Öz Design science approach has attracted the attention of both scholars and practitioners in the area of public administration to solve the challenges of organisational change programmes as well as to improve service performance in the last decades. Based on this approach, some basic principles combining theoretical design elements and real-life experiences are proposed by different authors focusing on both public and private sector. In this article, firstly, we describe three basic design principles, which we extract from the related literature emphasising the different aspects of design science approach: (1) systematic and knowledge-based problem-solving approach, (2) moving forwards and backwards between design stages, and (3) coevolution of problem and solution. Those principles can assist public sector organisations to manage their large-scale change programmes effectively; however, some principal characteristics of public organisations and the inherent difficulties of implementing those principles may constraint the success of the change programmes. Therefore, secondly, we attempt to shed light on how those principles can assist public organisations to manage their large-scale change programmes, and then, we discuss some potential limitations of those principles based on the public management framework.