Design in policy – User Needs First Across Borders

Anouschka Scholten
Hi.

Randy Semeleer
Glad to have you. I’ll introduce my next guests together. Otla Arrigoni and Yaprak Hamarath, both are policy analyst designers at the EU Policy Lab of the European Commission. Welcome Otla.

Ottla Arrigoni
Thank you. Hi.

Randy Semeleer
Welcome Yaprak.

Yaprak Hamarat
Hi.

Randy Semeleer
Glad to have you all here. Actually before we start I think it would be good for our listeners but actually a little secret it would be good for me also to talk a little bit about the EU Policy Lab. So what actually is the EU Policy Lab and how is it related to the European Commission?

Ottla Arrigoni
Yeah sure, thank you for the question. The EU Policy Lab is a lab for cross-collaboration and systemic approach to policymaking. We are kind of innovation lab inside the European Commission. We are specifically inside the research center, so the joint research center, and we provide science and evidence for policymaking. So we are kind of the bridge between evidence, so all the type of research that you can do in the insights, and specific type of science into the policymaking. So we are a bridge between these two fields. So the evidence that we can provide as well as working with different directorates and different topics of different type of policies.

Randy Semeleer
And it’s also at a certain location or is it more like a team that’s spread out?

Ottla Arrigoni
Yes, so we are, the joint research center is based across different locations in Europe but the EU Policy Lab is based in Brussels. The idea is to be at the heart of the policy making, the EU policy making. So we are based in Brussels where all of the other DGs are. So the idea is that we could collaborate also in person with people, so that’s why we have a space. So it’s not only a lab, but it’s actually a space where we invite also policymakers to work with us.

Randy Semeleer
A collaboration space.

Ottla Arrigoni
Exactly. So they, and I think the word collaboration is very important because the space itself is also made to be flexible. It’s nothing fancy, it’s really just a room. But even having a room with movable tables and where we can work around the kind of structure depending on what your type of activities that you want to do is already a winning point for the space. Definitely. And yeah, and also the location is important to be closer to all of the other directorate that work on the different policy topics so we can be there to create the space and invite them as well.

Randy Semeleer
Sounds great. Anything you want to add on, Hapak?

Yaprak Hamarat
We work with behavioral insight experts, scientists and foresight experts and we are designers So it’s always interdisciplinary teams that are working together.

Randy Semeleer
Cool. Well, thank you for that explanation, makes it a lot more clear for me and I think for a bunch of our listeners. So Ashley, I want to start off with how do you ensure that humans and the concept of human nature is considered at a very early age regarding policy? Anyone want to take this? Anoushka, I see you’re thinking, what do you think?

Anouschka Scholten
Yeah, well, that’s a challenge.

Randy Semeleer
Definitely.

Anouschka Scholten
Yes, we have this unit research and design since a year and before that there were two researchers or maybe one designer somewhere, but now as a unit we are much more ingrained within the department. So that helps people know, can find us and we talk a lot about working human-centered and working insights driven. But it’s still difficult because policymaking is more, yeah, is something else.

Randy Semeleer
Yeah, it’s a different beast.

Anouschka Scholten
Yeah.

Randy Semeleer
So having it embedded helps but even then it’s still a challenge. Yeah, Prakash, your thinking, what were your thoughts?

Yaprak Hamarat
Traditional policymaking process is used to include different representatives and our Our challenge is to bring end users to the process because they engage with the elected people, with different policymakers, representatives, associations, so umbrella people. And our aim is to really bring end users, the real people who will use this, will be impacted by this policy in the process. And this is the challenging part of our work, I think. The real people that are impacted.

Anouschka Scholten
I also think the process is new, it’s very new. So it’s not designed by committee or the way parliament or democracy way of working, but this process of design thinking, design process, very decision driven from insights, that’s quite new, collaboration, multidisciplinary, but especially getting people on board, the who it’s about.

Randy Semeleer
Yeah.

Anouschka Scholten
It’s the whole process.

