DESIGNING FOR PUBLIC OUTCOMES

Learn how to apply design methods across public and private sector contexts to generate public value and improve societal outcomes.
 
What is this workshop?
Designing for Public Outcomes will introduce design methods to students and offer meaningful approaches to apply them to complex, social problems. The workshop will investigate how design can influence public and social systems to create new public services, solutions, and interactions that increase public trust and participation, generate public value, and improve public outcomes. The workshop will follow CIID’s applied learning philosophy and incorporate a blend of classroom based learning, experiential learning, collaborative activities, and expert guest speakers.
 
Students will learn strategies to keep people at the center of messy public problems and minimize the negative impacts of bureaucracy, power, short-termism, or bias that can hinder collective action and decrease trust in public services and institutions. This course will explore how the design process can be applied to making change at local, national, and global scales and offer practical tools that you can use in your current work creating services, making decisions, developing programs, or influencing systems.
 
What will you learn?
‘Designing for public outcomes’ is a platform for students to explore topics such as participation, inclusion, co-design, cross-sector collaboration, exploration, and implementation to generate public value. As a participant in this workshop, you will:
Become familiar with human centered design tools and processes that can be adapted to your personal or professional context.
Learn how to apply design methods in complex, public sector contexts.
Understand the role of service design in increasing trust and legitimacy of our social institutions
Better understand the levers of influence you have as a changemaker within complex, social systems and where and when to apply design methods within those systems.
Reflect on your own role as a change maker designing for polarizing, multi-generational, long-term challenges.
 
This workshop will provide an overview of design methods as applied through current areas of practice like human service design, civic service design, public interest technology, international development, strategic foresight, and future thinking.
 
How will you learn it?
The workshop will involve live instruction, individual activities and reflection, group projects, and case studies. Students will learn and practice design methods through a team project that will provide applied learning opportunities to practice research, design, and testing first-hand.
 
Is this for you?
If you are interested in practical, design-led approaches to address social challenges, this class is for you! Designers, researchers, managers, administrators, public servants and changemakers of all kinds will find this class enlightening. You do not have to be a practicing designer to participate in this class, however, a basic understanding of the design process is helpful.
 
What do I need to bring to the workshop?
A computer
Notebook and writing utensil
 
Enrolment will be closed when the workshops are full.