The future civil servant

Role: Strategic designer
Team: Five MSc students
Duration: 10 weeks
Year: 2025

The Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security asked how the role of its civil servants will change in a fast-moving society. In ten weeks, five of us went from panel debates and interviews at the ministry to a roadmap for 2040.

We mapped the tensions civil servants face, personal, societal, political and organisational, and let them rank which mattered most. From 28 ideas we kept seven interventions, from a Mandatory Field Day where policy meets reality before it is final, to a protected Moral Checkpoint for doubt.

To make the future tangible, we built The Desk: the workspace of a future civil servant, with one object for each intervention. Together they describe a civil servant who explores society instead of chasing urgency.

All work

The Desk prototype on a white background, a white desk and chair with a red scale, a green picture frame, a pink mirror, a purple poster, a yellow cup, an orange cap and a blue shredder. — The Desk, with one object for each intervention

Five objects from The Desk in a row, an orange cap, a clipboard with a purple poster, a red scale, a yellow cup and a green picture frame. — Five of the seven objects, the cap, poster, scale, cup and frame

Large board with a hand-drawn civil servant at the centre, surrounded by coloured sticky notes grouped by context. — Tensions in the civil servant's work, in four layers

C-box chart with 28 numbered interventions plotted by feasibility and impact, with the chosen ones highlighted in blue. — All 28 interventions on feasibility and impact

Seven intervention posters in different colours, each explaining what the intervention is, how it works and its timeline. — The seven interventions, as tested with civil servants

Implementation plan from 2026 to 2040 with a coloured lane for each of the seven interventions, divided into three phases with staggered start dates. — The roadmap, from 2026 to 2040

Next project Alani