Randy Semeleer
So you say it’s new, but some places it’s newer than in other places. Some places they’ve been working like this or at least the ideas are there for quite a bit longer. Do you have any thoughts on what, how should I put it, Do you have any thoughts about how come in certain places it’s still pretty new, even though it’s been design thinking has been around for a while already?

Anouschka Scholten
I think the higher up you are to the politics, the newer it is.

Randy Semeleer
Because it’s… So the elected officials, maybe the members of parliament.

Anouschka Scholten
Because it’s really, it’s something, the way the parliament works is quite different from working in a design way and working in the open, that sort of thing.

Randy Semeleer
Working in the open you say?

Anouschka Scholten
Yes.

Randy Semeleer
How so?

Anouschka Scholten
Well, we try to work as open as possible, so every result, in between results, we’re trying to put it out there already. So not doing so.

Randy Semeleer
That’s not in the nature of works in ministries or cities?

Anouschka Scholten
Ministries especially not.

Randy Semeleer
They like to be played close to the chest generally. Is it also your experience?

Ottla Arrigoni
Yeah, definitely. I think it’s exactly, you mentioned a couple of things that are exactly the same challenges that we go through and it’s a mix of existing practices as you were already mentioning. So committee or consultations has already been done for a long time and then at the same time trying to figure out how can you do it with end users as Jepra was mentioning or also how can you work directly with other ways to collect information, how other ways to collect insights that is not necessarily with representative or in a standard environment. And then how do you share that work in progress in the open or how you try to bring it back to the people that you consulted. So the kind of extraction of information so that is a dialogue more than a structure of information and then you take it for yourself and how do you constantly create that connection and that collaboration, that communication or that sharing work in progress or what are some of the preliminary results or how it can collaborative and iterate through putting it out there.

Anouschka Scholten
Being in the open also means that it means really being in the open. So communities that are very involved and want to talk about and work with us, they usually are, perhaps they are involved later on or they can react on things. But if you work in the open you say okay, you’re invited to talk and listen and help us from the beginning.

Randy Semeleer
So from my experience, ministries, a lot of public servants, they do a lot to protect their official, their minister, their secretary. How is this fact impacted by working more open? Because if it’s more open, then if something goes wrong, it’s also easier out there.

Anouschka Scholten
Yeah, true. We’re learning.

Randy Semeleer
Yeah.

Anouschka Scholten
there and it’s well the things I’ve done so far, we are one year further and two years that I worked there. Well there’s been tension but it’s not so much tension that it affects the ministry or something. But yeah, it’s difficult.

Randy Semeleer
I can imagine.

Ottla Arrigoni
And I guess on the point is also the idea of how we can minimize and try to apply more of the design way of prototyping and testing in small scale as a way to avoid that large scale fear and risk or consequences risk. So how we can use again the design practice so that we can create that more learning and experimental and experience this type of experiment type of space. So then we can go against the fact that there is so much risk adverse for the type of consequences, trying to minimize as much as possible. So again using the rhetoric and the language of the design in the way we approach and the way we communicate and convince as well the space and policymakers to try out certain interventions.

Randy Semeleer
That actually leads in nicely into my next question. Thank you, Ola. I want to talk about policy and execution a little bit. So just going to paint a little picture. So this is how things often go in the real world in one way or another in a really short sequence. If there is a problem or certain issue then maybe a newspaper gets hold of it or hears about it or get published by some vlogger somewhere. It becomes more of something in the public eye. Well, politicians read about it, especially those that are there to represent the people. They respond to it. Maybe they want to ask questions to the minister. if it’s a big problem enough and it’s more gets enough priority then maybe there will be a solution that will become legislation or regulations are added, goes to a certain department that has to take care of that and then out of that comes a solution that could be all kinds of things but of course the thing that now seems like it could be solution to anything is like a new app or something but could be also different things like maybe something has to be enforced better or whatever it is. So if you follow these steps it’s quite waterfall like, although you already mentioned that by working in smaller iterations you already lessen the risk of something like really bad going on. So I’m assuming here that everybody is on board with the idea that things should be more iterative. I see some people nodding. So basically my question is how, how to make those like that waterfall like structure and then working towards a solution more iterative. Yaprak, do you have any ideas about that?

