Often, at the root of the problem are policies that are outdated, poorly designed, or that fail to take into account what communities truly need. When a team successfully uses service design to implement a poorly-designed policy, they are not actually solving the problem. In order to truly improve how government agencies deliver services and serve stakeholders, we must also redesign the way that policy is made. The future of government depends on it.

The Beeck Center believes that the future of improved service delivery requires a strategy that includes user-centered policy making and creates space for experimentation and piloting. The Delivering Better Outcomes through User-Centered Policy Making project aims to do just that.

Teams around the world are focusing on techniques that center user-centered policy making. One thing these teams have in common is that they start small, experiment, and pilot different policy solutions. The iterative development, piloting mindset is typically associated with the tech industry and seen as the work of entrepreneurs. It is critical that in today’s world, elected officials, public servants, and those responsible for designing and implementing public programs see themselves as policy entrepreneurs. Ultimately, if we want to deliver better outcomes, we need to bridge the worlds of policy making and technical as well as non-technical policy implementation.