Captain Innovate

[Originally published on the Australian Government Public Sector Innovation Network under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY AU licence]

As some of our readers already know, I’m soon heading off to new pastures for a while. Before I go, I thought it might be useful to reflect on some of the things I’ve learnt and observed since starting to work on public sector innovation in the Australian Public Service back in 2009.

What has happened in 7 years?

When I started working on the Management Advisory Committee project on public sector innovation in 2009, public sector innovation as a focus was pretty new. In many ways it still is, but there has also been a lot of work done to build a more systemic approach to innovation in the APS. Some developments have included:

• Empowering Change: Fostering Innovation in the Australian Public Service, a framework document developed for the then Management Advisory Committee, which helped set out an approach to thinking and acting on innovation in the public sector. Looking back, this work has informed much of what came after, even if some ideas and aspects took longer than some of us (e.g. me) thought it might. With hindsight this is not in the least surprising, as a common condition for successful innovation is that we must understand the role of time
• The creation of the Public Sector Innovation Network, and it’s growth to some 2800 plus people around the world
• The launch of this blog in 2010 and the rest of the Toolkit website in 2011
• The establishment of Innovation week, which then became Innovation Month. I should recognise that this was inspired by the work of the Victorian Public Service in 2010 when they held a VPS Innovation Festival, and some of us thought “that’s a good idea, we should do that”. It may never have gotten further than that if it was not for the work of a couple of colleagues at the then Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry who took the idea and went the extra mile to make it a reality in 2011. It has grown from there, and while there’s always room for improvement, I think it’s provided a great platform for public servants and partners outside to explore innovation issues and have different conversations than they might otherwise have had
• Last year we had the trial of the Innovation Hub, and the selection of two ideas for further development by the Innovation Champions Group
• This year we have seen the establishment of the Public Sector Innovation Awards in partnership with the Institute of Public Administration Australia. While I have no idea who will ‘win’, I have had a chance to read and be impressed by a number of the 80 plus nominations received. It is always easy to be distracted by ‘business-as-usual’ so it’s important to take the time to celebrate the work of those trying to do something different
• This year also saw the publication of our first ‘Innovation Snapshot’, providing an overview of some of the many innovative initiatives happening across the APS
• In 2012-13 there was DesignGov, an interesting experiment that provided insight into running a cross-APS design-led innovation lab. Innovation labs are proliferating around the world, and across the APS and DesignGov contributed to the working knowledge of what makes such labs work
• The Innovation Champions Group has met 7 times over the past year and has worked on matters such as the Innovation Behaviours, pursuing two of the ideas from the Innovation Hub trial, and considering how to best support and work with innovative endeavours across the APS
• We are continuing to work on supporting Chapters of the Public Sector Innovation Network in the other capital cities to help give APS staff outside of Canberra the opportunity to collaborate and access to peer support as they too try out innovative approaches.

This isn’t the whole picture of course. There are many other bits and pieces that have happened, most of which have been catalogued on this blog. There are also the efforts of so many others, both within and without the APS, and the many formal initiatives and projects led by others and other agencies that I won’t try to capture here.

So there’s been lots of activity over the past seven or so years.

Observations, lessons and questions

Activity is a big part of innovation – trying things and giving it a go. But it’s not enough. Innovation is an evolving practice and one that needs to build on the lessons of what has gone before (even if sometimes innovation is about overcoming previous lessons). What lessons would I share from being part of the public sector innovation work?