Yaprak Hamarat
I can give an example. For example, when we work with prototypes or stakeholders, participants or activities, they were used to have final reports. So they see a final clean reports and they give feedback. But when you work with a prototype, we need to prepare them that it’s not a perfect final report and we need to collect feedback through the process. So it was a new culture for them to understand that no, after the prototype revision, we won’t deliver a report. You will see the second prototype that will embody your insights. So that was already a new culture, new risk preparation for us because they were really angry sometimes. They say, “But where’s the report after your session?” No, there is no session. There is a second prototype and you will see the third one, fourth one. Just to follow up with what you were telling me, the prototypes. So it’s just, it is the risky part and then the risk management, a little bit with design driven projects.

Ottla Arrigoni
Yes, kind of like the older things that needs to go around trying to deliver a design process that is not just trying to do the design process, but also preparing for the cultural shift. And sometimes it’s more org change type of things, but sometimes it’s literally just creating the environment and creating the premises for that type of work to happen. That is a little bit the challenges in an environment that is not used to working that way that has certain expectations, certain ways of doing certain languages, certain processes that are already embedded in the way they’re working.

Anouschka Scholten
Actually, we still have both. We do the prototyping, but we also have a report in between. So we are really getting to the next steps that we are going back to then, if you have the next steps that we are doing the design process again. But in between there is this report which is a bit committee refined.

Randy Semeleer
And how do you feel about that?

Anouschka Scholten
Well, I’m not sure yet. And we have discussions about that with the policy officers of course. content that it stays, that the basics stays the way it’s supposed to be, the insights driven and it works better, it goes faster and everyone agrees that what’s in there is important. Yeah. So, but still a bit committee driven.

Randy Semeleer
Well, I like to write a nice fixed report as much as anybody, maybe more than most, But the problem is of course that it takes a long time and a lot of times it also doesn’t get read by a lot of people. So if you think about now that you’re maybe a little bit in between or on two different legs with both a new prototype and then in between writing a report, how do you manage what you think should go into the report and still make everybody happy and keep everybody on board with it?

Anouschka Scholten
Well we try to work across governmental, so hybrid teams and everything. So this helps, making things helps, prototyping helps, and you see because we also work in the open as much as possible that people do change, culture changes, and maybe you can’t have it all at once.

Randy Semeleer
No that’s definitely true, it’s a journey of course. Okay. Anything you want to add to that?

Ottla Arrigoni
Yeah, I guess it was interesting what you were saying and I think we also had a chance to exchange a little bit on this idea of processes and running a design process in parallel than the existing ones. And I think that the more we were talking about it, the more it seems clear that the way we are trying to approach it is trying to find a happy medium in this transitional moment. And I guess the example of the prototype and the reporting is exactly that, this idea of trying to introduce something that is a little bit outside and beyond the kind of comfort zone while still trying to speak the language and the processes that are already in place. So how can we on one side find a middle ground but also at the same time hack existing systems because the existing platforms are the way in which people are used to work on. So also getting closer to the way that they are comfortable with. You also have more success to introduce slowly different changes but also at the same time learn as well a lot from what is already working and what is already really in place because of a reason rather than create change for the sake of creating change, how we can learn from the good part and the working part of the policymaking process and how we can then create a hybrid approach and a design approach based on that as well.

Anouschka Scholten
Yeah, exactly. It’s hacking the system but at the same time bridging it. So talking the same language.

Yaprak Hamarat
We are more and more using PowerPoint and Word documents since we are working in public services. Before public services we were in our InDesign, Photoshop or PDF, so static documents. And now we are using their tools, their mediums to create a place to collaborate with them.

Randy Semeleer
Yeah. So making love decks.

Ottla Arrigoni
Yeah. And art spreadsheets.

Randy Semeleer
How do you feel about that?

