Designing Public Service Delivery: the role of symmetry Design is a word that is often associated with consumer items:

clothes, jewelries, bags and shoes. It is not a term that one relates to public service. The old perception was that a public servant is comfortably ensconced in his little office and is set up for life. This is a far cry to reality, especially in these times when bureaus and commissions are taken down just as easily as they are established. Public service is public trust and trust remains as long as the organization continues to be relevant to the needs of the public. In the article Elegance by Design: The Art of Less, Matthew May promotes the idea that elegance can also be applicable to management, elegance being emotionally engaging, profoundly intelligent, and artfully crafted to besimple and powerful. How can this be related to public service? Government resources are often not enough to provide for all the needs of its various responsibilities and offices. Budgetary constraints limit the ability of public service employees to cater to all the requirements of the general public. It is not uncommon to hear people speak disparagingly about government service and the people behind them. How can factoring in elegance improve the manner of public service delivery? Matthew May proposes the framework for creating elegance: symmetry, seduction and subtraction. This article will discuss the importance of symmetry and how it can be applied to make the organization provide better public service. Symmetry can be understood as having a balanced structure. It refers to the order within the organization. For symmetry, Matthew May discusses on the concept of fractals which are repetitive patterns nested within each other that remain the same at differing scale of magnification. In organizations, fractals are depicted in organization charts. It is therefore advisable that hierarchies in systems be a representative of the whole organization. Micro-management therefore is not an effective management practice inasmuch as the whole system becomes unwieldy for top management to carry. Fractals as applied to large companies may be best illustrated by having core teams which operates in a similar manner to the overall system. While this may seem to be the way management is devolved down the ranks, complications ensue when the smaller groups down the line do not echo the objectives set higher up. Matthew May cites Toyota, which main philosophy and culture are embodied into two basic tenets: respect for people and continuous improvement. In Toyota, each worker becomes a fractal, and the linking of each of these fractals created a singular culture and identity. Public service organizations can start working on symmetry by factoring in symmetry and the fractal concept. Top management can start by looking outward: defining the role of the organization in the community and identifying its deliverables. It can then look inward: creating processes and smaller organizations that mirror the whole.