The First New Synthesis Laboratory for Master Practitioners
by Jocelyne Bourgon
Last updated 23 July 2026
ETHOS Issue 13, May 2014
How the New Synthesis (NS) Framework Came About
Serving in the 21st century is more challenging than ever:
Issues are inter-connected and more prone to shocks
Social media transforms the issues and contexts
Public servants deal with volatility and complexity
An increasing number of public policy issues exceed the capacity of government acting alone.
These changes are transforming the role of governments and their relationship with citizens and society. Public servants feel the tensions but most public organisations are not yet ready for the challenges that lie ahead. As a result, governments are frequently left in a reactive position. There is a need to re-think public administration as a discipline and as a domain of practice. This is why the NS Project was conceived.1
Public institutions and public organisations must adapt to changing needs and circumstances in order to sustain the trust between government and citizens. There is a need to preserve practices of enduring values, learn from reform efforts and acquire new capabilities. In the end, old and new capabilities must blend in a manner that takes into account the circumstances unique to each country.2
Part of the difficulty facing public organisations today comes from the industrial-era concepts that conventional public administration is rooted in. These are derived from scientific management, with solutions based on narrowing down and “fixing” parts of the system. As a result, public administration has internalised many forms of segregation (between politics and policy, policy decision and implementation, policy development and service delivery, etc.). Public administration relies on analysis. It values productivity and efficiency.
NS is an invitation to go beyond these conventional approaches. It values the effectiveness of the whole rather than the efficiency of its parts. It focuses on societal results. It proposes that the solutions to complex issues can only come about as a result of synthesis — the capacity to recombine in new ways the roles of government, citizens and society, and the relationships that bind them together.
The NS Framework appears simple at first glance. However, it has several layers of meaning that are uncovered progressively.
In 2010 and 2011, Singapore’s Civil Service College (CSC) participated in the NS Project, a multi-country research project that initially involved six countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands, Singapore and the United Kingdom)3. In Singapore, this work informed public sector dialogues on pertinent issues, including public engagement and co-creation. Acknowledging the need to test the NS Framework in a diversity of domains of practice, the NS Lab was born from a shared commitment to expand the conversation and test the ideas in practice. And so the design work began.
Programme Design
The first NS Lab was designed to encourage open exchange, experimentation and learning. It challenged participants to continually move between exploring concepts, learning from practice and integrating findings.
A gap week between sessions was intentionally included to allow participants to test ideas in practice, reflect on what was relevant in each respective context and integrate what they learnt in their search for solutions in their live case before returning for the next session.
In practice, the one-week break allowed participants time to consolidate and integrate their learning.
Master Practitioners
Seventeen director- and senior director-level public officers — the Master Practitioners — attended the first NS Lab, held in Singapore in early 2013. Some were from central ministries, while others were from line ministries and statutory boards supporting the ministries.4 This mix brought a diversity of perspectives to the NS Lab sessions, and helped to ensure that the relevance of the NS Framework was tested across a broad range of domains.
Apart from their skills and experience, each participant also came to the NS Lab with a real-life case — a challenging and unresolved issue that the participant was committed to addressing in his current position. Participants were encouraged to return to their cases after each session, changing and refining their proposed approaches as the conversation progressed.
This approach proved to be a very powerful element of the NS Lab design. As the cases evolved, participants quickly became very skillful at using the NS Framework, which helped them to look at their challenges in new ways and through different lenses. They were able to re-position their issues on a broader level, and each one of them identified other stakeholders who needed to be brought in as partners. Most of them discovered that it was possible to encourage the contributions of citizens, users of government services, their families and their communities while preserving and even enhancing the stewardship role of government.
Master Weaver
Playing the role of Master Weaver, I drew lessons learned from other countries from the NS key findings. The collective wealth of experience was used to tease out solutions from the participants. The key assets for an NS Lab are in the room.
As Master Weaver, my role was to:
Help participants weave the key threads to create a powerful tapestry: a “new synthesis” of public administration adapted to a particular (in this case, Singapore’s) context and circumstances.
Summarise key findings after each session, laying the foundation for the next session while allowing for different approaches. In Singapore, each session was unique and specifically designed to support the needs of the participants at that time.
Enrich the exploratory discussion by sharing ideas and insights about what is being done elsewhere, or what could be done to broaden the range of choices open to government. There is no one right way, but instead multiple ways of achieving public policy outcomes. Often, different approaches must operate concurrently in order to bring about desired outcomes.
Post-NS Lab feedback by participants indicated that the role of the Master Weaver was a key factor in the success of the sessions.
