Co-design in Smart Cities

Peter Cruickshank, Edinburgh Napier University

Political interest in co-design

Groningen’s Mayor Peter Rehwinkel

“ to enrol customers in co-design of

services… to lower costs of failure”

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What does ‘co-design’ mean?

Concrete work with another partner » ie more than information sharing

A change in mindset» moving from what the technological

developments can do, to what the stakeholders want

A wholesale change in service design» a transformation of services involving working

with end users (or agencies that work with them)

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Key aspects

• Co-design is a collaboration.• Transparency • participation requires continuity of participants• wide-ranging input.

• Co-design is a developmental process.• exchange of information and expertise• co-design teaches co-design.

• Co-design shifts power to the process• balances rights and freedoms between participants• equality of legitimacy and value in inputs• collective ownership: empowerment and abrogation of power

• Co-design activities are outcome-based• practical focus• shared creative intent

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Relation to co-production

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Responsibility for design of services

Professionals as sole

service planner

Professionals and service

users/community as co-

planners

No professional input into

service planning

Re

spo

nsi

bili

ty fo

r d

eliv

ery

of

serv

ice

s

Professionals as

sole service

deliverers

Traditional professional

service provision

Professional service

provision but

users/communities

involved in planning and

co-design

Professionals as sole service

deliverers

Professionals and

users/communities

as co-deliverers

User co-delivery of

professionally designed

services

Full co-production

User/community delivery of

services with little formal/

professional

Users/communities

as sole deliverers

User/community

delivery of professionally

planned services

User/community delivery

of co-planned or co-

designed services

Self-organised community

provision

NESTA report (2009)

Who is involvedTypes of involvement: Horizontal

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Working with colleaguesSmart Cities partners

Neighbouring municipalities

Ties with language in project objectives

Who is involvedTypes of involvement: Vertical

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Working with stakeholdersOther departments

SuppliersAgenciesCitizens

Stakeholder involvement can be legally required

Tools & techniques

Meetings

Workshops

Focus groups

Surveys as alternative to focus group• Mass survey of needs

• On specific issues

Stakeholder meetings

Process mapping / customer journey mapping

Ateliers

Design thinking8

Examples from our partners

Service development in KristiansandCommunity care for those with mental

illness• The challenge: involve people and

families• Counter intuitive to co-design

– stigmatised users – weak social networks and low insight

• Group of potential users trained– to support their engagement– help them to act as articulate

representatives of their communities– The training included :committee work,

media contact, the responsibilities and roles of different government bodies and how to run a ‘local interest organisation’

• Took 3 to 4 times as long to create the required conditions– But resulting service was better.

Start-up

Preparation and data gathering

Decision and implementation

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Examples from our partners

Online engagement in Leiedal

Lelijke plekjes – mooie trekjes

•Asked for neglected (small scale) public places to fix

•Professionals selected from long list

•Map and images on the website allows people to see their ideas coming true

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Examples from our partners

Customer Journey Mapping in Edinburgh

•Linked to customer insight and business process improvement

•Focus on emotional insights into customer's experience

•Naturally leads to engaging customers in service redesign

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Contexts

•Segmentation and customer insight

• Successful co-design needs a clear picture of who the customers are

•Research design

• Can fit with customer research

• ‘big picture’ surveys

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Contexts

Design thinkingBenefit•Solution is focused on real problems•Real user engagement

Challenges•Problem definition can take 60% of project time•How to sell a creative process when a PID must define the deliverables?

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• Problem statement (defining + researching)1

• Immersion and empathy2

• Synthesis3

• Ideation4

• Prototyping5

Some issues & lessons

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• Think about related terms» Mainstreaming, citizen engagement,

participation, knowledge management

• Organisational maturity» ‘Know thyself’

• Requirement for long term, trust-based relationships

» Its not a one night stand (or a solitary activity)

• Communication & sharing• Case studies

• Reports

• Workshop

THANK YOU!

Any questions?

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