Service Design | Ecosystem Mapping To Unpack Government Services

Description

Ecosystem maps provide multiple benefits for clients. They allow us to connect people to processes, systems, laws, policies, and agencies. We can paint a more accurate picture of the current state.

In late 2022/early 2023 I was a service designer for The Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (DoC BIS). The project team was hired to do a variety of tasks, but there was a lack of problem-framing and prioritization.

We held a one-day internal team workshop to draw out and illustrate all of the different agencies, offices, and technologies related to DoC BIS.

After reflecting on the map, some initial realizations came up:

It’s a lot.

It’s complex.

There’s a lot expected of a small bureau.

Later, I used Mural to create a refined working digital version of the ecosystem map. The image above is a redacted reproduction of the map.

Dubbed as a “neural network” this ecosystem map and exercise helped the team understand how some of the technical requirements would need to be readjusted to the needs of the agency. It helped us get familiar with the personnel we were frequently in contact with and therefore quickly adapt our approach. Problem definition and framing occured but cannot be shown on this ecosystem map.

Data-Sharing Ecosystem Map

In Spring 2021, I was a service designer working for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ data management division.

A junior member of our service design team was tasked with creating an ecosystem map of data sharing agreements across agencies and illustrate how our government client’s existing digital systems fell into those agreements. Shifting in this direction posed challenges for this team. First, months were spent understanding the many legacy digital systems and what modernizing those systems could mean for implementation. Second, we had very little information available to us on how to best gather these agreements.

To help support the junior designer, I worked with them to orient their practice towards the agency level, gather any publicly-available information to lay out (person, office, agency, program, division, etc.) that relates to immigration data collection. Then, I encouraged them to think in a more layered way of how multiple agencies potentially may have one data sharing agreement.

I created this illustration to help instruct them on how to start rethinking their approach. The final ecosystem map looks very different but still infuses an agency-level approach.