How do you cope?
Over the past weeks we spoke to clients, partners, colleagues and friends, all of them working in public organisations of some sort. That is, all of them, in their respective ways, are focused on providing a public good, be it in a city government, a municipality or an administrative department, in an NGO, a civic initiative or a public tech start up.
We asked a simple question: How do you cope? And we learned how they adapt to today’s new normal of a quarantined society. We scouted common pain points, successful workarounds and also false friends. With our findings, we want to spark a discussion on what public organisations in particular can and should do.
This a first glimpse into some learnings, insights and challenges we heard. We will continue this series in the coming weeks, and we would love to learn even more. Thus, if you’re a public servant, an NGO staffer, an activist for public good or anything in between, come talk to us! Here are some early findings:
1. Pleasant Surprises
Many public administrations are surprised by how well they cope. Especially their capability to find pragmatic workable solutions, that were unthinkable for decades — or even just a few weeks ago. Remote IT solutions are found over night and home office habits are turning into business as usual within days. With this new found spirit of yes we can, the fear of overdoing it and not being in line with the rest of the organisation rises. A common Design Challenge is: how do we collectively drive by sight and find the sweet spot between agility and impulsive action?
2. Organizational Culture needs remote update
Comparing remote work with on-site work, public organizations see a need for renegotiating the cultural norms of how to work together. Many find that the lack of physical presence needs to be compensated for. Often times, this requires more communication in and across teams. It requires a bigger effort to make implicit thoughts and expectations explicit. And yes, it also requires a more detailed vocabulary in communicating those. Tools like the Moodmeter App might help framing and thus communicating your implicit feelings.
3. Rapid Responsibility
In some areas, the implementation of new digital tools and services is done after prudent review — but not in others. A current design challenge is: how to make practical but responsible decisions regarding a digital transformation? We learned that the bigger the trade-offs for a decisions are, the bigger the willingness to find temporary solutions. These solutions are taken as workable for the moment, but need to be re-negotiated in the near future. In our interviews we often shared public resources such as the Sarah Gold‘s Design with Data Principles, also used by the UK‘s Government Digital Services. On a more practical note, the last word in many of those workarounds is yet to be spoken, often by the board of audit or the comptroller.
4. No Public / New Public.
While public life in the street (more or less) rests, new public places emerge. Public institutions sometimes struggle and sometimes manage to engage with them. Twitter accounts to directly communicate with citizens are implemented within days, while participatory processes are on hold. A common challenge is: how to we facilitate public engagement and interaction in times of physical distancing? There are of course promising platforms that have been tackling just that, long before COVID-19 times. But tools like Decidem are not yet widely known, and in many cases more exclusive (in terms of tech literacy, connectivity, and approachability) than their real life counterparts.
4. Baggage and neglect.
For many teams it now quickly becomes apparent which projects, initiatives and processes have been neglected in the past decades. The new normal is a real time testing ground for how public organisations prioritise resilience. The results show a bigger need for planning and thinking in possible futures. A design challenge could be: how can public organisations enable themselves to think in futures and take resilient choices in the present?
5. Curiosity.
Of course, a recurring question is: What does everyone else do? We think it helps to connect and learn together in times of rapid change and uncertainty.
Let’s do it (hence this blog post 😊)!
You’re a public servant, an NGO staffer, an activist for public good or anything in between? → come talk to us:
🐦 Twitter https://twitter.com/hybridcitylab
📧 Mail mail@hybridcitylab.com
🕸 Web hybridcitylab.com
The Hybrid City Lab is part of zero360‘s mission to co-create urban futures.
