Managers as Designers in the Public Services

David Wastell is Professor of Information Systems at Nottingham University Business School, UK. He began his academic career as a psycho-physiologist, attaching electrodes to people's heads to measure the brain's performance (which he compares to using performance indicators to measure organisational effectiveness). After moving to the Applied Psychology Unit at Cambridge University, his interests in technology and work developed during an extended period at Manchester University, first in the Medical School and then in Computer Science. He was appointed Professor of the Information Society at Salford University in 2000 where he helped establish a leading international research group specializing in information systems. Subsequently he moved to UMIST, before transferring to Nottingham in 2005. Professor Wastell's current interests are in public sector reform, innovation and design, and cognitive ergonomics. He is secretary of an international working group (IFIP WG8.6) which specializes in research on technology transfer and innovation, he has extensive public sector consultancy experience and was co-author of the SPRINT methodology, which provides a framework for service re-engineering and change management, and is widely used in the local government community.

DESIGN MATTERS FOR PUBLIC MANAGERS Paradise lost: tales from the trenches The strange history of the ICS: a cautionary tale Theoretical interlude Paradise regained: there is an alternative Technomagic The sociology of magic Magical thinking and the ICS Design - the rescue remedy MANAGING, DESIGNING AND PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM Historical prologue (Re)enter the manager-as-designer The reform of public services New Public Management NPM and managerialism: RIP? Managing to improve public services Public Sector Reform: designing services for public value Design in the Big Society Grass-roots innovation A case study from the trenches Theoretical coda: design as bricolage, leaders as tricksters THE KNOWLEDGE-BASE OF DESIGN Evidence-based management - the very idea! Examples: Goal setting theory and IT strategic alignment Sociotechnical design Principles of sociotechnical design Two examples of STSD Post-script: STSD and the ICS Soft Systems Methodology Systems thinking - Senge and Seddon Borrowing from software engineering: user-centred design Homo Faber and the abundance of technique DESIGN IN ACTION IT - commodity or competitive weapon? Business Process Reengineering BPR in the public sector Redesigning public services: A tale of two cities A brief history of the GMAS computer project Evaluation Comparisons with LAS: management lessons Epilogue SPRINT: a design and innovation methodology General precepts - best practice for design An overview of SPRINT Case Studies Innovation at Salford: a curate's egg Small is beautiful IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION, RESEARCH AND POLICY Learning design and building organisational capacity Implications for Management Education and Research Teaching EBM Implications for Reform: Policy by Design Magic in the Risk Society: the Vetting and Barring debacle Reform as learning Reforming reform Beyond technomagic - reprise Make kitsch the enemy Bibliography Appendix 1 A conversation with a CIO on alignment Appendix 2 Methodological potpourri The Viable Systems Model VSM in action: a case study Scenario-based design Agile Software Development with Scrum Appendix 3 SPRINT Accreditation and the Practicum Appendix 4 Binary Diagnostic Tests and Bayes Theorem Bayes Theorem Index