Ottla Arrigoni
Personally great. Really? Because the nature of the work is working in collaborative ways. So the more we can all really contribute and put the hands on the document, the happier I am. So the happier I am. So I try to always use work in progress and documents that everyone is comfortable in using. Of course, it’s true that sometimes you want something a little more articulated, but trying to create that space and limit it as much as possible. So then you go back to a space where everyone can feed in. It’s true that you have the danger of the Word documents that I feel is the go-to for policymaking and there is also commenting on a Word document as a way of collaborating. So it’s again that balance between yes, we’re using a document, a file, a type of ways of working that you feel comfortable with, but at the same time trying to go away from that static commenting and not really communicating that sometimes can happen. So how can, it’s a dance, it’s a balance between these two.

Yaprak Hamarat
For example, we have very technical specification, which is a written document, how we can add a visualization. So, which is very unusual sometimes to add a process visualization in a technical proposal. But we are trying to hack from very detailed things to bring visuals and creative thinking there. So, it’s a way also to innovate the ways of working.

Randy Semeleer
So, it sounds like you’re actually quite positive about it.

Yaprak Hamarat
We learned to be positive.

Randy Semeleer
That’s a good way to put it. Well put, Jepak. Okay, let’s move on a little bit. While doing some preparation for this episode, I was talking with my other producers and we were thinking about making policy and how people get involved but also actually about involving their living environment. So by living environment, especially when we look at an EU level, I mean the people live in different countries, there are different cultures, the government functions differently, people have a different relationship with their government or different languages. So if you take into account people’s living environment, how does that relate to making policy and actually how does that impact it?

Ottla Arrigoni
That’s a great question. You really nailed a little bit of one of our main challenges, especially at the EU Policy Lab. And yes, it’s true when you have a sample or kind of a user group that is a hundred of millions of people, then you need to ask yourself the question of how do you select the sample as well as how do you try to involve people both in the design of the policy if they’re early stage in the policy cycle, but also how do you bring that feedback loop about what is happening when you’re trying to implement some policies on the ground? And all of these questions, regardless if it’s rather the beginning or trying to learn from what is happening on the ground, comes along with a question on how do you select representative samples, so kind of a little bit what we were saying at the beginning about this idea of current practices around representation. And what we try to do in different projects is trying to figure out how we can involve different member states and different levels of governance as well, because as you mentioned it’s not only countries, but it’s also national government and then local government and regional government. So it’s a mix of different level of governance, even just speaking of the country itself, to not even speaking about all of the people and citizens and all the diversity that comes with all of us across Europe. So that’s a kind of a question that we try to, that we have every time that we start the projects and every time that we look at kind of defining what the challenge is or really trying to figure out what it could be depending on the policy topic, the right sample and group of countries. So how we can look at, for example, grouping, if it’s a more Mediterranean countries or Northern countries, or how we can have multi-level governance approaches where we try to understand from a distributed approach where you have perhaps organizations and local organizations or you have local governments but across different countries. So having a sample that goes a little bit more largely and transversal across countries as a way to learn. But I’m just giving the vague answer, depending on what the policy topic of course then the type of approach and the method as well really changes.

Yaprak Hamarat
Yeah, with OTSLA we are talking about this often and each project is different and I I was thinking as designers, our objective is sometimes very simple, is to bring design drive on methods, right? Creative, visual, experience-based, embodied knowledge that how people live. So it’s a very simple objective, how to a policy project we can bring these insights. So each time we said, okay, we will experiment with a new method. In one project, for example, related to water policies, we said, we have a timeframe, constraints, We will do, and we had a behavioral insight colleagues with whom we collaborated. We said, okay, we will run a bigger scale in 27 countries. We run the survey. So citizens tell their stories about how they are connected to water. So it was a survey approach, but it wasn’t a survey that they choose options. It was telling their stories, how they built their relations through religion, through sometimes childhood and how they are connected. So it was a method to bring stories and experiences and another project related to waste sorting for example, we selected countries depending their way of separating waste, and then we did workshops with them and then it was six countries and we discovered different practices to understand the European differences and then the way of understanding waste and waste sorting for example. So yeah, in each project we are trying to bring this qualitative design drive and visual aspects through different methods and we are learning each time.

Randy Semeleer
Wow. That sounds like some really complex projects to get everything done, reduction role. I was just curious, I’m not sure if this is really a big issue, but is there any politicizing of the policy lab? To what extent does it, or maybe put it differently, if you’re active and you’re working for the policy web, so to what extent do you actually start to sit in the chair of a political decision maker?

