate GovLab Austria from the chancellor’s office to the BMÖDS. This re-location decreased the influence of GovLab Austria, as the chancellor’s office has greater organizational power than the BMÖDS. The organizational culture within the federal agency is another barrier to co-creation. This is evident in several ways. For example, there are only a few incentives for public administrators to be innovative and try out new processes or methods. Instead, public servants that initiate change receive negative feedback. This inhibits GovLab Austria to implement their ideas in the long run. On the individual level, the organizational culture is reflected in a rather risk-averse mindset of individual public servants. Furthermore, a lot of public servants working within the federal agency have legal training and lack the operational knowledge to initiate organizational change.

Transferability & Replicability

As GovLab Austria is, at the time the data was collected, at a planning stage, where the goals had to be determined and a general strategy was developed, there is little data, that tackles how the results created by GovLab Austria can be transferred to other contexts or replicated by other agencies or administrations. However, from the discussion of challenges, it is seen that GovLab Austria needs, besides skilled employees, an organizational context, that allows for freedom in decision-making and flexibility. Furthermore, they need organizational leverage to be able to upscale their results beyond their own agency.

Success Factors

Despite the challenges, the participants, employees and stakeholders of GovLab Austria face, there are also two factors, that make the early stage planning process of GovLab Austria successful. The first factor is that the participants of GovLab Austria are open-minded and motivated to participate and provide their knowledge and information to the discussions that constitute the co-creation processes of GovLab Austria. Here, an open mind is especially important, as it enables the participants to listen and accept other opinions. A second factor is the extensive collaboration between private and third sector organizations as well as the federal administration itself, that is integral in the organizational set-up of GovLab Austria. For example, the sounding board members come from the third sector as well as private sector corporations. The sounding board members evaluate and improve the projects GovLab Austria pursues.

Lessons learned

The case of GovLab Austria shows, that the absence of top-level support might have negative consequences for the progress and activities of a living lab. As the living lab was relocated within the federal administration it lost legitimacy and political leverage. As the goals of GovLab Austria are to facilitate innovation processes within the administration this relocation might inhibit the upscaling of the projects developed by GovLab Austria. However, at the time of data collection, GovLab Austria was still at a planning stage so it is too early to evaluate the impacts on the whole organization. The organizational set-up with a diverse set of actors that evaluate the projects and activities of GovLab Austria is a promising way to incorporate external knowledge and experiences. This diversity ensures, that the decision-making stays open and the collaboration remains constructive.

Residential care services and value creation.

This case study looks at a for-profit housing and care provider for older people and people with disabilities in Scotland. The organisation provides care at home, housing support, care homes and responder-type services in ten local authorities in Scotland. This organisation is skilled in providing services through the support of digital systems, such as the emergency alarm system that aims to customise services for individuals and to give users more control over the service.

Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

This case study looks at a for-profit housing and care provider for older people and people with disabilities in Scotland. The organisation provides care at home, housing support, care homes and responder-type services in ten local authorities in Scotland. This organisation is skilled in providing services through the support of digital systems, such as the emergency alarm system that aims to customise services for individuals and to give users more control over the service.

Co-creation process

Three key points of value co-creation have been identified in this case study. First, at the stage of service design, the service users co-create value through joining the Tenants’ Group, using the complaints procedure, attending the organization’s AGM and filling in survey questionnaires. The service users are also involved in the development of the digital system to offer opinions on the look, feel and functionality of the system. Service users are also involved in the staff recruitment. Second, at the operational planning, value co-creation process is recognized during the collection of information about service users, where the role of service managers is highlighted. The care package is developed with individual service users, who thus participate in operational planning and co-create value for the service. Third, at the stage of service delivery, the service users play a pivotal role in creating value through their day-to-day involvement in service interactions. The service users and frontline staff build a service relationship through service interactions, which facilitates the service users to create value. Moreover, supporting processes and technology are recognized as an important interface to facilitate value creation, by enriching the experience of service users, increasing their social contact with family and friends, and helping staff to better understand user needs and to handle emergencies more effectively.

