The Estonian Government Innovation Lab

Oct 4

Government Office of the Republic of Estonia

Embedding behavioural insights into policy teams

Behavioural Change Awareness Sessions, Hands-On Behavioural Design Workshops, Provision and Licensing of Behavioural Design Tools

Empowering government departments with behavioural design tools and ways of working.

Using behavioural science to improve public services

About The Estonian Government Innovation Lab
The Estonian Government's Innovation Team is committed to pioneering human-centred policy-making and bringing new ways of working into the hard of the policy teams. Team knew that to create better public services, they needed to get to the heart of human behaviour. They turned to Alterkind with a clear mission: make their services more behaviour-centred and effective by learning behavioural design.

Tools over theories

Project Overview
We provided a range of services to support the Estonian Government's goals. We conducted behavioural change awareness sessions to engage leaders at the highest levels, including key ministers and department heads. We facilitated hands-on behavioural design workshops with various departments across health, policing, home affairs and work, offering strategic insights and practical tools. We also shared and licensed our proprietary behavioural design resources to ensure they had everything needed to sustain this new way of thinking.

"Behaviour change is key to delivering services."

Daniel Kotsjuba. Designer of Public Services at Innovation Lab, Government Office of the Republic of Estonia

Seeing challenges through a new lens

Context and Background
When we teach we also do, it's a core approach within how we deliver training. We invite teams to work on specific and important challenges. You learn, do and continue to grow. Every department within the Estonian Government policy services team faced a unique challenge—our behavioural science approach helped them tackle vaccine hesitancy, improve home safety, build trust with police, and promote workplace inclusivity.

Strategy

Bringing behavioural science to life

Delivery
Creating Momentum with Awareness

We started with a session for high-level officials and wider departments, where we shared case studies and examples that showed the practical benefits of behavioural science in public policy. This wasn’t just about learning—it was about building momentum and getting everyone on the same page for future innovation.

Introducing the The Drive Grid

During the workshops, we introduced a simple but powerful framework. We explained how behaviour is shaped by 9 key factors, what we call The Drive Grid. This helped teams see the full picture of what drives citizen behaviour, beyond the individual level.

Providing Practical Tools and Behavioural Mapping

We equipped each team with practical tools, including the Behaviour Research Patterns, Behaviour Change Patterns, and The Drive Grid. With these resources, they could map out the factors influencing behaviours and pinpoint where to intervene for the biggest impact.

Making it Real with Behavioural Sprints

Teams took their new knowledge and applied it in real time, using behavioural sprints to rapidly develop solutions for their specific challenges. This hands-on approach made the concepts not only easy to understand but also immediately actionable.

Setting Up for Long-Term Success

Finally, we made sure that the progress wouldn’t end when the workshops did. Each team received a full toolkit and a behavioural roadmap to guide them in the months ahead.

“Working in public services, we work on a lot of different behaviour type problems. The training from Alterkind helped me look at those problems in a new and different way. They were able to break down a lot of principles so they were useful for everyone - which included colleagues without design backgrounds. Valuable to the team and to our work."

Daniel Kotsjuba. Designer of Public Services at Innovation Lab, Government Office of the Republic of Estonia