When working on complex social issues with lots of uncertainty – how might we design, test and scale policies so they lead to the desired social impact, ensure they are deliverable, and that they work for the people involved and affected?

This is a key question for our work at Nesta and others looking to deliver public value. Over the past few months, we’ve been developing a set of tools and techniques inspired by design methods. In this post we outline the ‘policy blueprinting’ process we’ve developed and the lessons we've learnt so far.

Policy blueprinting allows us to:

1. break down silos. By bringing together stakeholders from across the policy-to-delivery lifecycle, as well as from multiple sectors, disciplines and lived experience, we’ve been able to ensure that both ‘policy’ and ‘delivery’ are considered as part of a collaborative ‘design’ process. Not doing so has led to points of failure in policy design in the past.
2. take a holistic ‘outcomes-focused’ view. Complex problems, such as social care, don’t fit neatly into the remit of one team or organisation and can span multiple sectors. As such, we’ve used the policy blueprinting process to engage all these actors to collaboratively design how to achieve a shared outcome. Rather than focusing only on the individual elements, we’ve moved between 'zooming out' to understand the architecture of the system/problem, then 'zooming in' to work through the practical details where things are most uncertain.
3. make complex things tangible. Having something tangible that you can engage with or experience makes it easier to work with large-scale policy challenges or complex systemic issues. The tangible and visual outputs of policy blueprinting helps create a shared view for diverse and multidisciplinary groups to collaborate effectively.
4. conduct rapid testing and learning in the open. Treating policy like a hypothesis helps bring humility to the process, allowing us to get honest feedback quickly and collaborate with people (often better placed than us) to improve the proposal. By working in the open, and regularly showing how things are developing and pivoting to accommodate feedback, we were able to take everyone along with us.
5. deliver a stronger policy plan. The result of policy blueprinting has played a key role in our policy plan for delivering clean heat, which we hope will support the UK to accelerate the decarbonisation of home heating.

Policy blueprinting is a tool and collaborative process to design interventions to address large-scale policy challenges or systemic issues.

It's a way to collaboratively design and begin to de-risk a policy proposal or portfolio of interventions. Facilitation techniques enable collaboration while visual mapping techniques break down complexity, highlighting interactions and dependencies between actors, behind-the-scenes support and the policies that underpin them. By creating a comprehensive view of a policy proposal or system, we can identify key uncertainties to test or risks to address, then use this to undertake field research and testing to improve our confidence and update the policy or strategy. The process facilitates cross-sector collaboration, helping teams and organisations align their efforts towards a common mission.

It evolves the well-established technique of service blueprinting – which maps the role of service user and provider across all their 'touchpoints' and behind the scenes processes – to take a more systemic or 'zoomed out' view of a situation. As such we could also refer to it as systems blueprinting. Below is an illustrative example of what a policy blueprint can look like (and here is a Miro template you can use).

Some of the key things to highlight include:

• multiple actors - We include all of the key actors/groups affected by the system and their interactions.
• the whole journey (end-to-end) - We map (typically from left-to-right) the situation from before a need or issue first arises, to it being met and beyond. Sometimes it can be helpful to think about the far past and futures (ie, 50+ years).
• the whole system (front-to-back) - We map (typically from top-to-bottom) the different levels of the system. Ranging from the practical things different actors see, do and need, such as interacting with a website (‘actors / people’ level); to the supporting processes ('organisations / services' level) and even policy or shared beliefs that underpin them ('ecosystem / policy' level). Where it makes sense, we also overlay or consider system leverage points.

Taking inspiration from other innovative policy design work, our policy blueprinting process was split into three main phases.

1. Mapping the system

Our recent coordinated switching work started with a concept note, though it's also possible to start the process by mapping an issue or system more generally.

The concept note, setting out the argument for the policy, touched on the reasoning behind the approach, those who may be involved and how it may be delivered. The project team used mapping techniques to analyse the proposal and identify key elements and stakeholders. This highlighted mature and developing areas in the ecosystem, and informed which stakeholders to prioritise engaging through 1-to-1 discussions and areas of the policy that would benefit the most co-development.