The innovation process

• The first step for many people is to ask “well what is innovation?” Innovation is inherently ambiguous because what is new or different to one person will not always be so to someone else. At its heart, there’s a lot to be said for the basic definition used in Empowering Change – the generation and application of new ideas. It is fundamentally about doing something different that you haven’t done before, doing an existing process in a new way, or thinking about something in a different way that leads to different actions. But each organisation will need to consider what innovation means for it and why innovation is important to the purpose of that organisation, even if it isn’t about nailing down a specific definition. A cautionary note is to not only associate innovation with good things – e.g. value or benefit. Innovation in the public sector takes place in a contested environment, and what is good for some, may not be so for others. Innovation should ultimately be about making things better (or why else are you doing it), but that doesn’t mean innovation cannot have negative impacts or that it will always or automatically be better than the status quo. Overall innovation is contextual, which is part of what makes it difficult
• Innovation is a process, and so it is something that can be managed. Of course innovation can be serendipitous or spontaneous – but it usually isn’t, even when it might look like it is. An immature innovation process can rely on people going above and beyond, to come up with and implement new ideas but if there’s an expectation that innovation is going to be consistent, replicable and targeted towards strategic priorities then the process needs to be a bit more sophisticated
• This sophistication is needed because it is very easy to inhibit or stop the innovation process. Responding negatively to someone’s idea can be enough to stop them trying again. Coming up with reasons of why something shouldn’t be tried is very easy. Seeming to be supportive while at the same time acting in a way that delays things is very easy. Innovation requires a certain amount of momentum to overcome the surrounding bureaucratic inertia of organisations, and that momentum usually comes from enthusiasm and passion, from leadership, from external forces, and/or from an internal innovation capability. The last one is the only one that organisations can really hope to try and manage, even if the others play a big role
• The first place people and organisations usually focus on when looking at their innovation capability is idea generation and idea management. Organisations tend to learn pretty quickly that coming up with ideas is not the problem – working out which ideas are the most relevant to the organisation or that best fit with its priorities is harder. Ideas management systems are important, because they can help organisations channel and filter ideas, as well as providing a forum for ideas that might not be ready just yet
• It generally takes time and practice for individuals to get comfortable with the idea that there are lots and lots of ideas, and that your first idea is unlikely to be the best one. Design and other practices can help in showing people that it is actually pretty easy to come up with lots of ideas. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy to let go of an idea that you have invested time, effort and care into. It does mean that it is better to try and kill an idea early, before you invest too much in it. If the idea works/survives, then that’s the time to progressively increase the investment of time and effort – though it may still need to be killed at any time
• The best way to build up that innovation maturity is to give people the opportunity to try out and test their ideas, even in a limited way, so that they can get a better feel for what makes a good idea, what is needed to really test an idea to make sure it is good, and what are the steps required to take an idea from conception to delivery
• An idea will only get so far if it is one person’s idea. Innovation is about changing the status quo, and that means you are (either explicitly or implicitly) asking others to change their behaviour, how they think or what they believe. For an idea to make an impact, it needs to have lots of people buying into it before the status quo (previous beliefs, behaviours or practices) begins to change
• The best way to get others to buy into an idea is to show why it matters. For many ideas this is about testing them, iterating and developing the idea until it is easy to see that it will do as promised. An example might be a new product or service – initially the idea might sound great, but until the idea is tested and developed, you don’t know whether people have just said they like it, or whether they really like it. For other ideas it may be about helping explain the perspective or the framing associated with the idea. These conceptual or policy innovations may be as about much the arguments and language used to explain the idea. Do people really understand what’s being talked about and what it might mean if it was introduced? Getting that right can take a long time
• Demonstrating that an idea is both relevant and something that matters means that it involves multiple people. More than ever before, innovation is a team sport and is not about the lone innovator
• Just because innovation is not about lone actors, it doesn’t mean that the actors won’t feel lonely. Innovation is about putting yourself out there and making yourself vulnerable in some way – whether it be to the judgements of others about an idea, or because the idea or innovation may fail, or because it involves thinking about or seeing the world in a different way to other people. Organisations by their nature are about shared views and perspectives on common matters. It can be hard to both maintain a collective approach/view and encourage/allow divergence that produces really new ideas and insights
• Innovation is a process that requires trust and faith. People putting forward their ideas or trying new approaches need to have trust that they won’t be judged or penalised for trying something new that might not work. Design and other innovation processes are exercises in faith because you cannot be sure what’s going to happen when you’re doing something that’s fundamentally uncertain, as innovation is. Yet trust and faith are not qualities that large and bureaucratic organisations (whether in the public or private sector) are renowned for.

The public service as an environment for innovation

The following are some observations about the public service as an environment for innovation. While they have been drawn from my experience in the APS, from conversations with many others I think they are common to the public sector more broadly.

