The Conservatives' unexpected success in breaking down the Red Wall gave Boris Johnson a surprise Christmas present — and an unexpected challenge. To make a real difference to the parts of the UK that successive governments had tended to forget. A real opportunity to create a legacy where most people least expected it.
If you've ever travelled on a Pacer train, you'll know that infrastructure is part of the solution. But if it is to make a real difference, the aim must be to create places that don't just work for transport planners — places where infrastructure, services and opportunities fit around people, rather than expecting people to fit the system.
Good infrastructure fits around people, rather than demanding that people fit around it.
The Government could do worse than look for a solution in a version of Design Thinking — beloved of American art schools and the subject of reverential Harvard Business Review articles. At heart, Design Thinking is about ensuring that people and communities get what they really want and need, rather than what the experts think they want. It started with products — the kitchen utensils with the "OXO grip", originally created by Sam Farber for his wife who suffered from arthritis, now a common feature of most kitchens. Design thinking can also create user-friendly services, such as simple online booking systems.
Put like that, it seems very obvious — and quite free market and bottom-up. Of course, the problems at hand call for more than clever tools or websites. But Design Thinking principles can be the basis of a solution — what we call envisioning — that is human-centric, inclusive and participatory, and integrated: treating the city or town as a holistic ecosystem rather than a set of distinct flagship projects.
How does it work in practice? We frame the design and planning process using the five i's:
Identify — take time to identify what all the users of the community actually need. Include part-time workers as well as daily commuters. Young families and pensioners, students and transients as well as permanent residents. And consider not just each group individually, but how they interact as they go about their daily lives.
Interpret — focus on each group's wants and needs, individually and collectively. More than simple questionnaires or focus groups. As Henry Ford is supposed to have said: "if I'd asked people what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." The best solution might not be what people ask for — it might be relocating amenities rather than building a new road. We call this approach "qualitative first": don't start measuring until you've thought about what you should be measuring.
Innovate — having done the analysis, planners can develop workable strategies based on deeper insights.
Iterate — Design thinking is a fundamentally iterative process. Keep checking whether the plans remain relevant to communities' changing needs. Government needs to bear this in mind when drawing up budgets: more of the total must be held back for contingencies, so that adapting to changed circumstances is seen as a positive, not an admission of failure.
Integrate — a complex plan for a town or city will include a wide range of projects, from housing to transport, from science parks to schools. Too often, once a plan is approved, each contractor sets off by itself and delivers according to its specifications without checking how it will impact on the rest. Structuring projects so that each one works with the others is a simple, cost-effective way to ensure that the overall impact meets users' expectations and needs.
Maybe it's not time to call in the most hipster of creatives — but it is perhaps time for a fresh approach to innovation and design.