Digital Transformation Process

We have not looked at the digital transformation. However, technology and digital systems were mentioned as facilitating the effective provision of services in this case study.

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

The outcomes and impacts are identified in two aspects. First, the service users’ involvement in service interactions and operational planning has contributed to the service improvement at the micro level and thus has impacted the value that individual service users receive from the housing and care services. Second, the frontline service staff have learned through service interactions with service users, which enables the service staff to perform their job more effectively and thus impacting their capacity to facilitate value creation and co-creation.

Challenges & Bottlenecks

There are some challenges related to the stages of service design and service delivery. At the service design stage, the service users are less likely to be involved in the design of service while various respondents have attributed the low involvement to the service users’ apathy to involvement outside service interactions. Three main challenges are identified at the service delivery stages. First, ‘too much care’ and a disparity in care offered by different frontline staff could result in service users’ unrealistic expectations of service and therefore, value destruction. Second, a lack of continuity in care to foster relationship building; personality clashes; a lack of resources; and a lack of knowledgeable or appropriately trained staff are seen as four ways to hurdle fostering service relationships and thus, pose challenges for value creation.

Transferability & Replicability

The case study organisation is a Scotland based organization, but its idea may be applicable to other contexts. However, this case study has not explored this aspect.

Success Factors

One central success factor identified in this case study is that knowledgeable, skilled staff who take a caring approach are important to value co-creation. For human-centred services in particular, this supported the development of the service relationship and trust.

Lessons learned

Four practical lessons have been learnt from this case study. First, frontline service staff play an indispensable role in co-creating value during service interactions. It was necessary, therefore, that staff were appropriately trained and knowledgeable. They needed the appropriate soft skills to manage the service relationship and engage with and understand service users’ narratives to co-create value. Second, services need to be accessible to service users and support the co-creation of value. Third, the organizational culture enabled or constrained value co-creation for service users. Culture had implications for the extent to which service users view themselves and public service staff view service users as capable of contributing to value creation processes. Finally, qualitative performance management tools should be developed to capture the multi-dimensional, subjective nature of value.

New Social Security Agency in Scotland

This case study looks at the development in designing the new Social Security Agency in Scotland and the experience of the current system which has been provided by the UK government. Social security is currently an area of change and reform in the UK, with the provision of the service being devolved from the UK Government to the Scottish Government under the Scotland Act (2016) which has permitted Scottish Ministers to develop new policies of social security entitlement. Subsequently, the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 has established the framework for the new system being developed in Scotland. It is with this Act that Social Security Scotland have been founded. This case study focuses on the design of new social security services in Scotland but reflects on service users’ experience of the social welfare system led by the system administered Department of Work and Pensions.

Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

The key stakeholders include the Scottish Government, policymakers, stakeholder organizations, and frontline staff of the social security system under the Department for Work and Pensions. The key beneficiaries include the service users of the social security system, organizations and wider society.

Co-creation process

Two key points of value co-creation have been identified in this case study. The first point is service design, where ‘experience panels’ are established to draw on service users’ experiences of the current social security system. At the same point, Stakeholder Reference Groups have also been organized for local authorities, third sector organizations and, to some extent, for-profit organizations to share knowledge about social security. These processes have engaged stakeholder organizations in providing an important perspective and knowledge to shape service improvement while connecting service users who have lived experience of the services. The second point is service delivery, where the service users access appropriate services and interact with frontline service staff knowledgeable and capable of supporting the service users. Positive relationships developed from the interaction are regarded as contributing to value creation. The service users’ families and friends are also seen as facilitating value creation by helping service users with complex procedures to claim benefits.  

Digital Transformation Process

The digital transformation process was not examined in this case.  

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

The main impacts are twofold. First, at the service design stage, the involvement of individuals who have directly experienced services has greatly contributed to service reform. A lived experience-based approach has been described as outweighing any value that could be created by professionally designing the service. Second, at the service delivery stage, service interactions between the frontline service staff and the service users influence the service users’ service experience and thus shape their perceptions of value. A trusted relationship developed between the service users and the frontline service staff would contributed to the effectiveness of the service and ultimately facilitate value creation for the service.  