• There seems to be a strong tendency in the public service to default to ‘looking upwards’ when it comes to anything new. This may be about responsibility inflation, accountability mechanisms or simple conditioning of working in hierarchical organisations. I suggest it is incumbent on all of us to think about how much you can get away with – not in a subversive way, but as part of being a professional and the associated responsibility to be effective and self-directed
• There is also a tendency towards desk-bound perfectionism – the need to make sure something is absolutely right before sharing it with others. While I think this tendency has weakened since we first talked about in in 2013, in part because of the growing prevalence of design thinking and methods such as Agile, I think it is still inhibiting collaboration and innovation more than it probably should
• There seems to be a bit of a perceived conflict between standing out and being outstanding. Innovation still tends to be seen as something on top of or instead of core work, rather than essential for how you do core work. A lot of the praise, the recognition and rewards come from the ‘business as usual’ work. People who want to be outstanding therefore do not generally have a lot of incentive to stand out from the crowd too much by being really innovative. This may change as innovation becomes more routine, as the benefits of new ways of working become clearer. Or it may be a natural tension that continues, or it may be something that requires specific interventions to overcome
• An associated tension is the consideration of risk. The natural focus when looking at risk is to ask what the risks of doing something are. Yet in a world of change, there is considerable risk with staying with the status quo. We need to ask ourselves, what are the risks of not acting? If we do not try this innovation, will that actually be riskier than staying with our current path, which may not be working as needed? Of course those risks are not always as obvious or as seemingly immediate or consequential
• Of course an assessment of risk depends on knowing the relative chances and impacts of different things happening. Yet innovation is inherently uncertain. If you are doing something completely new, assessing the risks may feel like an exercise of prophecy. While there are methods to try and mitigate this – using design thinking and alternative project management techniques that allow for iteration or sensing – this aspect of innovation points to a broader underlying tension. Innovation and evidence can be uncomfortable bed-fellows. If you are doing something completely new, not only may you not have the evidence base to properly assess it, you may not even have the right measures to judge its impact. And if there are multiple innovations being introduced at once (e.g. new products and services by industry), the interaction between them all may make it very hard to isolate the impact of one specific innovation. In such an environment, it may be about sensing and feeling your way, rather than having a clear sense of what is happening, why, and what will happen next
• Many of these issues – seeing what you can get away with, being prepared to share work that is not perfect, to try new approaches and ways of working, to be prepared to be ‘out there’, to consider risk in different ways, being willing to sense rather than know – can fit uncomfortably with our notions of professionalism. The APS is a professional environment, where part of our identity as being a public servant is around being a professional – someone who knows the answers, who knows how to get things done, and how to keep things operating smoothly. A greater focus on innovation can challenge that traditional conception of self, that identity of being a public servant. While there are leaders who are helping demonstrate that there are alternatives, that innovation and being a successful public servant is very possible, that does not mean that there are not some cultural challenges. My hope is that initiatives such as the APS Innovation Snapshot and the public sector innovation awards will help provide more and richer stories of people who have made innovation a part of their identity as an employee of the APS.

So you want to be an innovator?

Drawing on my experience as someone who has not only worked with many innovative people in the APS, but also worked on innovative initiatives (such as DesignGov), I suggest the following as some things to consider if you want to make innovation part of your repertoire.

