Search Toolkits

EAST is a framework and summary of the Behavioural Insights Team's knowledge of behavioural science, developed for busy policymakers. It is based around principles of making actions Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely (EAST) applied to a 4-step process: 1. Define the outcome, Understand the context, Build your intervention, and Test, learn, adapt.
It is a more simplified version of the publisher's prior MINDSPACE framework. The resource includes overall guidance and case studies.

A mashup of the original Business Model Canvas with lean startup methodology built in, this canvas is intended for social entrepreneurs to validate their offering, prioritise what to develop, and message the offering. This could also be used by a government service provider.
The website includes a checklist to evaluate whether you will likely find value in using the canvas.

This toolkit outlines Bridgeable’s approach to harnessing behavioural economics (BE) to design better products and services that nudge user behaviour. It combines a service design approach with a BE approach, with the caveat that BE helps identify and tweak pivotal moments of decision making but not overall user experience or strategies.
The toolkit includes an overview of BE as well as an ideation and testing framework incorporating BE principles to move from a current state to an idea future state. A basic knowledge of service design is helpful for approaching this toolkit.

The Design Kit resource is both a downloadable PDF as well as online guidance on the different phases of a human-centered design process, organised by Mindsets, Methods (Inspiration, Ideation, Implementation), and Tools. The PDF is only downloadable from the website after creating a user account at IDEO. Website includes instructional videos on the techniques of various user-centered design methods and techniques.

Established in 2016, these 9 principles provide guidelines for information sharing and interfaces, operating models, rapid service development and preparedness within the Finnish government and beyond.

This mini-book is based around the Cynefin framework, a contexutalisation and sense-making framework developed by Dave Snowden. The resource provides an overview of the Cynefin framework and use of narrative research, guidance and a tool for developing shared sense-making, and tools and guidance for developing a portfolio of experiments for different types of problems, distinguishing between complicated and complex problems.
The publisher requires a free login in exchange for downloading the resource.

14 methods and 3 recipes suggesting how to combine them, associated with a guide book available for sale by the toolkit publisher.
Accompanying each method: Purpose, Outcomes, How to do it, and Tips as well as a worked example, to help readers understand how the method and associated template can be used at the early stage of designing an innovative service.

The resource is both an online catalog of resources as well as a publication. Combined, they comprise a basic but comprehensive introduction to service design and a selection of service design tools. The resources include the fundamentals of service design, an explanation of the Double Diamond design process and how it is used in service design, what to expect when working with a designer, and tools and methods that service designers use in the creative process. The publisher is considered the creator of the Double Diamond design process, which is ubiquitous in the design world.

The website is aims to be a major knowledge broker in the behavioral sciences, particularly behavioral economics and related areas (nudging, behavior change, etc.). The site contains a guide (published annually), a blog, a LinkedIn group, and job board. The site’s mission is to connect people, provide resources, as well as promote the growth and relevance of the discipline. Note that behavioral economics is a specific application of behavioral science. Downloading the guide requires you to enter your email address and sign up for their newsletter.

The Experiment Co-Creation Platform (ECP) is a model for collaboration and experimenting dedicated in delivering sustainable solutions to wicked urban problems.
The ECP model was developed and prototyped by Demos Helsinki. In the model, cities, higher education institutions and non-academic collaborators such as companies and foundations together define a desirable shared vision to work towards to as well as identify the challenges preventing the vision from happening. Research-based teams develop their research and solutions to the identified challenges through experimenting in a real-life urban setting and support from experts of various fields. The goal is to increase teams’ technology readiness level (TRL) from TRL4 “technology validated in a lab” to TRL5 “technology validated in a relevant environment” and create a premise for feasible, scalable solutions that work in practice.
The resource provides

The Game of Life 2050 draws on scenarios for a sustainable European society in 2050. It is an interactive board game in which players consider four scenarios that describe the radical changes needed to be living within key environmental boundaries by 2050.
The game takes a minimum of 2 hours to run (ideally 4 hours) and involves 5-7 actors (each played by one person or in pairs) and one Games Master.
Play consists of three ‘rounds’ in which actors are given a set of circumstances that have unfolded at 10, 20 and 30 years into the timeline, and must decide from a range of options how they will respond.
Game materials and guidebook are both available for download.

This field guide introduces human-centred design as an approach to addressing challenges related to community demand for services (specifically immunization services, but it could be applied to others). This Field Guide exists to help investigate, understand and respond to challenges of demand. It draws on insights from behavioural science and employs human-centred methods to improve immunization outcomes. Includes a 170 page field manual, process map, and workbook with tools. Its process overview poster provides guidance on who to involve and expected time investment for each method in the process.

