Richard Larsen

Service designer from Sandhurst, Berkshire, UK. Studied for an undergraduate degree in product design at Brunel University prior to attending the RCA. Worked with SONY and Forum for the Future and showcased the result at the Design Museum in the “the Future is Here” exhibition.

At the RCA, project partners have included Camden Council, MODAL Systems and most recently the United Nations Development Programme’s City Experiment Fund.

Also attended the Behavioural Economics and Decision Making elective at London Business School.

It’s no secret that design is largely about people. If you were to look down at the vast webs of relationships and communications, services and systems, that are our cultures and societies you would see that they consist mostly of people. Each with motives and goals of their own; hundreds, thousands, millions of pieces moving individually, and all together. If we can understand the realities of one person’s life, and their individual motives - their fears and their hopes - then we’ve made a good start in understanding the larger context in which they exist. The systems they influence, and those that influence them. From this understanding comes the recognition of real problem spaces, and routes to effective solutions.

I am interested in designing for social issues, with a focus on inclusivity, equity and environmental change. Often (arguably all the time) these issues exist inside a larger, more complex set of circumstances, so a good understanding of systems thinking also feels essential to my interests and skillset. Through my elective module at the London Business School I’ve also developed a further interest in behavioural science and how it can contribute to the discipline of design and understanding of a wider system.

The focus for my final project has been about understanding the scope of service design in large systems, making it an amalgamation of multiple perspectives, geographies and people.

Along with Aditi Soni (also RCA Service Design), I have been looking at the scope of shaping the structure of innovation for future ready cities through UNDP's City Experiment Fund. This is a fairly new initiative that seeks to make sense of and address complex issues playing out in cities - including impacts of migration, climate change, and inequality - by working in the intersection of innovative methods and technologies. Our purpose is to shape and optimise the process of the programme in order to provide more agency to the change makers for implementing innovation and embracing experimentation practices in their respective geographies.

Building capability to innovate in complexity — UNDP drives development in complex systems across the world. And now they’re rethinking the way they innovate. That means building capability from the bottom by teaching new systems thinking innovation methods that practitioners can take forward. And when UNDP tries to change something as fundamental as the way they innovate, it’s the people doing the work on the ground that have to change how they think. We worked with CEF to build an efficient learning infrastructure for systems thinking capabilities.

Goals and Challenges — CEF’s goal is to build capability in participants so it can be transferred to the wider organisation. But people enter the programme with different perspectives and mindsets, which can cause challenges in how they interact with it. So transfer of capability can’t happen without paying attention to how people are learning and while these challenges remain, an effective learning experience is unlikely. Making it difficult to carry anything forward. It's this space in the middle where the opportunity lies.

From challenges to visions — CEF strives to teach new methods, but there is less focus on reliable ways for people to learn what is taught. Experts deliver expertise, but once imparted it can disappear quite quickly. Participants worry about being dependent on the programme as a central hub for guidance.

Our vision for the near future: A community of practice — So some questions are: How can we keep knowledge in the system and decentralise its access amongst immediate stakeholders? Is there a more efficient way to distribute learning? Can we better retain learning experiences by keeping them in the system, rather than letting them disappear?

Our vision in 30 seconds — Using people in the programme as a resource we envision a people-powered community to support participants in learning together beyond programmes like CEF.

A road map for the 'now': Series of learning interventions — As part of a roadmap to reach this vision we’ve devised interventions to be implemented in the CEF process: Recommendations to establish learning atmospheres. Systems thinking is already uncomfortable so, to prepare the environment, these help to set effective atmospheres to ease participants into the process. A set of tools to be used by the programme manager to help participants to prepare to learn, and record and reflect on what they learn. From understanding mindsets to navigating barriers.

A road map for the 'now': Series of learning interventions — Facilitation guidelines and templates for programme managers to hold effective group sharing sessions so that unstructured conversation spaces can foster sharing habits and deliver insight and feedback. We learned that sharing doesn’t happen straight away. It’s a habit that needs to be built into a group, and shared learning needs to start within the programme. Providing programme managers with the means to facilitate these activities is key to building these habits.

The impact of learning and the value we bring — The impact of effective learning is in successful application, reduced need for support, and the ability to adjust learning to context. One who has learned effectively has agency in their own work and is able to mobilise resources on their own. In innovation for international development these interventions build autonomy and agency in participants of programmes like CEF, so they can attract funding and accelerate their impact. Ultimately increasing capability for effective change across the organisation.

Reflections — When considering designing for systemic capabilities: Initial plans may not work out so how to design for improvisation, rather than implementation? Allow a programme to make the process its own and continuously improve. Respect the knowledge in the room, rather than using people as empty vessels to fill with new knowledge. This is small scale for now, but the intention is for the effects to add up over time to create conditions for the vision of capability building. To thrive while thinking out of the box.

Learning Pods is a road map to build a community of practice for knowledge around systems thinking. With the United Nations Development Programme and their City Experiment Fund initiative, we explored continued learning in country offices for growing organisational capability by a series of tools and interventions to embed a learning infrastructure within internal programmes.

Richard Larsen

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Royal College of Art