• Innovation is hard. You are trying to change how things are done. As described, that means you are trying to change how people think or behave or what they believe. This is not an easy thing to achieve
• What are you trying to innovate for? If you can answer that question clearly, in a way that resonates with other people, innovation becomes much less hard. What is the story of the innovation? Will it make things better? How? Will it make things easier? How? Will it allow new possibilities? How? If you can identify the problem that you are trying to address, the pain point you are hoping to salve, or the opportunity you are seeking to exploit, then it will be easier for people to understand, to engage with, and potentially participate in realising, the innovative idea
• “You won’t be thanked.” This was some advice I was given early on in my public sector innovation work, and it was offered in good faith. It was very good and wise advice. If you start out on in innovation either thinking or expecting that you will be thanked, you are likely to be disappointed. The things that tend to get thanks are the things that are understood. This generally means routine or irregular but known tasks where others understand the effort that have gone in to them because they too may have done them, or because they know what is involved. Innovative initiatives are new, and a lot of effort can be involved in just getting to the starting line, negotiating all the unknowns and overcoming process hurdles that more established tasks don’t require. For these and other reasons innovations also tend to be less good than existing services/products/concepts at first – so you may achieve something only for it not be immediately clear that this could be better than what we already have
• Plan always, act spontaneously, know that the unexpected will happen. Innovation is uncertain, so it is guaranteed that things will not play out as you expect or as you have planned for. That doesn’t mean that planning is not worthwhile. Plans can help us build up our mental flexibility, to identify and think about our assumptions and to provide us with strategies. A plan is never a prophecy, it is a tool that can help codify what we do know, and highlight what we don’t know. At the same time, innovation is about action. Action is what reduces uncertainty because it gives us feedback about the idea and the environment in which we’re trying to introduce the idea. Innovation is also aided by being able to see opportunities and act on them at short notice. I have found that being comfortable with the tension of planning and considering different scenarios as well as being able to act spontaneously and decisively is very helpful when innovating
• Communicate, communicate, communicate. And communicate. Innovation is an area where you can say the same thing again and again (and again), but where what is heard will change over time. New is different. It takes time to understand. Don’t assume you’re on the same page – or the same book, or even in the same genre or library. When you describe a new idea it can be hard for those listening to immediately make the connections and grasp what you’re saying. It is, after all, a new idea. You may not share the common experiences, the reference points, the analogies or metaphors, or use cases. A huge part of successful innovation then is ongoing communication and ongoing efforts to convey the idea and its import in different ways that connect with different audiences
• Respect (or at least consider) my authority. Innovation is challenging, and on lots of different levels. Whether deliberately or not, you are trying to change the status quo, and that means there may be winners or losers, or just transaction costs and effort for others. Sometimes people will resist an innovation – and there may be very good reasons for that resistance. Sometimes an innovation will challenge people – either at the level of their identity (“this is my job”), their positional authority (“that’s not how we do things”) or their beliefs (“you can’t do that”). Whether you agree or sympathise with any resistance or reactions, it is essential to consider them and to factor them in. Resistance and reactions can feel personal for those putting forward ideas, but equally it can feel very personal for those engaging with an innovative idea. Respect is essential
• Stick with your course. Change course. Sometimes you’ll just know you’re right. Sometimes that will even be true. Working out which is which is a big part of becoming a successful innovator. Innovation requires flexibility and being responsive to reality and the feedback of others. But sometimes innovation is about pushing ahead with an idea, because you see that there is an opportunity or need that others may be missing. I don’t have any advice at how to get better at this other than practice
• Learn from others, ask questions and keep trying. Innovation is a skill and one that everyone can learn. The best way, other than direct experience, is to learn from others, to ask questions about their experiences, to take advantage of their knowledge and expertise, and to seek input from others. Most importantly, keep trying. Practice does not make perfect, but it does make a huge difference. Of course innovation is also a lot about luck and timing, so being prepared for that is also important
• Take pride in being a “corporate irritant”. Large organisations are often talked about as having ‘immune systems’ that respond and react to changes and interventions. This is fair – large organisations are usually about replicating processes and systems. Yet we live in a world with many disruptions that can potentially incapacitate or make an organisation obsolete. Corporate irritants can be seen as an alternative protective element – they are engaging with disruption and change, and testing out new ways of working that may help the organisation adapt or evolve to deal with sudden shocks or changes. So perhaps those seeking to innovate need to take pride in being a corporate irritant, in the knowledge that without such irritants, organisations will be unprepared for disruptive shifts. Organisations need a mix of people and irritants play an equally valid and useful role as others
• Find your edge – personal, professional or official. Innovation happens at the edge – it is there that dissatisfaction with the status quo is more pronounced and where there is more incentive for change. What is the edge can vary – it can be at the outer edges of an organisation, it can be in service delivery where you’re at the interface with clients and customers, or it can simply be a matter of having a different perspective informed by different experiences. To innovate, you’ll need to think differently, and that means finding your own edge which can expose you to different ways of seeing the world/problems, to new insights, new practices or different people. Your edge may relate to your hobbies, to your background, to your identity, or to your networks. If you can find your edge, it can help you innovate
• Connect with your passion, your purpose. So innovation is hard, you aren’t likely to be thanked or even necessarily recognised, it may put people’s noses out of joint, you may be seen as irritating, and success may be down to luck or timing or factors out of your control. Sounds inviting doesn’t it? Why would you bother innovating? The answer will be different for different people, but I have worked with a lot of innovative people over the past seven years and I think it comes down to this. Innovation is essentially about recognising that there are better options out there. Once you realise that, once you accept that, and once you see how you might make a difference, it can be hard to do anything other than to try. If you can connect with your passion, your sense of purpose, then you will have a clear sense of why you’re trying to change things, and why it matters enough to make those other aspects not matter. That can make it all worthwhile
• If you don’t innovate, and others do, what will that mean? If passion or purpose isn’t something that resonates with you, then there may be more pragmatic reasons to think about what innovation means to and for you. If you accept that the world is changing quickly and will continue to do so, then it is likely that your work and your organisation are also going to change. What will that mean for you? Change is generally a lot more interesting when you can help shape it. Even if you don’t see yourself as someone with lots of ideas, how might you participate in the innovation process? Unless you think things are perfect as they are, then there’s going to be change and innovation
• Keep a sense of humour (or do yoga or something). Innovation and change can be demanding and draining. Innovation and change can also be stimulating and rewarding. Sometimes they can even be tedious and repetitive. Find something to balance that reality or risk getting exhausted or burnt out.

Closing thoughts

The past few years have been a real mix – certainly challenging, sometimes frustrating, often enlightening, but always full of learning new things. I have found it extremely rewarding to meet, and work with, a diverse mix of people from inside and outside of the APS who share a common interest in helping the public service be and do better. There are many, many people who have been involved in and who have shaped this work.

I especially want to recognise my colleague Rob Thomas who was instrumental in much of what I have been involved in over the past three and a half years. I’d also like to thank Lynne Goodyer for her many contributions since she joined us in the Public Sector Innovation team late last year.

While there’s always more that could be done in this space, there’s only so much that can be done. I’ll leave it to others as to whether we’ve gotten the mix right so far.

I look forward to seeing what comes next as the APS continues to show what it can do when it comes to creative and clever ways of doing things differently.