This resource is an imagination game that challenges players to collaboratively and competitively describe objects from a range of alternative futures. The object of the game is to come up with the most entertaining and thought-provoking descriptions of hypothetical objects from different near-, medium-, and long-term futures. The card deck can be downloaded and printed and contains cards, instructions, playsheets, and blank cards that you can customize with your own content. The website also contains suggested ways to play the game as well as examples.

This document gives you the information you need to create your own lab. This could be a UNICEF lab—or could simply be a space of creativity that is aimed at solving significant global problems through the application of dedicated local resources.
It provides background on labs, defining a lab's purpose, budget and scoping, and examples of different lab models (outreach/training, product development, service development, operational research, and content broadcasting).
It also includes interactive worksheets for creating lab proposal Terms of Reference as well as examples TORs.

The Do-it-Yourself (DIY) Open Data Toolkit provides a step-by-step guidance on how to develop an open data initiative. The Toolkit is primarily intended for municipalities that have not yet begun an open data project and need some guidance on how to implement one. It can also be referenced by other governments or organizations who are considering initiating an open data initiative.
The toolkit includes: Open data orientation, Planning considerations, Publishing sample data sets, Adopting an open data policy, Executing an open data pilot project with community engagement, and
Moving your open data initiative from pilot project to operational program.

A tool to help cities and public administrations better orient and diagnose themselves regarding their innovation profile and maturity.
The tool includes a self-analysis quiz, a map to help navigate concepts and trends and compose your a custom menu. It also includes guidance for setting an innovation strategy.
Sonar comes in the form of a newspaper printed in A2 format that can be used in a group setting . This resource is available in French.

In this booklet you will find tools to implement the CO-CRE-AR methodology in its three phases: Understanding, Creating and Arming.
CO-CRE-AR moves in spaces of divergence and convergence. The first part invites you to UNDERSTAND in detail the challenge you want to face; the second to CREATE with openness and generate ideas without many restrictions, to then land them and make them concrete in work plans, including the necessary communication elements to "sell" the solution in the organization.

This resource includes tools, approaches and resources for local authorities sharing non-personal data. The publishers intend it for those currently working in city governments as well as those supplying data sharing services to be able to find a common language and process in approaching the sharing of data. It focuses on both the technical and non-technical aspects of sharing data, including building data sharing partnerships, building a team, ecosystem mapping, and proposal and business case development.

An collection of communication tools used in service design processes that deal with complex systems, organised by design activities, representations, recipients, and contents. The website is the result of the research activity done by Roberta Tassi during her graduation thesis investigating the relation between communication design and service design, starting from the observation of the existing practices in the field of service design.
Each tool contains a description, how-to instructions, and case studies of its use.

The Privy Council Office's Impact and Innovation Unit’s (IIU) developed this guidance for impact measurement, in support of its work under Impact Canada. This resource provides an introduction to the topic, as well as a reference for those involved in the design, delivery, procurement or appraisal of impact measurement strategies in Canada and beyond. It provides descriptions and considerations of different ways of measuring impact versus traditional methods.
It includes the reasoning for measuring impact, threats to validity of impact evaluation, a matrix for evidence, descriptions and guidance on methods, including Randomized Control Trials and quasi-experimental approaches.
The resource is available in English and French.

This is a report produced in conjunction with IDEO after a 2-year initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation called Paper Prototyping, an effort to better inform investment decisions of the Foundation. While this resource is not a typical innovation toolkit, it was included because it describes an often implicit and invisible process of developing and testing proposals for innovative solutions to complex problems.

This resource focuses on inclusive design, a methodology that enables and draws on the full range of human diversity, including those with limited abilities. The resource includes a guide on inclusive design, multiple short-films and a 20-minute documentary, as well as activity cards that follow 5 phases of a design process.

The toolkit's goal is to help actors conceptualize and operationalize their ambitions in terms of supporting social innovation. It contains not only “procedures” but also knowledge concerning social innovation.
The guide was designed to support European Social Fund (or other) funding organisations that want to focus mainly on service innovation (as opposed to systems innovation or internally oriented process innovation). But it also recognizes the idea of broader societal transitions and the need for changes in internal processes as a condition to make externally oriented innovative services tangible.
It contains social innovation background information, principles, strategies, project guidance, capacity building, staffing, and implementation.

