Playbooks and design principles
Playbooks and collections of design principles give us an opportunity to codify and abstract the way in which we work to help others understand, adapt, and replicate on their own. Martin Wright at mySociety wrote this helpful definition of playbooks: What is a playbook? ‘Playbook’ is a word that’s used a lot these days, by tech and management people. They’ve borrowed it from the world of sports, where the idea of a book telling you ‘how to play’ is a more straightforwardly obvious concept. If you find this terminology a bit too hipster, though, you can think of them by the less trendy terms of ‘manuals’ or ‘toolkits’ — though a playbook does have the advantage of sounding like a lot more fun than a workbook. Whatever the name, what they aim to give you is a collection of repeatable plans and tactics for responding to typical challenges. As such, they can be absolutely invaluable as an internal company tool; and we think they can also help in sharing knowledge between organisations. In either case, a well-managed playbook would be easily available to employees, widely used and regularly updated.
Defend and Recruit
Download the playbook to learn how we built local defense networks, turned fear into power, and organized to step out of the shadows – into the light – to bring about a new day for all of us.
OneTeamGov Canada Pattern Library
The OneTeamGov Canada Pattern Library is a curated set of design, service and policy patterns and tools to help government teams across Canada deliver services.
Design for Delegation
Beyond Self-Service: Design Patterns for Delegation-based Digital Services
![The [UK] Digital Data and Technology (DDaT) Playbook](https://ctfg-airtable.s3.amazonaws.com/screenshots/Screenshot 2025-09-17 at 3.46.34 PM.png)
The [UK] Digital Data and Technology (DDaT) Playbook
This document sets out key policies and guidance for how digital projects and programmes are assessed, procured and delivered.
Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement in Public Procurement for Artificial Intelligence.pdf - Google Drive
A Mission- Oriented Playbook
Digital Identities Decision Guide
This guide seeks to serve as a comprehensive toolkit to enable different parties to make informed decisions around proposed digital ID systems.
Downtown Revitalization Playbook
You want to support downtown redevelopment but aren’t sure where to start. This playbook is for you.
Blueprint on Prosocial Tech Design Governance
This Blueprint on Prosocial Tech Design Governance lays out actionable recommendations for governments, civil society, researchers, and industry to design digital platforms that reduce harm and increa...
Focus on Features
Minimize digital harms through design, a guide for product managers and lawmakers.
The DPI Approach: A Playbook
This DPI playbook is designed as a practical and public resource that low and middle-income countries (LMICs) in particular can utilize in building an inclusive and rights-based DPI.
Community Partnerships Playbook
How to Create Equitable Partnerships between Technical and Community Experts
Productive Ways to Use GenAI for Civil Servants
This playbook is designed specifically for civil servants, offering practical guidance for using generative AI (GenAI) to help them perform their work more effectively and efficiently.
The Situate AI Guidebook: Co-Designing a Toolkit to Support Multi-Stakeholder Early-stage Deliberations Around Public Sector AI Proposals
By Anna Kawakami, Amanda Coston, Haiyi Zhu, Hoda Heidari, Kenneth Holstein
Women-Centric Design
A toolkit for impact practitioners to build products, services & systems that center women.
Inclusive Digital Design Toolkit: Practical guidance for Feed the Future activities
A design toolkit for USAID staff on how to design inclusive digital technology interventions, written for work on global hunger but applicable in many other contexts.
Civicspace.tech
A collection of approachable but well-researched primers on emerging tech and potential benefits and risks
UN HABITAT Digital Cities Toolkit
An open source Policy Toolkit for cities to develop digital policies that put citizens at the center, tackle Sustainable Development Goals and make Governments more open, transparent, and collaborativ...
Smarter Together
Vetted methods, key principles, inspiring stories and experts from around the world
GOV.UK Design System
Use this design system to make government services consistent with GOV.UK. Learn from the research and experience of other service teams and avoid repeating work that’s already been done.
Funding For Real Change
We provide resources to reimagine project-restricted giving
The Participation Playbook
The Participation Playbook is an interactive guide to help you successfully advocate for and implement a participatory program for your government or community. It is a tool for people who want to ope...
Data Playbook V1
Improve your team's data knowledge and skills
Prosocial Design Network
A library of design interventions to encourage prosocial behaviors online
Civic Things Handbook
How local governments can serve people better through effective communications and digital services.
A guide to tactical (open) data engagement
We designed Tactical Data Engagement to help cities go beyond a policy and portal, and facilitate opportunities for the community use of open data to improve residents’ lives.
Corporate Civic Playbook
A first-of-its-kind resource that defines corporate civic engagement, providing clear tools to help more companies become active players in strengthening the resiliency of our democracy
18F Posters
Well designed posters to hang in your gov office
California Design System
The Design System makes it easy for state digital teams to build accessible, consistent, and performant services and products to meet Californians’ needs.
Tokyo's Metropolitan Open Source Public Guidelines
東京都オープン・ソース・ソフトウェア公開ガイドライン. Contribute to Tokyo-Metro-Gov/tokyo-oss-guideline development by creating an account on GitHub.
Principles for Digital Development
A set of guidelines that help development practitioners integrate established best practices into technology-enabled programmes.
Open Source Alliance for Open Scholarship Handbook
A crowdsourced collection of personal stories, how-to articles, and resource lists on four major topics: Funding, People, Mission, and Operations + Tech.
Toolkit Navigator
The Observatory of Public Sector Innovation's compendium of toolkits for public sector innovation and transformation, curated by OPSI and our partners around the world
Civic tech patterns
In the spirit of Wikipatterns, this is a collection of patterns and anti-patterns for describing common practices that may help or hinder the conception or design of your civic technology.
The U.S. Digital Services Playbook
The American people expect to interact with government through digital channels such as websites, email, and mobile applications. By building digital services that meet their needs, we can make the de...
MindLab's design methods
Europe's best framework for developing and operating a business
Boston Smart Cities Playbook
US Web Design Standards
Design and build fast, accessible, mobile-friendly government websites backed by user research.
Open Internet for Democracy
The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) are facilitating an initiative to identify and...
The Open Data Handbook - Everything You Need To Know About Open Data
Guides, case studies and resources for government & civil society on the "what, why & how" of open data.
Difi Project Wizard
A common project model for the public sector
Civic Design Tools
A compilation of reflections, tools and methodologies with the capacity to program and activate Collective Intelligence processes with impact on the Territory.
NYC Council 2.0
Procurement Playbook
In this Playbook, we explore the evolution of the procurement function’s missions, from its original cost reduction role to risk management and to contribution to growth as a strategic partner.
Social Innovation Labs Handbook
Research and survey on social innovation labs in Canada.
People's Roadmap for a Digital New York City
In this citizen created roadmap, we outline how to humanize technology, move beyond transparency for transparency's sake, and ensure we have government technology that works for the people, built with...
Code for America Brigade Organizer's Playbook
Open Google Doc guide
WEF National Digital Governance Playbook
The “Digital Policy Playbook 2017” is designed to help leaders understand the complex dynamics and difficult decisions they will face in managing their transition into the digital domain
Government Design Systems
A list of design systems and CSS frameworks used by governments around the world
DoWire Case studies and how-to briefs (archive)