I’ll still be working on public sector innovation so if you’re interested you can find me at @CaptainInnovate, through LinkedIn, or via my personal blog.

Until next time – let’s keep on innovating, as there is always an opportunity to do things in new and (hopefully) better ways. And if there’s the opportunity, surely it would be a shame not to take it?

[Originally published on the Australian Government Public Sector Innovation Network under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY AU licence]

Innovation Month (Disrupt, Develop, Display) is fast approaching and we’ve had some queries from partners and others about what’s already planned.

Here’s a rundown of some of the main events planned thus far:

• Monday 4 July – Innovation Month Launch – the official opening of Innovation Month
• Tuesday 5 July – Innovation Month Summit, Department of Health – this will be the third Innovation Month Summit and we’re expecting it to be even bigger and better this year
• Wednesday 13 July – Disruptive Technologies Workshop, Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development – this all-day workshop for 100 public servants will explore disruptive technologies and what they mean for government
• Monday 25 July – Pitch Event to the Innovation Champions Group – this event will have participants of a pilot course on solving complex problems presenting their policy ideas to the Innovation Champions
• Date TBC – Awards Ceremony for the Public Sector Innovation Awards, a joint initiative of the PSIN and the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) ACT
• Friday 29 July – GovHack – “Now in its 6th Year, GovHack has grown from a small data mashup event in 2009 to a huge international competition that brings over 1800 people together to innovate, collaborate and apply their creative skills to open government data.”

We’re also in discussions with some other partners about some exciting possibilities, and we know that some of our colleagues in other agencies have things at varying degrees of preparation. We’ll be updating the site with registration details and other events in the near future.

If you’re interested in putting together an event, whether small or big, we have some references and guidance on the Innovation Month page.

For those not located in Canberra, but we’re very happy to work with you where we can – just get in touch and we can provide some guidance, connections or help promote your event.

We’re looking forward to it and we hope you are too – so get ready to disrupt, to develop and to display for Innovation Month 2016.

[Originally published on the Australian Government Public Sector Innovation Network under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY AU licence]

On Wednesday last week the Australian Public Service Commission, in partnership with the Public Sector Innovation Network, hosted ‘Shut Up and Innovate’, an event for some 300 public servants to hear about and discuss innovation.

The session was facilitated by Dan Gregory (founder of The Impossible Institute, a strategic research and training company, and a regular guest on The Gruen Transfer) and had four panellists:

• Jack Delosa, founder of The Entourage, Australia’s largest education institution for entrepreneurs; and listed in the BRW Young Rich List 2 years running
• Jessica Wilson, co-founder of Stashd, an online fashion app — one of Apple’s Best New Apps in 11 countries; and also appearing on China’s SharkTank
• Jamie Price, co-founder of digital4ge, a leading Australian technology foundry and former leader of Realesate.com.au
• David Hazlehurst, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science; and Chair of the Innovation Champions Group.

It was a wide-ranging discussion, and I have attempted to capture some the main points in the following.

What is it?

• Innovation is a means to solve problems in ways that we haven’t seen before
• Innovation is an action, not just something we talk about
• It is a process, not something to be done by gut feel. It is a muscle that you have to work on, i.e. it requires discipline and method
• There are differences in innovation between the public and private sector but not that many.

How do you do it?

• You need to be as clear as possible about what you want and why – so having a clear intent for why you need to do things differently and about what it might lead to
• Innovation has to be aligned with the end user – what value does it provide to them, how does it fit with their life or experience
• Innovation requires genuine collaboration – it is an activity that requires the efforts of multiple people and getting engagement with the ideas. A film studio is a better model for thinking about innovation than one of a startup founder/hero innovator
• Diverse teams are smarter because they have access to views that they wouldn’t otherwise
• Most value has tended to accrue to the imitators rather than those who are first to market
• Focus on solutions beyond business as usual – and don’t shut down creativity too soon, as you need to allow ideas time to flourish, and sometimes ideas need time to come into their own
• Ask a question beyond what is deemed possible – it may not lead to the best idea, but it can open up possibilities
• Innovation requires effort. Innovation can be incredibly challenging as we live in a culture that finds comfort in familiarity. Innovators typically face resistance, they are doing something that is high risk, with little to point to in way of a rationale as to why (as an innovation, by definition something new, won’t have an evidence base)
• Innovation is ultimately a numbers game – it is based on the capacity to have a lot of ideas, including bad ideas. You can remove the fear associated with innovation if you don’t focus on one idea, but have lots of ideas and recognise that quite a lot of them won’t be good ideas (but it will help you get to the good ideas).