The Shift Surrey guide provides an overview of Surrey's design approach to date, including a summary of projects and suggestions for building an internal community of practice inside government. At the end of the guide, there are several typical design tools, tips and tricks learned through Surrey's experience and suggestions for related design resources.

Challenge Prizes: A practice guide provides practical guidance and support to help explore challenge prizes and offers guidance on designing and running a challenge prize.
The resource covers what challenge prizes are, guidance on deciding whether a challenge prize is right for your situation, and scoping and planning a prize--including a Challenge Prize Design Worksheet and Challenge Prize Schedule Worksheet.

This set of service design resources includes a downloadable zip file of resources created by MrThinkr, such as templates, examples, and guidance on personas, journey mapping, and stakeholder mapping. The website contains video guidance on how to use these methods. In order to download the zip file, you must enter your email. The publisher is also marketing some paid software on their website.

This tool is a condensed version of the Agile Evalution kit. It contains the key graphs and principles, including the Argentinian government's model on the lifecycle of innovation (Planificacion, Monitoreo, Evaluacion), theory of chain explanation, proposed learning modules, a Logic Model matrix of indicators, and several lists of evaluation questions.

Innovate to Save was launched in February 2017 with funding from Welsh Government. The programme blends grant funding to undertake a Research and Development phase, incorporating prototyping and piloting of the organisations' ideas, followed by the opportunity to apply for an interest-free loan on negotiable terms to implement the project at scale during an implementation phase.

Repayable finance is a tool that governments can use to support innovation in public services - allowing governments to benefit from the success of innovation, and reinvest money on a regular basis in new innovations.

This guide aims to be a practical and informative tool that helps public service organisations- although most likely local and national governments - to stimulate innovation within a challenging context. Informed by experience, it aims to guide teams through the process of planning, developing and implementing a programme of blended finance for innovation.

This is a report from the Workshop ‘How might we approach transformational change for complex challenges in the future?’, held in London 30-31 August 2017. It provides 18 insights and considerations for playing the enabler, catalyst, and convenor roles in creating a mindset of long-termism.

A curated set of resources on innovation by Tim Kastelle. This resource is primarily framed around private entrepreneurship, but some elements are transferable to a public sector context (i.e. cultivating a growth mindset). The resource is associated with a masterclass offered at the University of Queensland.

The IIDM Toolset was designed as a guide for organisations and individuals seeking to build the capacity of problem solvers to innovate and collaborate more effectively. The Toolset addresses two key components: (1) cultivating an innovator’s mindset, and (2) improving the processes that support decision making along the journey from idea to impact. The publisher asserts that both of these ingredients are vital for decision making to yield improved innovation. The Toolset offers users practical approaches that map to each of the 6 stages of decision making, including adopting the right mindset, generating insights, reframing challenges, developing and testing new ideas, and determining a course of action. The resource was created with a global development organisation structure in mind but is broadly applicable to other organisations interested in building innovation capacity.

Creating City Portraits is a methodological guide for downscaling the Doughnut, and Doughnut Economics (based on the book and model of the same name), to the city and turning it into a tool for transformative action. This guide describes the methodology and introduces principles to consider at the city level as well as the interconnections between different scales, from household to global, to transform a city to a thriving and also ecologically and socially responsible one. The guide focuses on Amsterdam as an example and covers how the model translates into targets and performance indicators.

A living compilation of social innovation lab theory, templates, and tools to help address complex system problems and design a social innovation lab. This web-based resource includes sections Seeing, Doing, and Being, each with links to additional guidance, tools, and videos.

The DIN model is a methodology for developing solutions using a design-driven approach with the goals of achieving better and more innovative processes and outcomes, increasing probability of implementation, and improving user satisfaction. The model helps explore all the potential pitfalls, possibilities and limitations, particularly in the "front end" or early stage of projects. The DIN model consists of a series of phases and four ‘gates’. Each phase contains a variety of activities and questions, which varies depending on the kind of problem or what ambitions you have for your solution. The DIN model does not give answers but ask the relevant questions. Upon completing a set of activities, toolkit users enter the gate to a new phase, working through processes of research and analysis, concept development, testing, implementation and the roll-out of ideas to others. This resource is intended for those with some experience with design-driven approaches; otherwise, it suggests involving a design firm. The model is based on insights from more than 80 innovation and user-driven projects in which Danish Design Centre and/or Mindlab were involved. The Appendix includes several tools based on the methodology.