Our approach
From policy to practice with services that work for everyone
In municipalities and public organizations, the biggest challenges in service delivery aren’t usually technical; they’re about alignment. Policy, processes, and systems don’t always connect, and that creates confusion for both residents and employees.
We help you bring all those layers together, so services become more understandable, more usable, and more future-proof.
Our process:
- guides you through each level of a service: from strategic goals and organizational constraints to internal processes, digital touchpoints, and citizen-facing interfaces.
- gives structure to complexity, and helps teams focus on what matters most: real outcomes for people and society.
If you're navigating policy frameworks, user needs, and system limitations, it’s a way to make service improvement concrete, collaborative, and doable.
Key principles
Value for all
In the public sector, every service involves a wide range of stakeholders: residents, policy teams, service teams, back-office systems, and external partners. Value Driven Design starts by mapping what matters to each of them. These values become the common thread throughout the project:
- guiding choices
- improving collaboration
- making it easier to explain why decisions were made.
It also creates a clear basis for tracking outcomes and reporting impact, both internally and to the outside world.
Projects move through multiple levels
Improving public services means working across multiple layers: policy ambitions, organizational structures, internal processes, digital systems, and citizen interactions. Each level has its own dynamics, requirements, and constraints. Value Driven Design
- helps you move through these levels with structure and focus, making sure that strategic goals are translated into services that actually work for residents and civil servants.
- creates clarity about where decisions need to be made, who should be involved, and how each step contributes to the bigger picture.
Design is an iterative process
Design isn’t a one-time step, it’s a cycle of learning and improving. With each phase (understand, concept, create, observe, implement, and reflect) you gain new insights that help sharpen decisions and avoid expensive rework. In a public service context, this means:
- involving users and civil servants early and often
- testing ideas before scaling them
- adjusting based on what actually works on the ground.
Iteration helps making complex changes more manageable and ensures the service truly meets people’s needs.
Design is key at every level
Design isn’t just about forms or interfaces. It plays a role at every level of service development. Whether you’re:
- clarifying policy goals
- improving internal workflows
- aligning multiple systems
design helps connect the dots. This might mean creating shared understanding between departments or preparing for a new architecture decision. It could also involve mapping service journeys or making back-office processes visible. At every level, design supports better conversations, smarter decisions, and more usable outcomes.
Scalable by design
Public services vary widely. That’s why Value Driven Design focuses on goals, not fixed methods. It gives structure to the design process without prescribing how every step must be done. Teams can adapt their approach based on policy complexity, available capacity, or local constraints; as long as the right outcomes are achieved. This makes the process scalable across domains, departments, and service chains.