Innovation in the APS

• It needs to be integrated at a systemic level – it needs to penetrate into the core business of the public service
• Innovation does happen within the Australian Public Service (APS) but it tends to be episodic and project based, and use circumstances and constraint rather than method to drive it
• Collaboration isn’t often a fun process – it is a coming together to challenge each other – but it can lead to strong bonds and communities. The public service has taskforces that can be intense and high pressure and that create strong networks. Tribalism can be negative, but it can also be positive, as long as people work to make sure they are a member of more than one tribe.

Resistance to change

• Dan Gregory noted that if you want people to align with a change then:
  
  • Demonstrate self-interest – that there’s a win in it for them
  • Show how it actually reduces risk
  • Show that it is easy to do – link it to work that they’ve done before, and consider how to reduce the friction involved in engaging with the change
  
  
• Conflict within an organisation shouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing – a diversity of opinion and structured/constructive conflict within organisations should be encouraged.

Building an innovation culture

• An innovative culture is one where you acknowledge that if you don’t innovate, you will go out of business. For the public service, the reality is that there is a lot of disruption happening around government, and a lot of what is done by the public service is contestable and can potentially be done by others if we do not innovate
• However an innovative culture is not one driven by a fear of being disrupted – it is because innovation is key to what the organisation is trying to achieve – whether that be to disrupt or to just deliver
• Any individual or organisation that knows what their purpose is should be engaged with innovation – their passion for that purpose should necessitate getting better, and that will involve innovation
• Jack Delosa shared that for his organisation it has been important to focus on vision, mission and values:
  
  • Vision – what do we as an organisation want to contribute to society
  • Mission – who do we need to become to deliver that contribution
  • Values – the principles that will govern the journey/delivery.
  
  
• Being clear about what you are innovating for is key – what problem are you trying to solve, what links people together with the problem, and who is the problem being solved for?
• An organisation’s culture can shift because you’ve done things differently – such actions can demonstrate a culture of innovation, and also lead to a culture of innovation. Culture is informed by practice.

At the heart of the session was the proposition that innovation is at the core of being a professional, because being innovative is about getting better and doing better, and that this is just as important for the public service as it is elsewhere in society. The APS can innovate, and does innovate – but we also have the opportunity to get better at it, a challenge we share with other sectors.

There was a lot discussed, and it’s always hard to summarise all the gems, but hopefully the above does some justice to what was discussed. A big thanks goes to the panellists and to the APSC for an engaging event.

[Originally published on the Australian Government Public Sector Innovation Network under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY AU licence]

Public sector innovation is something that public services across the world are looking at and there seem to be a lot of common issues. But are they really the same, or do local factors, local circumstances matter more?

This March I was lucky enough to spend two weeks trying to find out.

Last year we were fortunate enough to have the impressive Stephanie Wade, Director of the Innovation Lab at the Office of Personnel Management in Canberra for some meetings and a public talk. I’d actually first met Stephanie at the OECD ‘Innovating the Public Sector’ Conference in 2014, where we both participated in a session on innovation labs, and it was great to hear about the progress of the Lab. From these meetings, it seemed that there were a lot of shared issues that seemed the same – but I wanted to find out what it was like ‘on the ground’.

So I asked Stephanie “could I come and spend two weeks with your team, to find out how your Lab works?” And Stephanie was generous enough to say yes. Then, long story cut short, I spent 14 to 25 March with Stephanie and other members of the team, seeing what they did, how they worked and where they worked. It was a bit of a mix of immersion and ethnography.

What did I learn? Well, the following are some things I drew from my experience at the Lab. These very much build on my experience with DesignGov and other labs in Australia, and conversations with others in labs in other countries. Some of these observations were confirmed or reinforced by the trip, and others were insights triggered by visit. Of course all of this is firmly in the realm of ‘anecdata’, rather than being definitive!

1. Labs ‘stick out’

While the number of innovation labs around the world has grown substantially, they are still pretty new and they tend to ‘stick out’. This tends to play out in a number of ways.

First, there are always people interested in finding out what a lab is, and who want to have a look at the physical space of the lab – either as something that they could adapt, use, work with or just to understand or see.

Second, a lab, by its nature, is different to its host/surrounding organisation. That seems to make labs a natural first point of contact for others who are doing different or new things that don’t match neatly with other public service structures.

Even in the short time I was with the Innovation Lab, I saw a number of people come through who were interested in understanding what a public sector innovation lab was. There were also a number of people who were doing something different in the public sphere and were keen to connect with and learn from others.

My tentative hypothesis is that labs, as new entities, often play a natural role in acting as brokers and as entry points into large systems for those who are doing new things that don’t naturally align to existing structures and silos within public sector organisations. If you are doing something novel, it can be hard to find a corresponding area within government that will line up with what you’re doing. A lab is a structure that is more open and has an inbuilt appreciation of different ways of thinking, and so is a natural attraction point for ‘outsiders’ looking to engage with government and its systems.

The flip side of that is that labs/innovation teams can be perceived as doing/having a lot of meetings/interactions with lots of groups where the possible benefits are unclear. Experimentation and ongoing relationship building with diverse groups are different methods of operation and it can be hard to demonstrate or communicate the value that is gained from such conversations and connections (though I would argue that value is very real).

2. Labs, then, play a big part in a wider innovation eco-system

This relationship building is connected with the role that labs can/often play within the wider innovation eco-system. For instance, I observed that the OPM Innovation Lab plays a number of roles, including:

• Running monthly training for US federal government employees in human centred design
• Holding events, including presentations from guest speakers, bringing together interested people together to learn more about the practice of design and innovation
• Connecting with others doing similar work locally, nationally and internationally
• Building those relationships with ‘uncommon partners’, who may be doing something very different, but where there is potential to collaborate in exciting ways.
• Working with partners to co-develop develop and implement innovative solutions with citizens across many systems that improve the way government works and delivers on its services.

Activities such as this – which I’ve seen from other labs – seems to make labs/innovation teams a bit of a node in the broader system. They play an important role as connector, as aggregator, and as a hub for lessons and insights about how to apply new approaches.

3. Labs are helping connect design with other methods and mindsets

Many labs take a design-led approach to innovation and problem-solving. Design offers many advantages given its elements of:

• Focusing on the whole experience, rather than one sliver as seen by an agency or line area
• Attention to the ‘why’ underlying problems, rather than just the what, and its focus on getting to the root causes
• Fast iteration and testing
• Questioning assumptions and trying to ensure that parties, with different perspectives, have a shared understanding of the problem and the options for addressing it.

However design, despite having a long history, is still relatively new in its integration with other approaches and methods in the public service. In addition, with technological and social changes, many of those other approaches and methods aren’t standing still – they consist of evolving practices, just like design.

Labs tend, then, to be testing beds for linking design with both traditional public sector techniques and other newer disciplines.

I found it very enlightening to sit in on meetings at the Innovation Lab for one of their projects and see how they were fitting design with an Agile approach. I was very impressed by the maturity of the application of design methods and how the Lab had built a ‘supply chain’ of the design outputs to feed their work into the Agile IT development.

From speaking with the team, I also appreciated that this wasn’t an overnight occurrence – it had taken time, getting people with the right skills, and practice.

The advantage of such experimentation is that it can really improve outcomes. I think there are challenges though for labs in translating the lessons from that experimentation to others. It is a very experiential process – and that tends to limit how fast that mix of methods and approaches can travel to others.

This is why it is so important for labs to bring people in and involve them in the projects and work of the lab – this cross-disciplinary approach is hard to convey through just talking or reading about it.

4. Labs and existing processes aren’t always a straightforward mix

This challenge in communicating the work of innovation labs has other impacts. Innovation labs are different beasts to their home organisations. Labs are introduced in order to work in new ways, to bring people together in new ways, and to do different things.

Yet that is not always a comfortable mix with existing processes which have been developed for the more ‘business-as-usual’ work. This tension can manifest in small or big ways, but tends to take up energy and time for those in a lab (and their counterparts outside) as they try to negotiate or navigate to an agreeable outcome.

This tension is generally systemic – and therefore it can be hard for each side to really appreciate the perspective of the other. Those in labs see themselves as doing important valuable work that can be held back by mismatched procedures. Yet owners of those procedures may be working within a ruleset (or an interpretation of that ruleset) that they are responsible for others complying with.

While these issues can be overcome (and often are), it is an added friction/transaction cost that other areas generally do not have to deal with as frequently.

5. Labs are powered by passionate people

For that and many other reasons the work of innovation labs and innovation teams can be tricky. Not only are there those tensions with existing processes, expectations and reporting processes, there are:

• The challenges of establishing new business/operating models and building/assembling the teams and processes to fit them
• Ongoing educational and communications aspects, helping others to understand the idea of a lab and what’s involved, and what can be expected from a lab
• Learning curves from applying design and other approaches in environments used to more traditional project management or policy development methods.

Labs therefore often tend to (need to?) rely on highly motivated and passionate people who are prepared for/have the energy for those ongoing ‘transaction’ costs of doing day to day work in a different way. This work can be very satisfying, but I’m not sure that the psychic costs involved are always recognised. It’s hard and challenging work, and work that does not have a clear and shared reference point for what success looks like (yet).

6. Labs have many similarities and some differences

In short, the experience helped confirm for me that while there are differences between labs, their working environments and the settings they are in, the similarities and shared issues and experiences are more relevant.

Overall it was a valuable experience with lessons that should feed into our work here in the Australian Public Service.