Growing Towards A New Synthesis
The first NS Lab was designed with practitioners in mind. It was learner-centric, with improvements throughout the process to ensure that each session met the needs of the group. It brought senior practitioners from many fields of public sector practice into conversation and, together with me, they examined how the NS Framework can be used to open up a broader space of possibility with which to face the complex issues of the day, and to solve problems that conventional approaches could not. They shared experiences and acquired new insights about what is being done and what can be done to prepare public institutions and organisations to be fit for the time and to build a resilient society able to adapt to the changing landscape of the 21st century. In the process, they crafted an emerging narrative of change to provide coherence to their transformation efforts. They framed a New Synthesis for Singapore.
The success of the NS Lab was first and foremost due to the commitment of the Master Practitioners, who were not only active contributors during each session, but invested time and effort in updating their cases during the gap week. Many of them took the extra step to share what they learned on their return to their agencies.
NS is an ongoing journey of discovery. No institution is fit for all time. The ongoing development of each institution involves adapting to changing circumstances and evolving with the society that they have a mission to serve. Countries with public institutions able to meet the needs of their time have a greater capacity for adaptation. They will be best positioned to influence events in their favour and to prosper under all circumstances. There is every reason to believe that Singapore will be among them.
And so the journey continues.
The NS Lab Sessions
The first three sessions were designed to explore the implications of some of the key underlying concepts of the NS Framework in practice. This was done by drawing from international examples, inviting local resource people who had led ambitious, transformative reforms, and working as a group to explore solutions to the cases.
Session 1: Positioning
This session explored the importance of “positioning” public policy issues in a broader context. Participants discovered how this could help them to uncover the multi-dimensional nature of complex issues and the need for cooperation across governments and systems. As one of our invited resource persons said, “We are all part of a bigger cause.”
A key challenge is to frame public policy issues and challenges in a way that invites and allows others to contribute. Changing the way one thinks about the mission of public agency changes the way one shapes policy responses and services, how an agency relates to others and engages citizens.
Participants explored and shared ideas about how to use the concept of “positioning” to domains as varied as open data, “City in a Garden”, social and family development, and education.
The participants discovered the power of a broader mental map to open up new avenues and encourage cooperation, through the process of constructively questioning each other and sharing insights to improve the likelihood of success in addressing each others’ cases – a key feature of the NS Lab.1
In the late-1990s, the National Library Board and the Singapore Prison Service successfully repositioned their mission in the broader context of system-wide and societal results. This meant a focus on nation and community building for the former and the reintegration of ex-offenders for the latter. In so doing, they reinvented their respective professions and their roles as public agencies, resulting in better outcomes and improving the lives of users and those of the people providing the services.
Session 2: Leveraging
Leveraging is about the Power of Others. It is the coming together of the authority of the state and the power of society to achieve better public results. Participants explored the importance of working across multiple boundaries inside government and across sectors to achieve results of higher value for society.
Leveraging recognises that an increasing number of issues exceed the capacity of government working alone.2 It calls for an understanding of the perspectives of others and the key factors that encourage them to join a collective effort.
Participants identified some factors that would enhance government capacity to build on contributions from others, learning from both successful and failed attempts.
Participants examined the reasons behind the success of the Singapore Health Promotion Board in working with hawkers and food manufacturers to achieve better public health outcomes. They also explored possibilities for applying leveraging in the work of agencies such as the Land Transport Authority and the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority.
Session 3: Engaging
Even when working together, public agencies may not be able to achieve some complex results or find solutions to intractable problems. This session explored how public policies and programmes can be shaped to engage users and beneficiaries as value creators.
Successful citizen engagement requires clarity of purpose from the agency in question. Participants discussed the importance of establishing clarity on when the government is best positioned to engage citizens, when it would be unwise to do so, and when the desired outcomes can only be achieved with the contribution of users and beneficiaries as value creators.
A case study from Sweden Clinic of Internal Medicine provided key insights into co-production.3 Important distinctions were drawn between various forms of engagement including information, consultation, co-creation, co-production and enabled self-organisation.4
Integrating and Applying NS Concepts
By the end of the first three sessions, participants had learned and applied some of the key findings from the NS Framework, and become skillful in their use of:
Positioning that shifts the focus of analysis from an agency’s results to that of societal outcomes
Leveraging that shifts the balance between a government-centric approach to governance
Engaging users and beneficiaries of public services to shift the relationship between the government and citizens from one of dependency to one of mutuality and shared responsibility.
Participants improved their search for solutions in the context of their cases by using all three lenses.
Through community engagement efforts, the Ministry of Home Affairs was able to reconcile its stewardship role under the law while expanding public involvement in achieving public policy results.