Ottla Arrigoni
It’s a good question. I guess from the commission perspective we’re more on the operational side rather than the political side. Then you have the parliament and it’s kind of a little bit the division of the duties, of course we’re still in a political environment or we are still politically influenced by the different decisions and the strategies that will be put at the commission level and the commission level will be put and set by the political landscape. So we’re definitely, our work and work will be inevitably influenced depending on what is happening and therefore also who is in the room or not. And sometimes that also can influence the way collaboration can happen or not happen. So sometimes depending on what the priorities is and where it is, you might have more or less access to the different people and there will be less prioritization also from their side about where and when they will get involved. And it’s true as well that in introducing new methods, we are asking for more time and we’re also asking for a different mindset to come to the room. And sometimes when you have certain political priorities and you’re really under pressure as some of the policymaker might be, there will be less headspace and actual space and time for them to be involved. So the being, having the chair and being sitting next to someone with the kind of policy decision power, let’s say, it is also influenced by the kind of like landscape and the surrounding that we are in. But we always try to find spaces and ways for us to also be adaptable due to the kind of situations and really try to always have not only running this research for the sake of running the research, but really trying to understand how we can embed all the evidence into the policymaking process. So as Cano Biafra was mentioning, for example, the water experience, sorry, the water… Management? No, the water experiment that we ran. In that case, we collected all of the stories and it was really qualitative and storytelling, so really the voices of the citizens. And what we tried to do is that we involve policymaker in analyzing with us the stories. So the idea is trying to bring this evidence and this qualitative insight in a different way in the process itself. How can we have policymaker looking at the data and the raw data with us sometimes? So not necessarily having the end results, here’s what our research going off has produced, here’s a list of bullet points, but how we can all look at the data together and really create an understanding throughout the process as well. So try to have that table with all the chairs around including also the policy makers.

Randy Semeleer
Well I want to move on a little bit. So I was thinking about your roles, all your roles as a civil servant but I’m going to throw this one first to Anoushka. As a civil servant is it your role to ask and you shall receive? Is it also saying no or is it even sometimes determining the direction of a solution yourself? How do you see that?

Anouschka Scholten
My role is to say no sometimes or often or just to be the advocate of the user, the advocate of the people. So that’s my most important role and that’s why I’m there. So it can be different things depending on how things are going. Yeah. you think about?

Yaprak Hamarat
Yeah, often I am around the table with different disciplines and policymakers and I am telling but in a user perspective it won’t be daily life, it will be very difficult and I am, we choose our fights right. For some topics I let it go and for some topics I am keeping there and I am bringing to always insisting with this. But yeah, sometimes it it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And yeah, I think bringing this back and then not losing the patience and explaining what is design, why we are doing this, it requires lots of patience and empathy, I would say, and not be stay positive.

Anouschka Scholten
And also accept conflict. I mean, conflict is part of it in our daily work. And so accepting it but also try to work strategically with it a bit like learning and having feedback to with colleagues. So you know next time okay or at least speak up if it’s not working then you can step down sometimes because you have to choose wisely.

Randy Semeleer
Yeah, choose your battles also I guess sometimes. Did you want to add something?

Ottla Arrigoni
I guess sometimes it’s not even about saying no, but it’s about what about doing that. And I feel like more times than not it’s really about challenging that space that sometimes doesn’t even exist. So sometimes bringing that idea, that seeds of change, that is where I feel that we are advocating for change most of the time. So sometimes there’s not even that space or that question and we are the ones asking that question.

Randy Semeleer
giving a positive spin to the what about statement. Yeah.

Yaprak Hamarat
We sometimes also develop strategies, small strategies. If they don’t listen to me at this moment, how I can bring another trigger to bring their mindset to this point. So another experience to them, so to bring these ideas, grow inside the projects and people. So we develop strategies also.

