Design Thinking: The Guidebook

The launch of this Design Thinking Guidebook for Public Sector innovation in Bhutan marks an important milestone in our public-service transformation journey. This guidebook is the culmination of many months of learning, applying and adapting the human-centred Design Thinking methodology and repertoires of tools.

The Royal Civil Service Commission in collaboration with Singapore Polytechnic, with funding support from Temasek Foundation International, Singapore and the Royal Government of Bhutan, organised the “Design Thinking for Public Sector Innovation Programme”.

During the programme period from June 2016 till June 2017, the Design Thinking training was introduced to foster citizen-centric mind-set, and to embrace creativity and change in the public sector. Acquiring Design Thinking competencies and new ways of thinking can help generate innovative solutions to improve efficiency, quality, productivity, and user satisfaction. About 230 public service officers and leaders have undergone the Design Thinking training, out of which 23 have been further trained as Master Trainers.

The Design Thinking Guidebook was developed by the Design Thinking Master Trainers of Bhutan and facilitated by experts from Singapore Polytechnic. This guide will certainly go a long way towards creating an interest in Design Thinking as well as providing step-by-step instructions on how to apply the processes and tools in the context of public services. The guide book has certainly got the fundamentals right: it is simply written and illustrated with appropriate pictures to serve as useful references for both design thinking practitioners and beginners alike. The methods and tools have also been adapted for application in Bhutan.

The future is about public-sector innovation to meet new challenges. With the help of this guide, Bhutan public sector can learn to apply Design Thinking to nudge behavioral change, simplify and solve complex problems such as promoting Management Innovations like doing more with less, uncover strategic use of Human Resources and explore fresh backend syndication possibilities.

I am confident this Design Thinking guidebook will serve as an easy-to-use and effective guide to facilitate anyone to learn and apply the methods and tools to generate innovative ideas, and allow us to grasp the low hanging fruits in the short term and design better system in the long run.

Dasho Karma Tshiteem

Chairperson
Royal Civil Service Commission