Sessions 4–6: A New Synthesis for Singapore
The subsequent sessions marked a shift in focus from key concepts applied to individual cases to an overall transformation agenda for Singapore’s public service. Sessions 4-6 reached beyond particular initiatives to identify and explore the capacities needed to build public institutions and organisations capable of adapting to changing circumstances and of evolving alongside society.
During these sessions, participants heard from resource persons about the changing landscape in Singapore from an internal and an external perspective. The participants drew insights from the early findings of “Our Singapore Conversation”. They engaged with political, academic and public sector leaders, heard from central agencies about current initiatives, and discussed how these agencies could help build the capacity of government to adapt to changing needs and circumstances. A series of international examples were used to help participants learn what others were doing to build adaptive and resilient societies.
Over the course of the NS Lab sessions, participants co-created a powerful narrative that speaks to Singapore’s context and to their aspirations. They articulated the special role and responsibility of government to nurture adaptive public institutions fit for the time, and a resilient society fit for the challenges of the future. They also highlighted guiding principles and promising approaches to support these efforts.5 The document they produced amounts to an ambitious reform agenda that warrants careful consideration.6 It is available on the CSC website at: https://www.csc.gov.sg/articles/the-first-new-synthesis-laboratory-for-master-practitioners
Notes
Jocelyne Bourgon, “New Synthesis Laboratory for Master Practitioners: Moving Ideas into Action-Key Findings”, 4–5, May 2013, CSC working paper.
Jocelyne Bourgon, “New Synthesis Laboratory for Master Practitioners: Moving Ideas into Action-Key Findings”, 6–8, May 2013, CSC working paper.
Jörgen Tholstrup, “Empower Patients to Need Less Care and Do Better in Highland Hospital, South Sweden”, Making Health and Social Care Personal and Local: Moving from Mass Production to Co-Production, eds. E. Loeffler et al. (UK: Governance International, 2012), 7–11.
Jocelyne Bourgon, “New Synthesis Laboratory for Master Practitioners: Moving Ideas into Action-Key Findings”, 6–8, May 2013, CSC working paper.
Jocelyne Bourgon, “New Synthesis Laboratory for Master Practitioners: Moving Ideas into Action-Key Findings”, 9–12, May 2013, CSC working paper.
Jocelyne Bourgon, “New Synthesis Laboratory for Master Practitioners: Moving Ideas into Action-Key Findings”, 13–17, May 2013, CSC working paper.
NS Lab: The Journey Continues
For the next phase of the NS Project, new tools developed from the first Lab in 2013 were tested; the conversations were also brought to different levels of public officers. In the first quarter of 2014, we conducted 2 new NS Labs for Singapore public service officers, one at the Middle Manager level and the other for people at the most senior levels. Both workshops generated new discoveries and possibilities.
The NS Labs conducted in 2013 and 2014 are a powerful reminder of the need to continue to explore the New Frontiers of Public Administration, to prepare government fit for the challenges of its time and to build public organisations and public institutions with the capacity to adapt to changing needs, circumstances and citizens expectations. The Civil Service College plans to continue to explore the ideas generated from the 2013 and 2014 NS Labs as the New Synthesis Journey continues, for there is no end to our search for good government and good governance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
An international expert in governance and public sector reforms, the Honourable Jocelyne Bourgon is Senior Visiting Fellow at the Civil Service College, Singapore, where she works closely with public sector leaders and managers to prepare the Government to be fit and resilient for the future through research and practitioners’ workshops. Madame Bourgon is also President of Public Governance International (PGI), President Emeritus of the Canada School of Public Service, project leader of the New Synthesis Project and author of A New Synthesis of Public Administration: Serving in the 21st Century.
NOTES
Jocelyne Bourgon, A New Synthesis of Public Administration: Serving in the 21st Century, (Montreal, Quebec and Kingston, Ontario: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011).
Jocelyne Bourgon, “New Synthesis Laboratory for Master Practitioners: Moving Ideas into Action-Key Findings”, May 2013, CSC working paper, http://www.cscollege.gov.sg/Knowledge/Pages/New-Synthesis-Laboratory-for-Master-Practitioners-Moving-Ideas-to-Action-Key-Findings.aspx
The key findings resulting from the NS Project were captured in the book A New Synthesis of Public Administration: Serving in the 21st Century which was launched in Singapore in October 2011.
Participating agencies included the Public Service Division, Ministry of Finance; the ministries of Communications and Information, Education, Home Affairs, Social and Family Development, and the Environment and Water Resources; and statutory boards the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, National Environment Agency, Urban Redevelopment Authority, Public Utilities Board, National Parks Board, Land Transport Authority, and the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority.