Students will learn strategies to keep people at the centre of messy public problems and minimise 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. Ultimately, it’s intended to be a platform for students to explore topics such as participation, inclusion, co-design, cross-sector collaboration, exploration, and implementation to generate public value.

Prerequisites

Designers, researchers, managers, administrators, public servants, and changemakers of all kinds will find this class enlightening. You do not have to be a practising designer to participate, however, a basic understanding of the design process is helpful.

How you’ll learn

The workshop will involve live instruction, individual activities and reflection, group projects, and case studies. Students will learn and practise design methods through a team project that will provide applied learning opportunities to practise research, design, and testing first-hand.

What you’ll learn

• An overview of design methods as applied through current areas of practise including: human service design, civic service design, public interest technology, international development, strategic foresight, and future-thinking
• Human-centred design tools and processes that can be adapted to your personal and professional context
• How to apply design methods to complex public sector problems
• An understanding of the levers of influence available within complex social systems, and where design methods can be applied to maximum effect
• How to reflect on your own role as a change-maker when designing for multi-generational, long-term challenges
  

What to bring?

Notebook and writing utensils