Very quickly, our policy blueprinting process engaged and embraced the contributions of external parties. Once aligned as a team, we published our current thinking and reached out to stakeholders and citizens to contribute, critique and build on our current model. To remain focussed on the (policy) outcome, it was important to communicate to stakeholders that the policy blueprint illustrates a future state, and that the transition to this should be considered as a follow-on to an initial blueprinting process.

To make it easier for people to provide timely feedback, the policy blueprint was simplified into what we call the policy architecture. This is a high-level diagram that summarises the key stages of a policy, the actor groups involved and their key activities or outcomes at each stage. This diagram allows for a quick overview of the detail hidden within the policy blueprint.

The policy architecture formed the basis of our early engagement with diverse cross-sector stakeholders. Alongside this, the policy blueprint served as a place for us to collate feedback and consider its effect on the whole policy and system.

2. Convening and critiquing

The second phase focused on convening people with experience across the policy area, creating key moments for collaboration. These moments used the policy blueprint as a central proposal for people to consider, critique and build upon. As part of coordinated switching, we ran multiple cross-sector workshops to bring people together in person and online.

When convening stakeholders, we found it useful for everyone to understand the main issues and potential roles in solving the problem. Gamification worked well, alongside role-playing the activities or proposals that form part of the policy proposal. This approach aligned contributors around the desired outcomes and built empathy for the complexity, barriers and opportunities at hand. We kicked off the workshops by talking through the high-level thinking, before asking contributors to have a go at planning a coordinated switch for an area using pre-prepared resources.

The majority of the cross-sector workshops were dedicated to group discussion of the draft blueprint. We asked contributors to carry forward their experience in the first exercise to influence their critique of the blueprint. In small groups, of mixed backgrounds and interests, facilitators stepped through the blueprint prompting the group to interrogate the steps within it using three main questions:

If this model is to work:

1. what's going on behind the scenes to make this happen
   1. What targets or incentives would be required?
   2. Are any regulatory changes required?
   3. What resources are required and what new/adapted organisations are they coming from?
2. what are we assuming or unsure about
3. what are the key risks and potential unintended consequences?

Contributors could then populate the blueprint with responses. They were also invited to annotate the blueprint – directly suggesting alternatives or highlighting overlooked steps. The outputs from these sessions were initially summarised as key themes, where the facilitators of each session reflected on common discussion points that emerged. These were then communicated with workshop contributors and acted as a sense check. The key themes were published publicly, allowing for feedback from those engaged throughout the process.

The workshops ensured that delivery and policy were considered in tandem. As an example, during the cross-sector workshops it was common to find senior political/government representatives discussing, debating and proposing solutions with technology manufacturers and delivery agencies.

3. Synthesis and recommendations

This final phase of work was the only period in which the project team was focused primarily on internal working. The blueprinting workshops and meetings generated a vast amount of feedback and input. Initially, the project team digested how the input would impact each step of the policy blueprint. Then we re-worked it to overcome any difficulties and incorporate suggestions raised by the cross-sector representatives. Special consideration should be given to how the policy blueprint is communicated to people not involved in its development.

Our coordinated switching blueprint was communicated through the journeys of different actors and different sections of the blueprint. Aligning a narrative around each of the actors exemplified what this blueprint represents for citizens, professionals, and both local and national governance. Communicating in this way allowed the team to highlight how the policy proposal and blueprint differ from the status quo, using storytelling to build empathy for the proposed future state.

The policy architecture, instead of the blueprint, was used to communicate the final policy proposal. Presenting an overview of the key stages within the policy blueprint, the actors involved and the key outcomes. We also recommend presenting a policy blueprint with differing levels of detail and in different formats. Tailoring the information and the method of communication is crucial to ensure that the varied audience for policy design can access the most relevant and appropriate information. Explore our interactive page to see one of the ways we communicated this work.

Policy blueprinting presents a comprehensive, end-to-end map of a policy outcome, but there are still elements of uncertainty and possible variants that would require further testing and development. There are also elements that will be contentious and where the limitations of mapping at this scale mean detail is overlooked. To lean into this complexity, we intend to use the policy blueprint to frame individual projects that test and build key elements of an end-to-end policy – helping to test critical uncertainties, de-risk and deliver public value.

If you’re looking to design interventions to address large-scale policy challenges or systemic issues then why not give policy/system blueprinting a go. Contact us at [email protected] with how you get on or if you’d like our support doing something similar.