We had the pleasure of speaking with Toby Gail, a product designer at Open Government Products (OGP) in Singapore. OGP acts like a startup within the Singapore government, and focuses on building tech products for public good. In our conversation, Toby shared valuable insights about her career growth, creating products for frontline workers like nurses and firefighters, and building inclusive communities in the design world.

From Consultancy to In-House: A Designer's Evolution

Toby's career journey began at Foolproof, a design consultancy where she developed foundational skills while working across diverse industries. This consultancy experience proved invaluable, exposing her to different markets and consumer behaviors from Singapore to Hong Kong to Thailand. Each month brought a new product challenge, accelerating her growth through variety.

When Toby moved to Singapore Airlines, she encountered the complexities of a large, established organization. She learned to identify "levers" – key stakeholders who could help implement designs – and navigate siloed teams across hierarchical structures. The contrast became apparent when she joined OGP, where smaller, tighter teams allowed her to focus on relationship building and what she calls "glue work" – forming connections with individual team members and helping engineers feel invested in the user experience.

The Power of Human-Centered Design in Government

At Open Government Products, Toby works in an environment that accelerates digital transformation through a flatter, less bureaucratic structure than typical government departments. It's a space where people can experiment with new technologies, management techniques, and cultural norms to solve public sector problems more effectively.

Currently, Toby focuses on Armory, a digital platform streamlining operational checklists for critical frontline workers like firefighters and nurses. When Toby and her team visited fire stations, they discovered firefighters struggling with hefty paper binders to conduct equipment checks before shifts. These manual processes not only slowed down emergency responders but created siloed data that headquarters couldn't easily analyze for compliance or improvement. By digitizing these workflows, Armory helps frontliners complete necessary tasks faster and return to their core mission of saving lives, while simultaneously generating valuable analytics that leadership can use to improve operations across the system.

Driving Product Adoption in Traditional Organizations

The process of bringing digital innovation to traditional organizations requires both technical skill and emotional intelligence. Toby emphasizes:

"The bulk of our work really is just convincing people that there's a better way to do things."

Success in this arena starts with finding champions – people who aren't afraid to convert frustrations into positive action, asking "why not?" instead of "why should we change?" These allies help move mountains within organizations resistant to change. With champions identified, Toby advocates starting small and iterating, following the philosophy of "fail fast, but scale slowly."

Toby recalls a conversation with a rehabilitation nurse who told her:

"We don't change processes unless something bad happens."

This mindset highlighted the challenge of implementing change in established institutions. Toby's approach balances pushing for better solutions while implementing proper processes through small pilots and gradual scaling. Perhaps most crucial is the storytelling aspect – understanding stakeholders' concerns and emotions, then framing solutions to address these concerns while making everyone feel heard.

Recharging Love for Design Through Community Building

Beyond her day job, Toby finds purpose in community building as a way to reconnect with what sparked her passion for design initially. She founded The Good Circle in late 2023 to support women and non-binary people in tech, creating a space where people could discuss their experiences without having to "go through the hoops of trying to convince someone of the validity of their experiences."

The initiative grew from personal frustration with gender bias in the industry, backed by research showing that high-performing women receive significantly more personality-based feedback than their male counterparts. What began as a small gathering has blossomed into a supportive community where Toby encourages participants:

"This is a place for us to meet as humans, and I encourage you to leave your titles at the door. Here, we don't care if you are a senior, a junior, a director, or if you're just a fresh graduate or a student. Just talk to each other on equal ground and have good conversations tonight."

For Toby, these gatherings reignite her passion for design. She finds herself most inspired when speaking with other designers, noting how these interactions help everyone "remember why they started out and keep that fire going" while knowledge pollinates across the industry.

Balancing Ambition with Perspective

Perhaps Toby's most profound insight came when discussing career challenges:

"On average, humans only live for about 4,000 weeks. At the end of the day, I think a lot of people are extremely passionate about design, about product design, but it is really only a job."

This perspective helps Toby avoid beating herself up over failures and maintain a healthy balance. She suggests asking, "Would this matter when I'm on my deathbed?" when facing workplace stress. The answer, she notes, is rarely "I should have spent two more hours polishing that screen."

This doesn't mean lowering standards. Rather, it's about finding the balance between doing excellent work and recognizing when "enough is enough." Toby applies this philosophy at OGP, focusing on testing and validating the most important elements rather than polishing everything to perfection. She treats her own growth similarly – viewing herself as a product to be iterated upon through courses, books, and continuous practice, particularly in communication skills, which she believes many designers stop developing too early.

By maintaining this balanced perspective while never stopping her professional development, Toby embodies the kind of thoughtful leadership that benefits both individual designers and the broader communities they serve.

Connect with Toby on LinkedIn, and check out events from The Good Circle and Singapore Product Design!

References:Suanne Chan, design thought leader in Singapore and UX consultant at GovTech Singapore.Adilah Anuar & Tzu Hsuan, hosts of Kiasu Design Life podcastSingpass, digital id app in SingaporeWes Kao on Becoming a Better Communicator (Lenny’s Podcast)Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It (Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thepragmaticdesigners.substack.com

Technology for Public Good | Toby Gail