Foundational service standards for an accessible and responsive local government
CONTEXT
Services and programs are one of the most direct and tangible ways that (outside of elections) that residents experience and interact with local government. Just as the private sector focuses on customer service, it’s important for government to focus on its relationship with residents through good service delivery.
Building on various customer service initiatives at the federal and state level, the PHL Service Design Studio proposed a person-centered service delivery initiative to the City of Philadelphia’s new incoming Mayor and her transition team. The proposal authored by Liana Dragoman and founding team members outlined a bold vision, strategy, infrastructure, and operational approach. This proposal eventually turned into Mayor Parker’s Executive Order 2-24 and the creation of the Better Services initiative.
From 2024-2025, I co-led the development of a programmatic implementation approach, decisions around technical capacity and new roles needed, and the foundational set of service delivery standards paired with a strategic vision and implementation plan. In early 2026, changing leadership roles and political priorities led to this work being transitioned to a new project team who continued to test and refine the service standards. I co-led orienting and coaching new team members and provided technical oversight and advisory support to new leaders who’d oversee the work.
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2024–2025
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Project co-leads: Devika Menon, Andrea Ngan
Project support: Elizabeth Cain, Veronica Yeung, Ciara Ali Khan, Shayla
Project oversight: Liana Dragoman, Danita Reese
In early 2026, the work was transitioned to a new project team under new leadership to test and refine the service standards. I served in an oversight role until April 2026.
APPROACH
The foundational set of service standards were developed through an iterative process over 2024-2025.
Defined the initial set of service standards based on landscape research conducted by our intern and analyzing themes, patterns, and best practice from a range of past service improvement projects at the Studio.
Iteratively tested on active projects and through intercept engagements with residents, City staff, and civic design practitioners.
OUTCOMES
Strategic vision: A vision and phased roadmap that defined approach to designing, implementing, and maintaining service standards among key stakeholders and audiences.
Foundational service standards that included eight standards under three guiding principles. Each standard was structured to describe a feature of a quality public service, how to deliver it, and how to measure it.
Prototype to demonstrate how it could live as a publicly accessible resource on the phila.gov digital ecosystem. This work was selected for Code for America’s Summit Demo Lab track where we presented and solicited feedback from civic tech and design practitioners.
IMPACT & NEXT STEPS
Having a well-defined set of foundational service standards, shared language, strategic roadmap, new scopes of work, and advisory guidance allowed the new project team to seamlessly pick up the project and plan the next phase of the project to expand testing to a larger audience. More generally, this foundational work and thought partnership provided informed the design of the Better Services program, including recommendations on selecting projects to test the standards, guidance on applying a service design process to different projects, orientation materials, and other operational support.