Increased innovation in public municipal operations through quality-driven citizen participation

Important results from the project

During the project has a user-centered process been developed and tested through several workshops with focus groups. The outcome of these meetings has increased internal awareness and put focus on the importance of taking the citizens experience into account, both to evaluate existent services and when developing new ones. Many ideas have been proposed and prioritized with the focus group. The project has created new areas of cooperation between citizens, administrations and municipal companies and distributed information and results to management groups and politicians.

Expected long term effects

The project shows that it is possible to find new ways to involve and communicate with citizens to better understand and meet the citizen´s needs. Putting people´s needs at the center creates a new mind set of the organization and requires new methods and approaches. The process and methods are implementable and useful at all levels of a municipality organization and offers a new tool to create services where citizens are at the center and involved throughout the entire process from concept to service.

Approach and implementation

Five different meetings with selected focus groups have been conducted. Four meetings with entrepreneurial groups and the fifth meeting was used to meet a group of elderly people who had a completely different needs and problems. All meetings where conducted in workshop form with a moderator that focused on the Understanding phase. The groups discussed needs that are not met in the current situation of the municipality in a good way. All sessions yielded much valuable material to analyze. One area regarding a billboard policy have been reworked in collaboration with the group.