Playing with embedding strategies

In practice, embedding does not automatically follow from public design practices. While much attention is given to developing and testing interventions, ensuring that they become embedded over time often remains secondary. Yet this is precisely where it becomes clear what is truly valuable. Not everything needs to be sustained, but what you do want to embed requires deliberate choices and the right conditions.

In this tool, you explore different embedding strategies that can help prevent valuable outcomes from being lost. What does a particular strategy mean for your context? And what is needed to apply it in a sustainable way? Design for embedding from the start, rather than only considering it at the end of a programme or project.

What?

A3 worksheet for identifying embedding strategy(ies).

Who is it for?

For designers, civil servants working through design, policymakers, public leaders and other public-sector professionals who want to collaborate effectively on complex challenges.

How to use it?

The worksheet is intended as a conversation aid and helps you make conscious space and time for embedding from the start of a process. Ideally, you fill in the worksheet together with a project or collaboration partner. It can also be valuable to fill it in individually first, and then discuss your answers together.

Not sure which strategy is the right fit? Roll the dice and work out a randomly selected strategy for your context. This helps you discover what it would take to put the strategy into practice, and whether it could be a good fit. Of course, you do not have to limit yourself to a single embedding strategy.

Return to the worksheet regularly throughout the process. As you go along, you may discover that something different or additional is needed. This keeps the conversation about embedding active and evolving.

This tool is developed by De Publieke Ontwerppraktijk (PONT).