Challenges & Bottlenecks

Four challenges have been identified for the service design stage. First, the involvement of public service users in the experience-led/based service design has raised concern over excluding stakeholder groups. Second, there are incongruent perspectives of value and goals. Third, there has been concern over whether strong political leadership is in place to effectively manage and preservice the involvement of service users. Finally, the legacy of the UK social security system has been found constraining the value creation process. At the service delivery stage, constraints on value creation and co-creation are mainly reflected on barriers to service interactions, including the inaccessibility of services, a lack of support for vulnerable service users’ interactions with frontline staff, a lack of knowledge, expertise and a caring approach among frontline staff, a lack of continuity in service provision, and the stigmatizing, inhumane and adversarial culture in the current system.

Transferability & Replicability

The experience of developing the new Social Security Agency in Scotland may be transferred and replicated in other public service settings.

Success Factors

During the service design stage, a progressive approach, such as capacity building sessions, has facilitated and encouraged vulnerable service users to share their knowledge and ‘unique perspective’ on service experience to make novel service solutions to having the opportunity for value co-creation. During the service delivery stage the frontline staff’s knowledge and capacity to support service users are perceived as critical to the process of value co-creation by making the application for social benefits easier and developing positive service relationships with service users and frontline staff.  

Lessons learned

Three practical lessons have been learnt from this case study. First, the frontline service staff play an indispensable role in co-creating value during service interactions. They need to manage the service relationship and possess the necessary soft skills to engage with and understand service users’ narratives to co-create value. Hence, appropriate staff training is emphasized. Second, service processes need to be accessible and support value creation for individual service users. Third, the organizational culture translated through both the approach of frontline staff and the supporting service processes has implications for the extent to which service users view themselves and public service staff view service users as capable of contributing to value creation processes. Thus, the organizational culture was important in supporting value creation.

Re-design of Council services

The case study investigates the re-design of council services. The case organization is an external consultancy agency that has been contracted to a Borough Council in the southeast of England to undertake the service design work. The service re-design work by the consultancy agency extends to all Council services whilst for the purposes of this case study, three areas have been focused on, which are housing, planning and waste.

Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

The key stakeholder organizations in this case study are the Consultancy Agency and the Council while in detail, the stakeholders include the Council staff, consultancy staff and service users involved in the user research and the testing of website. The main beneficiaries of service design are citizens who use Council services and the Council itself since clear information and improved communication would make the service experience easier for both sides, by managing the expectations of customers and easing staff workload.

Co-creation process

The Consultancy agency has facilitated the Council to employ three main service design methods. The first one is journey mapping, in which a professional service designer from the Consultancy has supported the Council staff to establish the ‘as is’ and ‘to be’ of services from a customer and staff perspective. The second is personas method to inform the discovery phases. The Consultancy agency has purchased Experian data to develop various personas of fictional residents of the Borough. Some of personas have also been selected to guide the journey mapping sessions with Council staff, which is the third service design method. These service design sessions have encouraged the Council staff to understand user needs. Nevertheless, no real service users have been involved in these sessions and all the pain points for users have been articulated by the Council staff.

Digital Transformation Process

Digital transformation in this case study is mainly reflected on the service re-design task of developing the Council’s website. The Consultancy agency updated and aligned the website with Government Digital Standard guidelines. Through service design, the Council’s website has been modernized to ensure the effective provision of information and digital forms to support users to self-serve themselves.

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

In this case study, the service design process has generated positive and concrete results in three aspects. First, a triage system has been created with the re-design of reception area. The improved reception area is seen as more aesthetical and enhancing the internal efficiency since it changes the interconnection in the services, which allows staff to better manage their time. Second, the digital improvement has been viewed positively. The new website makes services more accessible for customers while the improved technology supports backend business processes, leading to greater efficiency from an operation perspective. Third, the service design methods, with the journey mapping sessions in particular, have been seen as helpful for rethinking about user needs and gaining perspective on the aims of the service and the implications for staff and customer experience.

