Scaling local design outcomes
For municipalities and civil servants who want to share a successful design outcome, and for municipalities that want to adopt an existing design outcome.
At local level, municipalities and provinces use a design-led approach to develop promising solutions with social impact. You might expect a proven approach or solution to be attractive to other municipalities, yet these projects often remain limited to the municipality where they originated. This is a missed opportunity. Many municipalities face similar challenges. So how can we make better use of design-led solutions, effective design processes and lessons learned across different municipalities?
Although municipalities are increasingly working together, collaboration is not always straightforward. Rules, agreements and political choices vary from place to place, and the specific challenges differ between municipalities. This means that successful outcomes usually cannot simply be copied and applied elsewhere.
That does not mean, however, that successes cannot be shared. A design-led approach can make this possible: by respecting the principles that make an approach work, it can help find a suitable form for use in other municipalities.
To support the process of scaling and adopting an existing design, seven elements relevant to scaling have been identified, alongside an overview of scaling strategies. Together, these provide guidance and inspiration for scaling effectively while taking the local context into account.
Two handbooks have been developed: one for civil servants who want to take their successful project further, and one for civil servants who want to adopt an existing project. The handbooks help you apply this knowledge to your own projects and get started with your partners and colleagues.
“This helps you step outside the tunnel vision of your own concept and gain a clearer understanding of what is actually transferable, and what conditions are needed to make an intervention or approach applicable more widely.”
Handbook for sharing municipalities
Have you developed a successful local design approach and want to encourage its wider use? This handbook helps you assess whether your design can be scaled, strengthen its scalability in a targeted way, and transfer the right information to a receiving municipality.
Who is it for?
Civil servants in a municipality or province who want to scale up a successful design outcome internally, replicate their design outcome in other municipalities, or increase its impact in another way.
Designers, project leads and other professionals who want to learn more about scaling their design outcomes.
When to use it?
Before or during the design process: to increase the scaling potential of your final outcome.
When your design outcome proves successful: to explore how you could approach scaling.
“The handbook for sharing municipalities helps you explore whether an existing project is also viable in another location.”
Handbook for receiving municipalities
Are you facing a challenge for which another municipality has already developed a smart design-based solution? This handbook helps you assess how scalable this solution is in your context. You will learn to identify which aspects of scaling need to be adapted to your specific context, and how to gather important information about the design process and outcome from the original municipality.
Who is it for?
Civil servants in a municipality or province who work on societal challenges and want to use an existing design outcome (for example, one developed by another municipality) in their own municipality.
Designers, project leads and other professionals who want to take successful design outcomes further.
When to use it?
When exploring whether a design-led approach or design outcome could be relevant to your context.
When you are interested in adopting a specific design or project and want to explore how it fits your municipality and how to shape its implementation.
During a handover session with the ‘sharing municipality’.
The 7 elements of scaling
When you adopt a design outcome in a different context, there are all kinds of influences and elements to take into account. To help you navigate the scaling process, this document (NL) brings these influences together into seven elements.
Scaling strategies
There are many ways to scale. Every project calls for different strategic choices. This document (NL) takes you through a range of strategies to provide inspiration and direction.
“The seven elements and scaling strategies provide guidance throughout the process. They help you move away from the assumption that “it worked well here, so it will probably work elsewhere too”, and instead look at the process through the eyes of partners, target groups and those responsible for the challenge.”
The handbooks were developed by De Publieke Ontwerppraktijk (PONT) in collaboration with VNG Realisatie, Sacha van Tongeren and design studios Ideate, Shoshin and We Are Social Rebels.
Alongside this work, Loet Zagt conducted research into ownership in the process of scaling social innovations at municipal level as part of his Master's in Public Management at Utrecht University's School of Governance. He wrote his Master's thesis on this topic, entitled Wie pakt het op?