Randy Semeleer
Okay, wow, I guess that also sometimes can be fun when it works out. Yeah, we’re moving towards the end of the show of this episode and as a final question, I was thinking about, you know, the dynamics between political policy and the implementation of this. Let’s say that you have like a magic wand or a genie in a bottle or some type of thing like that. What would you change about this dynamic between political policy and implementation? What would be on your wish list at the top?

Ottla Arrigoni
I really like this question because the word implementation is one of my favorite ones. And what I really like is not the implementation itself, because also there is lots of enforcement language that comes with implementation, but it’s really that what I was saying earlier, I think in the idea of also feedback loop. So the idea of what is happening and how we can learn from what is happening, especially when we are so detached as we are at the European level. So how can we learn from what is happening and that we can be a little bit more agile in changing and adapting the different policies based on that. So a little bit that what is happening after because we keep talking about what is happening before and is also lots of this idea of policy design being about these initial stages of drafting a policy but actually policy design is a lot of what is already existing, what are the already implemented or the needs to be enforced against this language again. Because for me what we really would like to see happening more is that learning and agile applications of the post implementation or the post enforcement so that we can create more dialogue at that stage and a little bit of reversing the dynamic in which then it would be more on the what is happening on the ground. It really is truly inform what is happening on the policy level so that kind of post that becomes the before somehow that would be a genie in the bottle if you ask a question or a desire.

Randy Semeleer
Yeah and actually you answered that question and also my next one from how it can be achieved because you already mentioned about the feedback loop and how you’re going to work with that. So yeah, Prakanishka for the same question for you if you could keep it a bit brief because we’re running almost out of time.

Yaprak Hamarat
To follow up with what she was telling, to put this after in front of policymakers, I think scenarios are working very well to show them how it looks like, how might it look like. So they really see the end product versions, what could be the policy life after. It helps them see the things. So bringing these visual tools early in the stage, it will improve I think our work to bring this implementation part in the process.

Anouschka Scholten
Yeah, there’s learning and reflective organization or parliament even. I’d love to go there. That’s what I want. I was at GD in the bottle. I’d love to go there. But yeah, also that it’s not about co-creation, but that people are really, that we partner up together. It’s really a partnership, a collaboration thing and that we all think like that instead of assignments and that sort of stuff.

Randy Semeleer
Thanks so much. So yeah, I think a few topics came up multiple times about the collaboration, co-creation, working together, that it is something that you, a pathway that you must walk together and that people are on board with that and also make space for mistakes and small intuitions. and then limits the impact instead of working for a long time and then discovering that it’s a mistake and of course very important to involve the end user also for making policy and the research that goes into making policy. Some of the things that I thought I should highlight at the end of this conversation. So we’re going to leave it at that for now. This was my conversation with Anouska Scholte from the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Odla Arrigoni and Yabrak Hamarat, policy analyst designers at the EU Policy Lab of the European Commission. One thing I would like to point out is the blog from the EU Policy Lab, so you can find that at policy-lab.ec.europa.eu. So that’s policy-lab.ec.europa.eu and we’ll put it in the show notes as well. Anoushka, Otla, Jaaprak, I just want to say thank you for your time, for my end, for your time and your knowledge and all your wonderful insights. So thank you so much. We couldn’t do it without you.

Yaprak Hamarat
Thank you, Randy.

Randy Semeleer
That is it for this episode, thank you for listening. Are you interested in more interesting conversations like this one? Subscribe to the podcast through Spotify, Apple Podcasts or in your podcast app of choice. If you subscribe it’ll be easy to listen to a new episode. It’s also very helpful if you leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Does this episode contain something important for your organization? the episode with your colleague, manager or executive official. Do you want to learn more about these topics? Visit international.gebruikercentraal.nl or for Dutch speakers gebruikercentraal.nl. You can also find these links in the show notes. Dear listeners, in this podcast we explore perspectives across borders. Still, keep in mind that while borders may seem to divide us in many ways, we are all connected. Until the next one. This episode was produced by Elke Helmers, Victor Zuydweg, Jessica Straetemans, Jeroen Schalk, and myself, Randy Semeleer. Editing and audio-engineering by André Duytenbosch. Social media by Elke Helmers. A special thanks to the Mervaar Theater where this episode was recorded.