Challenges & Bottlenecks

Several challenges have been identified within this case study. A central one is that service re-design in one area potentially impacts another dimension of the service journey, particularly where services are interconnected. In this case, for example, the redesign processes have led to new tasks for and new kinds of pressure on the frontline staff in the reception area, and they have not received sufficient training in how to handle the new tasks. Another key challenge identified is related to resources and time constraints. The Council staff in this case study have limited time and resources to spend on service design, which has affected who could attend the service design sessions. As a result, the council staff could not be sufficiently involved in the service design process. Also, user involvement is absent in the service design, which has been highlighted as a weakness of the service design approach. Lastly, a challenge in relation to continuous improvement has been identified as concerns have been raised around whether there has been sufficient testing or there will be resources and momentum for continuous service improvement.

Transferability & Replicability

The experience and the lesson learnt in this re-design of council services may be transferrable to service design practices in other public service settings.  

Success Factors

The service design approach is considered as the key success factor, which has enabled the Council staff to shift their focus towards a user perspective of services rather than on the internal efficiencies of business processes.  

Lessons learned

Four practical lessons have been learnt. First, clear communication between the Consultancy agency and the Council staff is essential for the collaborative approach. Second, a strategic and holistic approach to service design would support the change process. Third, the inclusive involvement of the Council staff in the service design process is necessary. Fourth, an emphasis on a user perspective and a focus of internal business processes need to be both taken into account.

Design of the new Social Security Agency in Scotland

This case study looks at the design of the new Social Security Agency in Scotland and its services. The design aims of this case include creating a system that is distinctive from the one that have been administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP); creating a seamless experience or journey for service users for the new social security services; enabling easy access to the social security system for service users; and developing effective backend processes.

Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

The key stakeholders include the Scottish Government, policy makers, agency staff working on the operational level, and service users and external stakeholders participating in service design and testing. The key beneficiaries are public service users of social security services, the agency itself and wider society.

Co-creation process

The key stakeholders include the Scottish Government, policy makers, agency staff working on the operational level, and service users and external stakeholders participating in service design and testing. The key beneficiaries are public service users of social security services, the agency itself and wider society.

Digital Transformation Process

Not relevant

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

Since the case is still at the design stage, it is too early to evaluate the outcomes or impacts of the service design. However, the analysis of evidence shows that the service design has supported a cultural shift within the Scottish Government towards a user-centred narrative.

Challenges & Bottlenecks

Three broad challenges for service design have been identified in this case study. First, the setting of social security services is extremely complex. Although it is necessary to divide this large-scale task of service design into small and manageable chunks, it is challenging to fit the design of each chunk back together without losing the sight of a big picture. The complexity of the service setting has negatively affected the effectiveness of service design. The second challenge is also related to a public service setting where it is difficult for wider cultural change to take place. There is an understanding that public services could produce incremental improvement rather than complete solutions. Therefore, there is a bottleneck of the scope of continuous improvement. Third, the case study has revealed a lack of service designers and other user-centred professionals in public service context, which leads to a lack of input from a professional service designer in some parts of public service design process.

Transferability & Replicability

The methods of service design in the new Social Security Agency in Scotland may be transferred and replicated in other public service settings.

Success Factors

The success factors are twofold. First, the case study reveals that the service design process has supported a service user perspective, which focuses on the needs of social security service users and enables easier access to the services for them. Second, the service design process in the case has supported a holistic view of services, which provides a strategic overview of how different services under the social security interact and facilitates the creation of a seamless service experience for service users.

Lessons learned

Four practical lessons have been learnt from this case. First, service design is facilitated by a degree of flexibility at the operational level. Second, a holistic view of the service experience needs maintenance throughout the design process. Third, service design in practice requires capacity building and organisational learning. Fourth, the rationale of human-centred design approach needs to be balanced against the protection of the public purse.