Sparking a Service Excellence Mindset at a Government Agency

Key Insights

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  Singapore's Ministry of Manpower improved service through a service excellence mindset shaped by strong narratives aligned to national design and innovation goals.

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  Orchestrating the entire customer journey, not just individual parts, reveals hidden pain points — likened to exposing the full 'elephant' rather than blind men touching parts.

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  MOM transformed a complex foreign professional hiring process by improving web findability, introducing self-assessment tools, clearer communication, and redesigning physical service centers with IDEO’s human-centered design.

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  Design democratization requires shifting from a production mindset (creating content in silos) to a consumption mindset focused on user success and cross-department collaboration.

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  MOM created a multi-departmental content team to collectively review and improve thousands of web pages, using intensive sessions like the 'bond raising' method to accelerate alignment.

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  Ownership structural changes, such as moving website responsibility from communications to customer responsiveness team, were crucial to enabling continuous improvement and effective service.

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  The concept of playing an infinite game, inspired by James Carse and emphasized by Lou Rosenfeld, frames service design as continual tending rather than periodic redesigns.

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  Colab, MOM’s behavioral insights group, applies data-driven human-centered experiments including empathic role-playing and nudges to improve policy outcomes like timely levy payments.

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  Continuous user research and iterative testing with citizens remain essential but challenging, highlighting the tension between one-time and ongoing engagement.

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  A clear, anchored set of service principles (HEART acronym) serves as a cultural infrastructure that reminds staff of their service commitment and supports the infinite game approach.

Notable Quotes