Toolkit

The EHDM toolkit delivers creative thinking and methods to public service projects across Europe. This enables public organisations to benefit from design management thinking and methods currently used by leading companies in the private sector.

The Toolkit delivers:

• A step by step approach supporting your project management process
• An overview of design thinking and its benefits to a public service project
• Assistance for managing day to day projects
• An approach for strategy, planning and management of larger projects

Outline of process

• Register and log in to allow an account to be created and your projects to be saved and returned to.
• Undertake a simple diagnostic based on the complexity of the project and the project leader’s experience of design thinking and management.
• Start using the Toolkit. The system will adjust to you depending on whether you know what outcome is required and how to deliver it or just what the required outcome is.
• Find relevant case studies and tips at each stage with links out to appropriate tools, thinking and models to illustrate and support specific steps.
• Choose to move up/down a level of complexity to gather more information as required.

Public and private sectors today face a common challenge; delivering the best possible products and services that are sustainable, efficient and cost effective. The world is witnessing how successful initiatives based on innovation at strategic and operational levels offer solutions to meet this challenge, with far reaching results.

The public sector across Europe currently commissions billions of euros of design services across all member states, to improve and deliver public services. The strategic use of design practice has been shown to make a significant contribution to improvements in services especially in reshaping them to extract more performance from reduced budgets. However, design practice on it’s own, even at the highest standard, is not enough. It is well-managed, high quality, strategic, user-centred design practice that makes the difference.

This is not only the project management of design activities but it is a specific activity called design management. Design management is a business discipline that uses project management, design strategy and supply chain techniques to control a creative process, support a culture of creativity and build a structure and organisation for design.

Additional functionalities

• Training is available to support the use of the Toolkit. More information on training is available in the training section.
• The Toolkit has been developed to support a process end to end. However, you can also access the information stage by stage for specific help and guidance.
• A full glossary and a help section are available to provide you with additional information, if required.