Takeaways from My First Human-Centered Indonesian Public Sector Project
Whenever I read a case study of Human Centered Design (HCD) in public sector from foreign countries, I’m always in awed with how the agency or the team can improve many peoples lives with their project, and honestly a bit jealous too. I used to wonder “When will Indonesian government use this approach when designing policy? I bet it’d make the policy better”.
Recent years I feel my hope was heard when I learned many public sector project started to apply the approach, usually ones that are backed by International NGO. Then I started to wonder “How would it feel ya to work in public sectors using the HCD approach?”. 3 Months ago I got the very chance to answer my own wonder when I was assigned to work on one with one of my colleague.
Here are my several takeaways.
(Side note: careful what you wish for, it might get answered rather quickly)
Quickly familiarise your self with all the abbreviation and terminology
Yes, Indonesian public sector really like to abbreviate every single thing they have, from activities, departments, objects, and many more. For example, most adult individual in Indonesia would know things like KTP, SIM, NPWP, BPJS Kesehatan . Or in this pandemic era we even have two abbreviations for social curfew, PSBB and PPKM . As someone who rarely or even sometimes avoiding interaction with government unless it is really needed, all of these abbreviation and terminology could easily make me overwhelmed, especially we were not only going to be exposed at front stage, but also the back stage interaction (read:more abbreviations).
KTP = Kartu Tanda Penduduk / Citizen ID Card
SIM = Surat Izin Mengemudi / Drivers Licence
NPWP = Nomor Pokok Wajib Pajak / Tax Identification Number
BPJS Kesehatan = Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial Kesehatan / Health Social Security Agency
PSBB = Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar / Wide Scale Social Restrictions
PPKM = Pemberlakuan Pembatasan Kegiatan Masyarakat / Community Activities Restrictions Enforcement
Therefore early in the beginning of the project, my project partner and I had several sessions with subject matter expert in order for us to get familiarise with all of the abbreviation and terminology being used. We also asked around within our network that willingly share their experience interacting with the topic being covered. By doing this, we built the basic understanding of the topics therefore we could discuss more important things with the client not wasting much time asking obvious questions to the respondents we invited. The communication between the team will become easier when we understand and speak their lingo.
Clarify things you don’t understand right away
As far as we learned by ourself, there was always something we did not understand or simply missed. Therefore whenever we encountered unfamiliar topics during our project, we would discuss this with the client to make sure we got the concept right, otherwise we might carry false understanding and could become fatal when we were designing the solution.
We also setup a zoom relay within our remote interview sessions ,so many of clients team members from different departments could observe the session without making the respondent uncomfortable. After a session ended, we invited them to a debrief session where we could discuss the findings, clarification, or get understanding what was happening backstage directly from the related departments.
(Even with all of this, there was still time when we perceived wrongly about a concept, fortunately it was still early in the project)
Include higher stakeholders during the projects, not just at the very end
Let’s be honest, we all must have experience the long bureaucracy that is happening in Indonesian public sector. And when you were working in the backstage with them, you needed to follow this as well. With this bureaucracy environment, there is tendency for the client’s team to need confirmation from the higher up before making their decision. Fortunately, the project already setup a steering committee meeting every two weeks where we informed the current progress and what we would do next.
By doing this steering committee meeting, when the higher management heard the progress and had some concern, they could directly express it and we then could discuss and find solution right away in the same occasion. We then could confidently move forward, the higher management would always be informed and could give their feedback along the way, therefore creating a better buy-in for the project.
The session with higher management is also a good place for us to raise concerns, unsolved issues, or things that need attention quickly. Sometimes there were something that were stuck in one the bureaucracy chain that only by the nudge of the higher stakeholders that we could get it on time (or at the very least, actually get it).
Use plain language and avoid jargons
If in the beginning we touched a bit regarding the use of lots of abbreviation and terminology in public sector, HCD practitioners are not without fault either. We are sometimes trapped and confused by our jargons as well, like Stimuli, Persona, Synthesis, Co-Design, Future State Journey. Throw all that words to a party who just recently exposed with HCD , misunderstanding are bound to happen.
Focus on what we trying to solve and what we need to do will break us out from the meaningless jargons. Use plain language if we can, to explain about the activities or things we are about to produce. If it is not doable, have a separate session to explain about the activities so every one has the same understanding what will happen and what they need to prepare. Because at the very end, insights uncovered from the research and the solution we propose are all that matter.
(There was one time in the project where we all got confused due to different perception between us and the client on what Persona is)
Guiding based on objective
During the project i noticed sometimes my client would give feedback or direction that initially seems to be unusual or even counterproductive with the objective we were trying to achieve. But turned out it was just because HCD approach was so different with they used to. When this happens, ask them why did they give that particular feedback or direction, try to understand their motivation, then suggest alternative direction that suits with the objective. They might give inputs based on what they are familiar with, we just need to ask why then guide them along to the right direction.
That are my several take aways from my first public sector HCD project, hope it will help you on yours!
