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Why Community is Key to Professionalizing Design
Summary
Over the last 5 years, design as a profession has become more established in the public sector. What does it mean to professionalize design? And how does community play a part? Jaskiran Kang, Head of Service Design at TPXImpact shares her experience moving into government from the private sector, leading design at the Department for Education, and building community to further design practice.
Key Insights
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Jas’s motivation for joining government design stemmed from a desire to make a positive social impact, especially in education and nutrition.
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Loneliness and lack of community are common challenges for early government designers, which can be mitigated through active networking and forming connections.
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Building trust and consistency in hiring processes, such as formalizing job descriptions and interviews, significantly professionalizes design recruitment.
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Strong leadership support with protected time is critical to sustain design communities and professional growth in the public sector.
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Design imperatives framed in business language (like capability growth and standards) help align with broader organizational strategies.
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Professionalizing design focuses not only on skills but also on recognizing individual journeys, providing autonomy, and enabling diverse career paths.
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Government design professions benefit from openness, sharing resources like job descriptions on GitHub to foster community collaboration.
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Creating stability for an immature design profession amid frequent policy and leadership changes requires a robust, but adaptable, strategy.
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Effective design leadership includes cross-department networking beyond design teams to secure budgets and influence policy.
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Embedding service designers earlier alongside policymakers could transform public services by integrating user-centered perspectives from the start.
Notable Quotes
"I wasn’t really good at memory tests, but art and design was where I really felt myself."
"One of my friends told me I was considerably underpaid and I’d never asked for anything, which changed my awareness of self-respect."
"Lou Down made a call for good designers to come and join government, and that was my eye-opening moment."
"Sometimes you feel really alone in government design because the services are siloed and fragmented."
"We had to formalize job descriptions and interview questions so we’d attract the right designers and create consistency."
"Leadership believing it’s about people and skills, opening up and unlocking talent—that was really beautiful."
"If the department is dead serious about delivering services, these design imperatives are absolutely imperative."
"Retention is so important as a leader; you have to make sure people are growing even if they don’t ask for it."
"I connected with commercial, contracts, and policy teams to understand how the system worked and to secure budgets."
"Wouldn’t it be awesome if service designers sat alongside policymakers at the earliest stage of decision-making?"
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