Mapping Design Capability of Governments: A Tool for Government Employees’ Collective Reflection

Yvonne Yeo, Jung-Joo Lee, Ching-Chiuan Yen

With the increasing phenomenon of governments adopting design approaches, their one-size-fits-all kind of training or blind adoption without the understanding of their current capability has reported various limitations. This study introduces an instrument entitled the Design Capability Mapping Tool (DCMT), aimed at engaging government employees to identify their current practices and awareness of design, and organizational conditions for the design capability development. The Design Capability Mapping framework and tool were developed through an extensive literature review and a pilot study. Then it was applied in three government organizations in Singapore. The mapping findings identified each organization’s status encompassing multiple aspects of design capability and organization-specific challenges. The strength of the DCMT was to enable employees’ collective reflection, instead of management’s assessment, and provide a holistic and practical assessment tool that could inform future strategies for sustained design capability development.