Public sector innovation is a global movement, and there’s a lot we can learn from each other when we’re willing to share. I’d like to give a special thanks to Stephanie (and her team) for hosting me and being so generous with their time and experiences.

[Originally published on the Australian Government Public Sector Innovation Network under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY AU licence]

On a recent trip to Washington DC I had the chance to visit some of the memorials, including that of Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, the 3^rd President of the United States of America and, by many accounts, a very impressive individual – with achievements including among them lawyer, politician, diplomat and inventor.

Of the five quotes from Thomas Jefferson displayed in the memorial, there was one in particular that caught my eye.

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” Thomas Jefferson, 1818

My reaction on reading this was ‘there’s a man who understood public sector innovation’.

Government, the public service and institutions are there in order to provide some degree of stability and routine – there is that tendency to avoid “frequent changes in laws and constitutions”. At the same time, there is the ever present tension with those “new discoveries”, those “new truths” that mean that our “institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times”.

Of course there have been a few changes in the past 200 years, and the public service operates in a much more complex and uncertain environment than that of the early 19^th Century (not that there weren’t some significant upheavals then!).

Yet I thought it was a nice reminder that public sector innovation has been around as an issue for quite some time…

Hopefully we’re a bit more sophisticated in our understanding of innovation now (and we no longer “wear still the coat which fitted” from our childhood). Still – perhaps we should also occasionally look back at where the public service has been and remember how it advanced “to keep pace with the times” previously.

[Originally published on the Australian Government Public Sector Innovation Network under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY AU licence]

Do you work with someone in the APS who has done/is doing something clever, new and/or experimental? Have you thought about nominating them for the new IPAA Public Sector Innovation Awards?

If so, there’s only two weeks left to nominate so we recommend you start now. Nominations can be self-nominated or nominated by peers. Any individual, work unit, group or team of a Commonwealth Government entity may nominate an initiative for the Awards.

The nomination doesn’t have to be for the biggest thing or for something that’s been perfected/polished – the Awards are about uncovering, sharing and recognising new innovative initiatives.

As an example I have nominated my colleague Rob Thomas for his work in developing an interactive set of interconnected Instagram accounts to help disseminate the information of the APS Innovation Snapshot in a new and experimental way. It was an exploratory project in many ways – but I think worthwhile because it looked at how to distribute and distil information in a very different way to a traditional report. I have nominated it under the category of ‘engaging with the edge’ because it was trying something quite new.

If you’re not sure whether what you’ve worked on is innovative, why not take a look at one of these videos with senior leaders and others about what public sector innovation means to them. Or ask your colleagues whether they think it is something new and different that might be worth sharing with others. Or feel free to email us to ask about whether something might be innovative or not. Or – in the spirit of innovating – just give it a go!

These Awards are our chance for recognising the efforts of those in the public service who are trying to achieve better outcomes by trying different things. It can be hard to try something new and different – so it’s important to recognise those efforts, and to learn from them. We hope that you take the opportunity to help with that by nominating yourself or someone else for the Awards.

You can find out more about the Awards on the IPAA site.

[Originally published on the Australian Government Public Sector Innovation Network under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY AU licence]

We’d like to share with you the theme for Innovation Month 2016 – ‘Disrupt, Deliver, Display’.

Innovation Month 2016 will run from 4-31 July and planning is already underway for a number of activities. We find it helps to have a theme that can help guide us in thinking about what events, activities or issues are explored during the month.

Why this theme?

We think it captures some of the key issues facing innovation in the public sector at the moment.

• Disrupt – there are disruptive technologies and big changes accompanying them. How do government agencies engage with or respond to this disruption? How much might we need to disrupt ourselves and our own processes?
• Develop – innovation is about ideas that have an impact. Ideas need to be developed from nascent things into thought out proposals and tested projects. How do we best work – as individuals and across agencies and with others – to develop new ideas and innovative responses?
• Display – we need to ‘show the thing’ – to show what we’ve done so that others can add to it, as well as learn from it. Innovation is also about our behaviours – are each of us displaying the behaviours that will help? Government agencies can be leaders in innovation – but a part of that is leading by example which requires displaying what we’ve done. How can we best display innovative behaviours and practices, as well as the results and lessons that trying something new can bring?

You can find out more about Innovation Month 2016 on the landing page.

If you would like to get involved, please get in contact. Involvement might be that you:

• Suggest event and activity ideas for the month (in line with the theme)
• Support one of the planned headline events
• Help put together an event in your organisation
• Volunteer to be part of the organising committee for Innovation Month 2016
• Help organise/pull together events in your region if you’re outside of Canberra.

Or in the spirit of Innovation Month you may have other ideas – how do you think you can best ‘Disrupt, Develop, Display’ in Innovation Month 2016?