Design adventures in public sector

Public organizations are slowly awakening for applying service design and design thinking. There is a huge potential but there are also challenges ahead. The aim of this paper is to discuss the benefits and challenges that occurred when design researchers coming from outside the organization applied and tested co-design methods as well as visual thinking and communication tools in two case experiments that were conducted in a context of a City of Helsinki. These activities were part of internal and external development projects of the organization. The paper also contributes to the discussion around the topic of organizations' design readiness in practical level, by reflecting some conditions and capabilities that are needed from both organization's as well as design professional's side, when designerly approaches are introduced and applied for the first time.

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